Tag: American

  • Questions About Youth Perceptions of Access to American Dream

    Questions About Youth Perceptions of Access to American Dream

    An impressively brilliant African American 14-year-old sent a thoughtful response to the column I published yesterday on the policing of Black men in America. He began by characterizing what I had written as “fascinating,” which could have meant a multitude of things coming from a teenager. He then explained that his eighth-grade English class included recent discussions about immigrant pursuits of the American dream. Accordingly, one major takeaway from those conversations with his teacher and peers was that many people come to the U.S. because it is perceived as a land of opportunity. My article complicated this presumption for him.

    In addition to the racial profiling, harassment, abuse and police killings of unarmed Black Americans that I wrote about yesterday, this middle schooler’s perspective has me wondering how other youth his age, as well as collegians in the U.S. and abroad are thinking about the possibility of the American dream at this time for themselves and others. I am especially interested in knowing how attainable it feels among Asian, Black, Latino and Indigenous youth here and elsewhere across the globe. Juxtapositions of their perspectives with those of their white counterparts also fascinate me.

    The Trump administration includes few people of color in leadership roles—certainly much, much fewer than in the Obama and Biden administrations. Programs and policies that were designed to ensure equitable opportunities for citizens who make our nation diverse have been ravaged (in some instances outlawed) during Donald Trump’s second presidential term.

    Black, Latino and international student enrollments at Harvard University and other elite institutions have declined since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled race-conscious admissions practices unconstitutional. Immigrants are being threatened, terrorized and deported. It is possible that these challenges and realities have done little to erode immigrants’ and prospective international students’ faith in U.S. structures and systems. This is a researchable topic.

    It would also be good for social scientists and education researchers to study how students in K–12 schools and on college campuses across the U.S. are appraising the equitable availability of the American dream to all citizens. Results collected via surveys and other research methods should be disaggregated by race, socioeconomic status, gender and gender identity, citizenship and documentation status, sexual orientation, religion, state and geographic region, political party, and other demographic variables. Those findings should be compared within and across groups. Furthermore, sophisticated analyses should be done at the intersection of identities (for example, perceptions of Asian American transgender immigrant youth).

    In another column published earlier this week, I wrote about what I teach students in my classrooms. One statement therein seems worthy of amplification here: “To be absolutely sure, I have never instructed [students] to hate or in any way despise America.” I do, however, teach them truths about our nation’s racial past and present. Those lessons are not based on my opinions or so-called divisive ideologies, but instead rigorous statistics and other forms of high-quality, trustworthy data substantiate my teachings. As a responsible educator and citizen, I understand that the problem of inequitable access to the American dream requires a lot, including but not limited to consciousness raising, truth telling, reparations and restorative justice, and the implementation of equity-minded public policies, to name a few. 

    I want youth of color to love our country. I want immigrants who believe in the availability of the American dream to come here. But I also want access to the American dream to be fair and equitable. I want our nation to disable and permanently destroy structures and systems that cyclically reproduce disparate outcomes that disadvantage people who make our country beautifully diverse. I got a very real sense that the Black teenage boy who thoughtfully responded to what I wrote yesterday wants the same thing, too. Again, I think it would be “fascinating” to know how other adolescents and young adults, including those who are white, are thinking about who has full access to the American dream at this time.

    Shaun Harper is University Professor and Provost Professor of Education, Business and Public Policy at the University of Southern California, where he holds the Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership. His most recent book is titled Let’s Talk About DEI: Productive Disagreements About America’s Most Polarizing Topics.

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  • What’s next for Latin American international education in 2026?

    What’s next for Latin American international education in 2026?

    Outbound mobility 

    Intra-regional and outbound mobility from Latin America are set to grow over the next five years, according to QS Student Flows data, though tighter visa restrictions in major destinations and shifting student priorities are transforming study decisions. 

    “Outbound flows are being reshaped by affordability pressures and visa tightening in traditional destinations, pushing students toward Europe, especially Spain,” said Studyportals researcher Karl Baldacchino.  

    “Sector analyses highlight affordability, employability and flexibility as the dominant decision drives for Latin American students,” he said, highlighting that post-study rights and labour-market relevance increasingly matter more than institutional brand. 

    What’s more, international student caps in Canada and Australia, as well as stricter English requirements and dependents restrictions in the UK, and political volatility in the US, are accelerating a shift toward continental Europe, stakeholders noted.  

    They highlighted Spain as the most popular European destination, which is supported by favourable policies and linguistic proximity, with Studyportals data confirming this rise in interest across Latin America.  

    What’s more, Baldacchino said Erasmus+ 2026 – which is open to partnerships beyond the EU – was a way for Latin American institutions to strengthen European ties through student and faculty exchange, joint programs and capacity building.  

    The importance of career outcomes and immigration pathways were trends also noted by EdCo LATAM Consulting founder Simon Terrington, who predicted students from Brazil, Mexico and Colombia would continue to dominate outbound flows.  

    According to a recent EdCo LATAM partner enrolment survey, Canada received a greater proportion of undergraduate Latin American students compared to the UK and Europe, which were predominantly seen as postgraduate destinations. This region was popular among master’s students from Mexico – the largest sender of this cohort – closely followed by Colombia and Brazil.

    Alongside educational opportunities, Terrington said the impact of political volatility and security concerns in some Latin American countries were notable drivers for students wanting to study in different environments. 

