In December 2025, Cornell University announced a $55 million gift from alumnus Stephen B. Ashley to endow the newly named Ashley School of Global Development and the Environment. The university presented the donation as a transformative investment in sustainability, global development, and interdisciplinary research. Yet behind the headlines of generosity lies a pattern that has come to define elite higher education: the use of philanthropy to launder reputations and sanitize wealth accumulated through systems that produce widespread harm.
Ashley’s career exemplifies this dynamic. As a longtime real estate investor and head of The Ashley Companies, he amassed significant wealth. His tenure on the board of Fannie Mae, including as chairman in the mid-2000s, coincided with periods of accounting irregularities, risky mortgage practices, and systemic failures in governance. Fannie Mae’s collapse during the 2008 financial crisis devastated millions of Americans, particularly low-income and minority households, yet board members and executives largely escaped personal consequences. Ashley’s wealth, in part derived from this environment, is now being funneled into a university named for him — transforming historical responsibility into a narrative of generosity.
The pattern extends beyond domestic finance. Ashley also serves on the Founders Council of the Middle East Investment Initiative (MEII), a nonprofit focused on private-sector development in the Middle East. While MEII frames itself as a promoter of economic growth and development, critics argue that such organizations operate within a global financial ecosystem that prioritizes investor stability and elite networks over democratic accountability or local economic agency. Participation in these initiatives may be legal, even philanthropic, but they reinforce Ashley’s image as a global benefactor without confronting the broader systemic power he wields.
Cornell, like many elite institutions, accepts such gifts with minimal scrutiny, emphasizing the moral and intellectual good the donation enables while obscuring the histories of harm that made the wealth possible. Naming a school dedicated to equity, sustainability, and global development after a figure linked to financial crisis and speculative practices exemplifies the reputational laundering function universities serve for wealthy donors. The institution converts fortunes built in high-stakes, opaque, or socially harmful arenas into lasting prestige, moral capital, and scholarly legitimacy — all while reinforcing its own image as an engine of public good.
This is not a question of legality. Ashley’s wealth is largely untarnished in the courts. It is a question of accountability, ethics, and institutional values. By turning wealth into permanent naming rights, universities like Cornell signal that elite power can be absolved through philanthropy, creating a structural dynamic where generosity replaces responsibility, and reputation is more durable than accountability.
For students, faculty, and the public interested in environmental justice, social equity, and global development, the contradiction is stark. The same systems that generate inequality now fund the study and critique of inequality itself. Elite institutions benefit materially and symbolically from the work of those who profited from structural harm, even as the original consequences fade from public memory. Until universities confront this tension, higher education will continue to function as a reputational laundromat for elite wealth, transforming past systemic damage into present prestige.
Sources
Cornell University, “Historic Gift Endows New CALS School,” Cornell News
Cornell Sun, coverage of the Ashley School announcement
Federal Housing Finance Agency, Special Examination Reports on Fannie Mae (2005–2008)
Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission materials on Fannie Mae governance
Reuters, coverage of post-crisis shareholder litigation involving Fannie Mae board leadership
Middle East Investment Initiative, Board and Founders Council listings
The 2026 ASU+GSV Summit’s announcement of Rahm Emanuel as a featured speaker paints a portrait of a seasoned education leader: expanding Pre‑K, lengthening school days, and championing accountability in public schooling. It positions him as a “national voice for bold, outcomes‑driven education reform” with the promise that “ALL students can succeed.” But a closer look at Emanuel’s record and the broader political and economic networks he’s part of reveals a gap between reform rhetoric and the structural realities facing American education.
The summit blurb highlights aspects of Emanuel’s mayoral record—like longer school days and universal Pre‑K—as unequivocal successes. Yet critics note that these reforms came alongside aggressive school closures and policies that often prioritized test scores over community stability and equitable resources for historically underserved neighborhoods. The celebration of “outcomes‑driven” approaches overlooks the real impacts of top‑down accountability regimes on students and educators.
A deeper problem in education policy today isn’t just about individual initiatives, it’s about who shapes the agenda and why. Investigations into elite influence, such as The Pritzker Family Paradox, show how wealthy political families and private capital can steer education systems in ways that benefit investors as much as—if not more than—students. Members of that same elite class move fluidly between public office, philanthropic boards, and private education ventures, blurring lines between public good and private gain.