    Meanwhile, QS senior consultant Gabriela Geron said Trump’s policies in the US – traditionally the primary study destination for Latin America – would be “critical to monitor as they may influence visa regulations, international student flows and partnerships affecting the region”.  

    Amid recent escalations in US-Venezuela relations, students from the South American country are increasingly turning away from the US, with interest from across the region “somewhat softening”, experts have said, amid reports of noticeable declines in visa approval rates for Latin American students.  

    Inbound mobility  

    When it comes to inbound mobility: “Latin America is taking modest but important steps toward becoming a host region thanks to growing scholarship schemes and targeted English taught expansion”, said Baldacchino. 

    “The region’s biggest missed opportunities remain limited English-taught capacity, underdeveloped TNE partnerships, and the absence of a structured pre-tertiary mobility pipeline,” he continued, identifying the former as the primary constraining factor.  

    While the TNE gap between Latin America compared with Asia and the Middle East has become more visible, Baldacchino said awareness of the issue could also create momentum for new partnership models.  

    Geron agreed that limited program expansion, insufficient English-taught courses, language barriers and infrastructure challenges were reducing the region’s competitiveness compared to emerging hubs in Europe and Asia.

    The biggest structural constraint remains underdeveloped English-taught capacity

    Karl Baldacchino, Studyportals

    She identified three key opportunities for the region: “Strengthening engagement with neighbouring countries, leveraging growing demand from Europe and investing in flexible delivery models – including digital solutions and TNE – to remain competitive”. 

    Baldacchino highlighted some progress by institutions in Chile and Ecuador entering the QS Latin America & Caribbean 2026 rankings, driven by increased international collaboration and incremental expansion of English-taught courses.  

    What’s more, scholarship schemes in Brazil and Mexico continue to attract interest from the Global South, “signalling a gradual move toward Latin America becoming a genuine host rather than only a sending region”, he said.  

    Meanwhile, Geron predicted that Argentina would maintain its position as the leading host destination in Latin America, supported by its long-standing offer of accessible public higher education driving significant intra-regional mobility. 

    However, though there are yet to be any formal policy changes, ongoing political debate about charging tuition fees to non-resident international students has introduced a degree of uncertainty for prospective students, Geron noted.  

    Elsewhere, Brazil’s introduction of post-study residence and work authorisation for international graduates “represents a positive step toward linking higher education with labour market retention”, with the policy set to improve the country’s retention outcomes this year, she said.  

    With elections scheduled this year across Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru and Nicaragua, Geron saw several opportunities for Latin America’s development as a study destination.  

    She highlighted positive policy adjustments in countries such as Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Ecuador, which, while representing progress towards internationalisation, are unlikely to significantly alter the region’s standing in higher education in 2026. 

    “The improved rankings, expanded scholarship schemes, and targeted English-taught provision across Latin America suggest a slow but meaningful pivot toward diversity,” said Badacchino, advising institutions in the region and beyond to articulate clear, employment-led value.  

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  • The Poisoning of the American Mind

    The Poisoning of the American Mind

    For more than a decade, Americans have been told that polarization, mistrust, and civic fragmentation are organic byproducts of cultural change. But the scale, speed, and persistence of the damage suggest something more deliberate: a sustained poisoning of the American mind—one that exploits structural weaknesses in education, media, technology, and governance.

    This poisoning is not the work of a single actor. It is the cumulative result of foreign influence campaigns, profit-driven global technology platforms, and domestic institutions that have failed to defend democratic literacy. Higher education, once imagined as a firewall against mass manipulation, has proven porous, compromised, and in many cases complicit.

    Foreign Influence as Cognitive Warfare

    Chinese and Russian influence operations differ in style but converge in purpose: weakening American social cohesion, degrading trust in institutions, and normalizing cynicism.

    Russian efforts have focused on chaos. Through state-linked troll farms, bot networks, and disinformation pipelines, Russian actors have amplified racial grievances, cultural resentments, and political extremism on all sides. The objective has not been persuasion so much as exhaustion—flooding the information environment until truth becomes indistinguishable from propaganda and democratic participation feels futile.

    Chinese influence efforts, by contrast, have emphasized discipline and control. Through economic leverage, academic partnerships, Confucius Institutes, and pressure campaigns targeting universities and publishers, the Chinese Communist Party has sought to shape what can be discussed, researched, or criticized. While less visibly inflammatory than Russian disinformation, these efforts quietly narrow the boundaries of acceptable discourse—especially within elite institutions that prize funding and global prestige.

    Both strategies treat cognition itself as a battlefield. The target is not simply voters, but students, scholars, journalists, and future professionals—anyone involved in shaping narratives or knowledge.

    The Role of Global Tech Elites

    Foreign influence campaigns would be far less effective without the infrastructure built and defended by global technology elites.

    Social media platforms were designed to monetize attention, not to preserve truth. Algorithms reward outrage, tribalism, and repetition. Misinformation is not an accidental byproduct of these systems; it is a predictable outcome of engagement-driven design.

    What is often overlooked is how insulated tech leadership has become from the social consequences of its products. Executives who speak fluently about “free expression” and “innovation” operate within gated communities, private schools, and curated information environments. The cognitive pollution affecting the public rarely touches them directly.

    At the same time, these platforms have shown inconsistent willingness to confront state-sponsored manipulation. Decisions about content moderation, data access, and platform governance are routinely shaped by geopolitical calculations and market access—particularly when China is involved. The result is a global information ecosystem optimized for profit, vulnerable to manipulation, and hostile to slow, evidence-based thinking.

    Higher Education’s Failure of Defense

    Universities were supposed to be inoculation centers against mass manipulation. Instead, they have become transmission vectors.

    Decades of underfunding public higher education, adjunctification of faculty labor, and administrative bloat have weakened academic independence. Meanwhile, elite institutions increasingly depend on foreign students, donors, and partnerships, creating subtle but powerful incentives to avoid controversy.

    Critical thinking is often reduced to branding rather than practice. Students are encouraged to adopt identities and positions rather than interrogate evidence. Media literacy programs, where they exist at all, are thin, optional, and disconnected from the realities of algorithmic persuasion.

    Even worse, student debt has turned higher education into a high-stakes compliance system. Indebted graduates are less likely to challenge employers, institutions, or dominant narratives. Economic precarity becomes cognitive precarity.

    A Domestic Willingness to Be Deceived

    Foreign adversaries and tech elites exploit vulnerabilities, but they did not create them alone. The poisoning of the American mind has been enabled by domestic actors who benefit from confusion, resentment, and distraction.

    Political consultants, partisan media ecosystems, and privatized education interests profit from outrage and ignorance. Complex structural problems—healthcare, housing, inequality, climate—are reframed as cultural battles, keeping attention away from systems of power and extraction.

    In this environment, truth becomes negotiable, expertise becomes suspect, and education becomes a consumer product rather than a public good.

    The Long-Term Consequences

    The danger is not simply misinformation. It is the erosion of shared reality.

    A society that cannot agree on basic facts cannot govern itself. A population trained to react rather than reflect is easy to manipulate—by foreign states, domestic demagogues, or algorithmic systems optimized for profit.

    Higher education sits at the center of this crisis. If universities cannot reclaim their role as defenders of intellectual rigor and civic responsibility, they risk becoming credential factories feeding a cognitively compromised workforce.

    Toward Intellectual Self-Defense

    Reversing the poisoning of the American mind will require more than fact-checking or content moderation. It demands structural change:

    A recommitment to public higher education as a democratic institution, not a revenue stream.

    Robust media literacy embedded across curricula, not siloed in electives.

    Transparency and accountability for technology platforms that shape public cognition.

    Protection of academic freedom from both foreign pressure and domestic political interference.

    Relief from student debt as a prerequisite for intellectual independence.

    Cognitive sovereignty is national security. Without it, no amount of military or economic power can sustain a democratic society.

    The question is not whether the American mind has been poisoned. The question is whether the institutions charged with educating it are willing to admit their failure—and do the hard work of recovery.

    Sources

    U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, reports on Russian active measures

    National Intelligence Council, foreign influence assessments

    Department of Justice investigations into Confucius Institutes

    Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

    Renée DiResta et al., research on computational propaganda

    Higher Education Inquirer reporting on student debt, academic labor, and institutional capture

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  • Tech Titans, Ideologues, and the Future of American Higher Education — 2026 Update

    Tech Titans, Ideologues, and the Future of American Higher Education — 2026 Update

    This article is an update to our June 2025 Higher Education Inquirer report, Tech Titans, Ideologues, and the Future of American Higher Education. Since that report, the landscape of higher education has evolved dramatically. New developments — the increasing influence of billionaire philanthropists like Larry Ellison, private-equity figures such as Marc Rowan, and the shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk — have intensified the pressures on traditional colleges and universities. This update examines how these forces intersect with ideology, governance, financial power, and institutional vulnerability to reshape the future of American higher education.

    American higher education is under pressure from multiple directions, including financial strain, declining enrollment, political hostility, and technological disruption. Yet perhaps the greatest challenge comes from powerful outsiders who are actively reshaping how education is perceived, delivered, and valued. Figures such as Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Alex Karp, Charlie Kirk, Larry Ellison, and Marc Rowan are steering resources, ideology, and policy in ways that threaten traditional universities’ missions. Each brings a distinct ideology and strategy, but their combined influence represents an existential pressure on the system.

    Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of Oracle, has pledged to give away nearly all his fortune and already directs hundreds of millions toward research, medicine, and education-related causes. Through the Ellison Institute of Technology, he funds overseas campuses and scholarship programs at institutions like the University of Oxford. Ellison represents a “disruptor” who does not challenge degrees outright but reshapes the allocation of educational resources toward elite, globally networked research.

    The University of Phoenix cyberbreach is more than another entry in the long list of attacks on higher education. It is the clearest evidence yet of how private equity, aging enterprise software, and institutional neglect have converged to create a catastrophic cybersecurity landscape across American colleges and universities. What happened in the summer of 2025 was not an unavoidable act of foreign aggression. It was the culmination of years of cost-cutting, inadequate oversight, and a misplaced faith in legacy vendors that no longer control their own risks.

    The story begins with the Russian-speaking Clop cyber-extortion group, one of the most sophisticated data-theft organizations operating today. In early August, Clop quietly began exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in Oracle’s E-Business Suite, a platform widely used for payroll, procurement, student employment, vendor relations, and financial aid administration. Oracle’s EBS system, decades old and deeply embedded across higher education, was never designed for modern threat environments. As soon as Clop identified the flaw—later assigned CVE-2025-61882—the group launched a coordinated campaign that compromised dozens of major institutions before Oracle even acknowledged the problem.

    Among the most heavily affected institutions was the University of Phoenix. Attackers gained access to administrative systems and exfiltrated highly sensitive data: names, Social Security numbers, bank accounts, routing numbers, vendor records, and financial-aid-related information belonging to students, faculty, staff, and contractors. The breach took place in August, but Phoenix did not disclose the incident until November 21, and only after Clop publicly listed the university on its extortion site. Even after forced disclosure, Phoenix offered only vague assurances about “unauthorized access” and refused to provide concrete numbers or a full accounting of what had been stolen.

    Phoenix was not alone. Harvard University confirmed that Clop had stolen more than a terabyte of data from its Oracle systems. Dartmouth College acknowledged that personal and financial information for more than a thousand individuals had been accessed, though the total is almost certainly much higher. At the University of Pennsylvania, administrators said only that unauthorized access had occurred, declining to detail the scale. What links these incidents is not prestige, geography, or mission. It is dependency on Oracle’s aging administrative software and a sector-wide failure to adapt to a threat environment dominated by globally coordinated cybercrime operations.

    Marc Rowan, co-founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management, has leveraged private-equity wealth to influence higher education governance. He gave $50 million to Penn’s Wharton School, funding faculty and research initiatives and has recently pushed alumni to withhold donations over issues of campus policy and antisemitism. Rowan also helped shape the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence, linking federal funding to compliance with ideologically driven standards. He exemplifies how private wealth can steer university governance and policy, reshaping priorities on a national scale. Together, Ellison and Rowan illustrate the twin dynamics of power and influence destabilizing higher education: immense private wealth, and the ambition to reshape institutions according to their own vision.

    With these powerful outsiders shaping the landscape, traditional universities increasingly face pressures to prioritize elite, donor-driven projects over broad public missions. Private funding favors high-prestige initiatives over public-access education, and large contributors can dictate leadership and policy directions. University priorities shift toward profitable or ideologically aligned projects, creating a two-tier system in which elite, insulated institutions grow while public universities struggle to compete, widening disparities in access and quality.

    The stakes of this upheaval have become tragically tangible. The assassination of Charlie Kirk in 2025 was a horrific reminder that conflicts over ideology, money, and influence are not abstract. Violence against public figures engaged in higher education policy and advocacy underscores the intensity of polarization and the human costs of these struggles. Such events cast a shadow over campuses, donor boards, and political advocacy alike, highlighting that the battle over the future of education is contested not only in boardrooms and legislatures but in life and death.

    Students face shrinking access to affordable, publicly supported higher education, particularly those without means or connections to elite institutions. Faculty may encounter restrictions on academic freedom and institutional autonomy, as donor preferences and political pressures increasingly shape hiring, curriculum, and governance. Society risks losing the traditional public mission of universities — fostering critical thinking, civic engagement, and broad social mobility — as education becomes more commodified, prioritizing elite outcomes over the public good.

    Building on our June 2025 report, this update underscores the accelerating influence of tech titans, ideologues, and billionaire philanthropists. Figures such as Ellison and Rowan are reshaping not just funding streams but governance structures, while the assassination of Charlie Kirk painfully illustrates the human stakes involved. Traditional colleges face a stark choice: maintain their public mission — democratic access, critical inquiry, and civic purpose — or retreat into survival mode, prioritizing donor dollars, corporate partnerships, and prestige. The pressures highlighted in June are not only continuing but intensifying, and the consequences — for students, faculty, and society — remain profound.

    Sources

    Fortune: Larry Ellison pledges nearly all fortune (fortune.com)

    Times Higher Education: Ellison funds Oxford scholars (timeshighereducation.com)

    Almanac UPenn: Rowan gift to Wharton (almanac.upenn.edu)

    Inquirer: Rowan donor pressure at Penn (inquirer.com)

    Inquirer: Rowan and Trump’s Compact (inquirer.com)

    Higher Education Inquirer original article (highereducationinquirer.org)

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  • Structural Advantage and Financial Resilience in American Higher Education

    Structural Advantage and Financial Resilience in American Higher Education

    Historically White Institutions (HWIs) occupy a distinctive position in the U.S. higher education landscape. Defined by their origins as institutions serving predominantly White students during eras of segregation, HWIs today include many of the nation’s most prominent colleges and universities. While often overlooked in discussions about equity, their historical and structural context provides key insight into why these institutions remain financially resilient even as other colleges, particularly smaller or more diverse institutions, struggle (Darity & Hamilton, 2015; Jackson, 2018).

    Understanding HWIs

    HWIs are schools founded to educate White students in a segregated society. Unlike Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) or tribal colleges, HWIs historically excluded students of color. Today, they often enroll more diverse student populations than in the past, but their demographic and financial legacies remain.

    Some of the largest and most prominent HWIs in the U.S. include:

    • Brigham Young University (UT) — affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS); majority White enrollment; nationally recognized academic and athletic programs.

    • University of Notre Dame (IN) — Catholic research university with a large endowment and historically majority White student body; high national profile academically and athletically.

    • Boston College (MA) — Catholic research university; historically White, strong alumni networks, and notable national reputation.

    • Marquette University (WI) — Catholic university; majority White; prominent regionally and nationally in academics and athletics.

    • Select public flagships in predominantly White states — such as University of Wisconsin–Madison and University of Michigan, whose student bodies historically reflect state demographics and remain disproportionately White relative to national averages.

    These institutions collectively represent a significant portion of the elite, high-profile U.S. higher education sector, and they share common financial and structural advantages rooted in their historical composition (Smith, 2019; Harper, 2020).

    Financial Advantages Linked to Demographics

    Several factors stemming from HWI status contribute to financial stability:

    1. Alumni Wealth and Giving

      Historically, HWIs drew students from communities with greater intergenerational wealth. Today, this translates into strong alumni giving networks, major gifts, and multi-generational planned giving (Darity & Hamilton, 2015; Gasman, 2012). Universities like Notre Dame, BYU, and Boston College leverage these networks to maintain robust endowments and fund major campaigns.

    2. Endowment Growth and Stability

      HWIs often have substantial endowments accumulated over decades. Early access to philanthropic networks and preferential funding opportunities during eras when colleges serving communities of color were systematically underfunded contributed to long-term financial resilience (Gasman, 2012; Perna, 2006). Endowments provide flexibility for scholarships, faculty hiring, campus infrastructure, and new initiatives — crucial buffers against enrollment volatility.

    3. Religious and Regional Networks

      Many prominent HWIs are faith-based (BYU, Notre Dame, Boston College, Marquette). Their institutional networks foster recruitment, donations, and career placement. These social structures create operational and financial advantages that are difficult for newer or demographically diverse institutions to replicate (Harper, 2020; Museus & Quaye, 2009).

    Comparative Risks: HWIs vs. Other Institutions

    The financial and structural advantages of large HWIs become especially apparent when compared to smaller or mid-sized colleges that have closed or struggled in recent years, including faith-based and regional institutions with smaller endowments or more diverse student populations (Perna, 2006; Gasman, 2012). The historical demographic composition of HWIs — and the associated alumni wealth and networks — provides a buffer that allows them to weather challenges that might otherwise threaten institutional survival.

    Challenges and Future Considerations

    While HWIs enjoy structural advantages, they are not invulnerable. Changing demographics, particularly declining percentages of White high school graduates in key regions, present long-term enrollment challenges (Harper, 2020). HWIs that fail to diversify both their student bodies and donor bases may find these historical advantages eroded over time.

    Moreover, institutions must balance financial stability with commitments to equity and inclusion. Over-reliance on historically White alumni networks can reinforce systemic inequities if not paired with active strategies to support students of color and broaden philanthropy (Smith, 2019; Jackson, 2018).

    Legacies of Religion and White Privilege

    Historically White Institutions provide a clear example of how demographic legacy intersects with financial resilience in higher education. Large HWIs such as Notre Dame, BYU, Boston College, Marquette, and select public flagships have leveraged endowments, alumni networks, and religious and regional structures to maintain stability and prominence.

    Yet these advantages carry responsibilities: HWIs must adapt to shifting demographics, diversify both student and donor populations, and ensure that financial strength supports equity alongside institutional growth. Understanding HWIs is essential for policymakers, educators, and funders seeking to navigate the complex landscape of American higher education.

    Selected Academic Sources

    • Darity, W.A., & Hamilton, D. (2015). Separate and Unequal: The Legacy of Racial Segregation in Higher Education. In The Color of Crime Revisited.

    • Gasman, M. (2012). The Changing Face of Private Higher Education: Wealth, Race, and Philanthropy. Journal of Higher Education, 83(4), 481–508.

    • Harper, S.R. (2020). Racial Inequality in Higher Education: The Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion. Review of Research in Education, 44(1), 113–141.

    • Jackson, J.F.L. (2018). Diversity and Racial Stratification at Predominantly White Colleges. New Directions for Higher Education, 181, 7–23.

    • Museus, S.D., & Quaye, S.J. (2009). Toward an Understanding of How Historically White Colleges and Universities Handle Racial Diversity. ASHE Higher Education Report, 35(1).

    • Perna, L.W. (2006). Understanding the Relationship Between Resource Allocation and Student Outcomes at Predominantly White Institutions. Review of Higher Education, 29(3), 247–272.

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  • The Great American University Shakedown

    The Great American University Shakedown

    With each new resolution agreement, it becomes clearer that the Trump administration intends to base the government’s relationship with higher education on extortion. In its recently cut deal, Northwestern University will pay the Treasury $75 million in exchange for about $800 million in congressionally approved research funding it had already secured. NU now joins Columbia on the list of institutions that have paid fees to the federal government—Columbia’s deal included a $200 million payment to the Treasury over three years.

    In the grand scheme of things, $75 million is chump change for Northwestern. It’s a fraction of the research funding that was at risk and barely makes a dent in the institution’s $14.3 billion endowment. It’s less than two months’ worth of the up to $40 million the institution said it was paying every month to supplement lost research funding. The payment was, according to interim president Henry Bienen, “the best and most certain method to restore our federal funding, both now and in the future.”

    Part of that is likely true. Litigation would have taken years and cost many more millions. But nothing in the agreement precludes the government from leveraging federal research funding to extract certain political wins from the university again. The government didn’t even need evidence Northwestern violated any federal laws to revoke its federal funding. Officials offered no conclusions from the three investigations into antisemitism on campus the Departments of Education, Justice and Health and Human Services launched. With the punitive withholding of federal funds, the institution is being punished before it’s proven guilty. As Andrew Gillen, a scholar at the Cato Institute put it, “Much like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland who said, ‘Sentence first—verdict afterwards.’”

    Before this administration, rarely did OCR investigations require institutions to pay money to the government. The resolutions focused mainly on training and improving processes at the university in question. By contrast, the agreements the Trump administration has reached with elite, research-focused universities harm the institution as well as the country. Northwestern, Columbia, Brown and others might have their funding back, but they’re now weighed down by even greater compliance burdens.

    Northwestern has to report admissions data on every student who applies, is admitted and enrolls; socialize international students on the norms of campus life; and make sure nobody is wearing a face mask to conceal their identity. After cutting more than 400 jobs in July, Northwestern now has fewer people around campus to take over additional reporting duty. This is how the administration wants our leading research institutions to spend their time. And while U.S. institutions process paperwork and fight to have funding restored, China sprints ahead in artificial intelligence, robotics and innovation.

    Precedent for paying fines in government settlements exists for other sectors, but those partly fund solutions to problems. Purdue Pharma, for example, paid local and state governments to fund opioid treatment, prevention and recovery services. In its multibillion-dollar settlement with the U.S. government over cheating on emissions tests, Volkswagen paid billions of dollars to fund clean energy initiatives and electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Even Columbia in its settlement agreed to pay an additional $21 million to compensate employees who may have experienced antisemitism on campus after Oct. 7, 2023. Northwestern’s millions simply disappear into Treasury’s coffers and do nothing to combat antisemitism in higher ed.

    NU won’t be the last institution the government attempts to force into a settlement. This summer it demanded UCLA, a public institution, pay $1.2 billion as part of a settlement to unfreeze millions in research funds. Harvard’s heated legal battle for its funding rages on, and research funds remain frozen for Duke and Princeton.

    These resolutions are a strong indicator of how the administration wants its relationship with research institutions to be—politically self-serving, one-sided and fear-based. Institutions could choose to fight, but mounting expensive legal battles without millions of research dollars isn’t really a choice at all. The agreements might be an offer universities can’t refuse.

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  • Higher Education Inquirer : American Christmas 2025

    Higher Education Inquirer : American Christmas 2025

    Mass surveillance is no longer a marginal concern in American life. It is the silent architecture of a society managed from above and distrusted from below. The cameras aimed at students, workers, and the precarious class reflect a deeper spiritual, political, and moral crisis among the elites who designed the systems now monitoring the rest of us.

    Universities, corporations, city governments, and federal agencies increasingly rely on surveillance tools to manage populations whose economic security has been gutted by the same leaders who now demand behavioral compliance. Cameras proliferate, keystrokes are tracked, movement is logged, and predictive algorithms follow people across campuses, workplaces, and public spaces. Yet those responsible for creating the conditions that justify surveillance—politicians, corporate boards, university trustees, executive donors, and policy consultants—operate in near total opacity. Their meetings take place behind closed doors, their decisions shielded from public scrutiny, their influence networks essentially invisible.

    This is not a coincidence. It is the logical extension of a neoliberal elite culture that elevates market logic above moral obligation. As the Higher Education Inquirer documented in “How Educated Neoliberals Built the Homelessness Crisis,” the architects of modern austerity—professionalized, credentialed, and trained in elite universities—constructed social systems that demand accountability from the poor while providing impunity for the powerful. Their policy models treat human beings as units to be managed, scored, nudged, and surveilled. Surveillance fits seamlessly into this worldview. It is the managerial substitute for solidarity.

    The moral void of this elite class is perhaps most visible in the realm of healthcare. The Affordable Care Act, whatever its limitations, represented a modest attempt to affirm that healthcare is a public good and that access should not depend entirely on wealth. But the undermining of Obamacare under Donald Trump laid bare how deeply the nation’s policy culture had descended into nihilism. Trump’s efforts to gut the ACA were not about ideology or fiscal prudence; they were an expression of power for its own sake. Funding for enrollment outreach was slashed. Navigator programs were dismantled. Work requirements for Medicaid were encouraged, despite overwhelming evidence that they punished the sick and disabled. The administration promoted junk insurance plans that offered no real protection, while lawsuits were advanced to overturn the ACA entirely, even if doing so meant millions would lose coverage.

    This assault revealed the moral collapse of a political and economic elite that had grown comfortable with cruelty. It was cruelty performed as policy, sanctioned by corporate donors, embraced by right-wing media, and tolerated by the broader professional class that rarely speaks out unless its own interests are threatened. Even many of the centrist neoliberal policymakers who originally shaped the ACA’s cost-sharing structure responded with timidity, reluctant to confront the underlying truth: that the American healthcare system had become an arena where profit mattered more than survival, and where surveillance of the poor replaced accountability for the rich.

    As traditional moral frameworks lose their authority—whether organized religion, civic duty, or shared ethical narratives—many Americans have drifted into agnosticism or atheism not enriched by humanist values, but hollowed out by a sense of futility. Without a shared moral anchor, people retreat into private meaning or abandon meaning altogether. In this void, conspiracy theories flourish. People know they are lied to. They sense power operating behind closed doors. They see elite institutions fail repeatedly without consequence. When institutions offer no transparency, alternatives emerge in the shadows.

    The elite response is predictable: condemn conspiracies, scold the public for irrationality, invoke the language of “misinformation.” But this reaction deepens the divide. The same elites who created opaque systems—financial, academic, political, and technological—now fault ordinary people for trying to make sense of the opacity. In a society where truth is managed, measured, branded, and optimized, conspiracy becomes a form of folk epistemology. It is not always correct, but it is often understandable.

    Mass surveillance is therefore not the root of the crisis but its mirror. It reflects a ruling class that no longer commands moral authority and a public that no longer trusts the institutions governing it. It reflects a society that treats the vulnerable as suspects and the powerful as untouchable. It reflects a political order in which the dismantling of healthcare protections is permissible while the monitoring of poor people’s bodies, behaviors, and spending is normalized.

    If the United States is to escape this downward spiral, the cameras must eventually be turned upward. Transparency must apply not only to individuals but to corporations, boards, agencies, foundations, and the political donors who shape public life. Higher education must cease functioning as a credentialing arm of elite impunity and reclaim its role as a defender of democratic inquiry and human dignity. Public institutions must anchor themselves in ethical commitments that do not depend on religious dogma but arise from the basic principle that every human being deserves respect, security, and care.

    Until that reconstruction begins, the nation will remain trapped. The elites will continue to rule through metrics and surveillance rather than legitimacy. The public will continue to oscillate between nihilism and suspicion. And the moral void at the center of American life will continue to widen, one camera at a time.

    Sources

    Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

    David Lyon, Surveillance Studies

    Higher Education Inquirer, How Educated Neoliberals Built the Homelessness Crisis

    Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos

    Christopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites

    Sarah Brayne, Predict and Surveil

    Elisabeth Rosenthal, An American Sickness

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  • Want to Protect American Children? End the Shutdown – The 74

    Want to Protect American Children? End the Shutdown – The 74


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    Politicians love to say, “We must protect our children. They are our future.” But looking at what’s happening in Congress right now, children are not being protected. Families are not being prioritized. Instead, lawmakers are locked in a standoff, waiting to see who blinks first as they fight over who gets the last word and how big of a tax break they can give the wealthiest Americans.

    Meanwhile, families — especially families of color and low-income families — are left to hold their breath and wonder what this shutdown means for them. As members of Congress keep making their rounds on television, babies still need formula, toddlers still need health screenings, children still need breakfast and lunch at school and in their child care programs, and parents still need child care so they can work. Amid extreme stress, families are left, wondering how they will be able to take care of their children.

    The demands of children and their families do not stop just because Congress is at a standstill. 

    According to Kids’ Share 2024, an annual report published by the Urban Institute about federal expenditures, children received only about 9% of all federal spending in 2023, while about 43% of federal spending went toward health and retirement benefits for adults 18 years and older. That’s a very small percentage for a nation in which politicians on both sides of the aisle have expressed interest in increased government investment in children. These numbers contradict the narrative that claims children matter because they are our future.

    That 9% starts to feel even smaller during a government shutdown. Some programs, like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, are mandatory, meaning they don’t require annual congressional approval. But others, including a number of crucial children’s programs, such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), are funded through the annual appropriations process, which Congress must approve. This means when lawmakers can’t agree on a budget, these critical programs are left in limbo.

    The fallout on the horizon from this needless dysfunction is becoming clearer.

    In September, the National WIC Association reminded the public that WIC only had enough funds to temporarily remain open during a government shutdown. Now, according to Reuters, at least two dozen state websites warn there could be an unprecedented benefit gap for more than 41 million people in America who get aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the nearly 7 million people who rely on WIC. 

    Georgia Machell, president and chief executive officer of the National WIC Association, delivered this sobering news last week.

    “Without additional support, State WIC Agencies face another looming crisis,” she said. “Several are set to run out of funds to pay for WIC benefits on November 1 and may need to start making contingency plans.”

    Many families in historically marginalized communities, who already face greater barriers to health care, housing and early education, will feel this impact even more sharply. For example, we know that tens of thousands of young children and families rely on vital support received through Head Start, a service that promotes early learning and development, health and well-being. The shutdown is already in its fourth week, and, according to a statement issued on Oct. 16 from the National Head Start Association, if the government shutdown doesn’t end by Nov. 1, more than 65,000 children and families will be at risk of losing critical services. 

    A missed doctor’s appointment, a delay in SNAP benefits or a gap in child care isn’t just inconvenient. It can destabilize a family and hinder a child’s development, especially in the classroom.

    A research brief published by The Food Research & Action Center highlighted the links between hunger and learning, stating that “behavioral, emotional, mental health, and academic problems are more prevalent among children and adolescents struggling with hunger” and that young people experiencing hunger have lower math scores and poorer grades. The shutdown will have real and lasting consequences on the learning, development and well-being of America’s children because these programs are being impacted.

    It’s frustrating to watch lawmakers stand at podiums and declare how much they care about children while their actions — or inaction — puts children at risk. 

    Words don’t put food on the table. Words don’t pay rent. But actions do. 

    And right now, the actions coming out of Congress are sending an unfortunate message to families: protecting children is not the priority.

    If children truly are our future, then they cannot be treated as bargaining chips. Children deserve more than 9% of America’s federal spending budget. We need federal budgets that reflect children’s needs and protection for essential services. Critical programs that protect child health and well-being should never be disrupted by a government shutdown.

    Finally, Americans deserve government accountability. Policymakers should be held responsible for their words and actions, especially when they fail to deliver on the promises they make about protecting children.

    Children cannot wait. They are growing, learning and developing right now. The choices we make as a country today will shape their tomorrow.


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  • Campus Censorship Puts American Soft Power at Risk

    Campus Censorship Puts American Soft Power at Risk

    International students see American life portrayed in movies and on TikTok; U.S. universities have built global brands, helped along by Hollywood and merchandising. When it comes time to apply, international students can readily imagine a U.S. college experience, starting with seeing themselves in a crimson sweatshirt studying on a grassy quad flanked by ivy-covered buildings.

    And as the U.S.’s hold on cutting-edge science and innovation slips away to China, and other destinations with more welcoming visa policies offer lower-cost degrees and jobs, soft power might be the only edge American universities have left.

    The desire is about more than bricks and mortarboards. Students from other countries have long sought out American values of academic freedom and open discourse. They are excited by ideas and experiences that are as emblematic of the American way of life as tailgating on game day: criticizing the government, discussing LGBTQ+ rights or learning about the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, the Armenian genocide in Turkey or the comfort women victimized by the Imperial Japanese Army.

    But in 2025, those freedoms are at risk of becoming strictly theoretical. Anti-DEI laws in Utah led to Weber State University asking researchers to remove the words “diversity,” “equity” and “inclusion” from their slides before presenting at a—wait for it—conference on navigating the complexities of censorship. Conference organizers canceled the event after other presenters pulled out in protest.

    University leaders in Texas and Florida are refusing to put in writing policies that prohibit faculty from talking about transgender identity or diversity, equity and inclusion in classrooms, sowing fear and confusion across their campuses. A secret recording of a Texas A&M professor talking about gender in her class led to a successful campaign by a state representative to get her fired and forced a former four-star general to resign as university president.

    This weekend, students at Towson University moved their No Kings rally off campus after school officials told them their speakers’ names would be run through a federal government database. They changed locations out of fear the speakers would be targeted by the Trump administration.

    Meanwhile, dozens of faculty are still out of jobs after being fired for posting comments online about the murder of Charlie Kirk. Repressing free speech on social media is also what the Chinese government does to political dissenters.

    It’s true that colleges are exercising American values by following laws passed by democratically elected legislators. And presidents say they will follow the rule of law without compromising their missions, but overcompliance with vague legislation and policies is incompatible with this aim.

    International students who care about more than a name brand may find the erosion of the country’s global reputation as a democratic stronghold a reason to look elsewhere. That means billions of dollars are also at stake if international students no longer trust in America’s values and choose to stay away. Modeling from NAFSA: Association of International Educators projected a 30 to 40 percent drop in international students this fall that would result in $7 billion in lost revenue and more than 60,000 fewer jobs across the country. Records from August suggest a similar outlook: 19 percent fewer students arrived in the U.S. compared to August 2024.

    International students bring more than just valuable tuition dollars to American campuses. They contribute global perspectives to their less traveled American peers and build relationships that could turn into partnerships when they go home and become entrepreneurs or political leaders.

    Higher ed can track the number of international student visas issued, students who enroll and the economic contributions of these students, but they can’t quantify what it means when a student in Shanghai stops imagining America as a place where all ideas can be expressed and explored. It’s taken decades for this country to build power based on free expression and open discourse, but by the time the loss of students starts to register in economic data and visa applications, the decline may be too late to reverse.

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  • Zitkala-Sa and Native American Rights and Heritage

    Zitkala-Sa and Native American Rights and Heritage

    Zitkala-Sa, whose English name was Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was a powerful voice for Native American rights and a pioneering Indigenous writer. Born in 1876 on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota, she was a member of the Yankton Dakota Sioux Nation. Her life’s work centered on preserving Indigenous culture while advocating for the rights and citizenship of Native peoples during a time of intense pressure toward forced assimilation.

    At age eight, Zitkala-Sa left her reservation to attend White’s Manual Labor Institute, a Quaker missionary boarding school in Indiana. This experience profoundly shaped her perspective, and she later wrote candidly about the trauma of cultural erasure—the cutting of her hair, the prohibition of her language, and the deliberate attempt to strip away her Indigenous identity. These early essays, published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1900, brought national attention to the realities of boarding school experiences.

    Despite the challenges she faced, Zitkala-Sa excelled academically and musically. She became an accomplished violinist, performing with the Carlisle Indian School band and even playing at the Paris Exposition in 1900. She briefly taught at Carlisle but grew disillusioned with the school’s assimilationist mission and resigned to pursue her own path.

    Her literary accomplishments were groundbreaking. In 1901, she published Old Indian Legends, commissioned by Boston publisher, Ginn and Company, a collection of Dakota stories she learned as a child and gathered from various tribes. 

    Her autobiographical essays were first published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1900. In 1921, she compiled these essays along with new work into American Indian Stories, which blended autobiography, traditional tales, and political commentary.  

    She also co-wrote the libretto for The Sun Dance Opera (1913), one of the first operas written by a Native American. Her writing style was eloquent and accessible, making her work a bridge between Native and non-Native audiences. Zitkala-Sa’s activism defined the latter half of her life. She worked as a community organizer, traveling to reservations to document the poor conditions and advocate for change. In 1926, she co-founded the National Council of American Indians and served as its president until her death. She lobbied Congress, fought for citizenship rights (achieved with the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924), and championed Indigenous self-determination.

    Old Indian Legends, 1901

    Throughout her life, Zitkala-Sa navigated the tension between two worlds without abandoning her heritage. She used the tools of Western education—writing, music, political organizing—to protect and honor Indigenous cultures. She passed away in 1938, leaving behind a legacy that continues to inspire Indigenous writers, activists, and artists today. Her work reminds us that cultural preservation and adaptation can coexist, and that one voice, raised persistently and eloquently, can create lasting change.

    Oklahoma’s Poor Rich Indians – 1924


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