The concerns about elite influence extend beyond k‑12 reform into higher education. The University of Phoenix—the nation’s largest for-profit university—has faced long-running federal scrutiny that has only intensified questions about the role of private equity and political connections in education. In 2018, the Federal Trade Commission was reported to be investigating the University of Phoenix’s practices more than two years after the institution was taken private (in part) by the Vistria Group, a firm led by a longtime Obama associate. The deal pushed the university out of public markets, reducing transparency even as the FTC pursued inquiries into marketing, recruitment, financial aid, billing practices, and more. This story is more than an isolated headline. It links education policy, political networks, and private equity in ways that should make anyone skeptical of sanitized reform narratives. The University of Phoenix’s federal investigation—set against its massive enrollment and heavy reliance on federal student aid—raises serious questions about how for-profit models and political influence intersect to shape student outcomes and taxpayer exposure to risk.
With Emanuel positioned at the ASU+GSV Summit as a visionary reformer, it’s worth asking what kind of reform is being championed—and for whom. Emanuel’s career path mirrors that of many elite education influencers: from municipal leadership to Washington corridors to national stages, often amplifying narratives that celebrate managerial efficiency and data-driven accountability while underemphasizing power imbalances, market incentives, and community impacts. Putting Emanuel on a summit stage alongside investors and administrators reinforces a reform ecosystem driven by elite networks, where visibility and messaging often outpace substantive change in classrooms or communities that have long been underserved.
Attendees of the summit and observers of national education policy deserve more than polished bios and upbeat messaging. They deserve transparent discussions about who benefits from current education reforms and who loses, critical engagement with the role of private capital and political influence in shaping everything from early education to college financing, and honest reflection on how policy levers affect students, especially those from historically marginalized communities. Platforms like ASU+GSV should widen the lens beyond elite testimonials and market-friendly case studies to include voices that challenge entrenched interests and demand accountability not just in language, but in structural outcomes. Real transformation will not come from repackaging reform as spectacle; it will come from confronting the systems that continue to produce inequity in American education.
As the 2028 presidential race accelerates, J.B. Pritzker has emerged as a favored candidate among Democratic power brokers. His public image—competent, pragmatic, socially liberal, and reliably anti-Trump—has been carefully shaped to appeal to voters exhausted by polarization and chaos. But beneath this polished surface lies a deep and troubling contradiction that the public, and especially those affected by the student-debt crisis, cannot afford to ignore. This contradiction, the Pritzker Paradox, stems from the profound dissonance between Pritzker’s public rhetoric about educational opportunity and the private capital networks that have fueled both his family’s wealth and his political ascent.
The Pritzker family has long been intertwined with for-profit higher education and its surrounding ecosystem of lenders, service providers, and private-equity investors. These sectors have collectively played a major role in producing the contemporary student-debt crisis. While J.B. Pritzker often presents himself as a champion of equity, public investment, and educational access, his family’s financial history reveals an alignment with institutions that have extracted billions from low-income students, veterans, and Black and Latino communities through high-cost, low-value educational programs.
This is not simply a matter of past investments. It is part of an ongoing and highly influential political economy in which wealthy Democratic donors, private-equity executives, and education “reformers” operate as a unified class. Central to that class formation is The Vistria Group, a Chicago-based private-equity firm founded by Marty Nesbitt, a close friend of Barack Obama. Vistria stands at the intersection of Democratic power and education profiteering. After the collapse of scandal-ridden chains like Corinthian Colleges and ITT Tech, Vistria did not step in to dismantle the exploitative for-profit model. Instead, it strategically acquired distressed educational assets and reconstructed them into a new generation of institutions that presented themselves as “nonprofits” while maintaining tuition-driven, debt-laden business models. Former Obama administration officials moved seamlessly into Vistria and related firms, raising serious questions about regulatory capture and revolving-door governance.
Pritzker moves within this same Chicago-centered network. His political donors, associates, and advisers overlap significantly with the circles that built Vistria’s ascent. The structural relationships matter more than any single investment. A Pritzker administration would not exist outside this ecosystem; it would be shaped by it. The question, therefore, is not whether Pritzker personally signed a for-profit acquisition deal but whether the political world that produced him can be trusted to regulate higher education fairly and aggressively. The answer, based on the last twenty years of policy and practice, is no.
This is especially troubling because presidents play a decisive role in higher-education oversight. Through the Department of Education, a president can strengthen or weaken borrower protections, set standards for nonprofit conversions, determine enforcement priorities, and decide whether private-equity extraction will be challenged or quietly accommodated. Millions of borrowers harmed by predatory institutions are currently awaiting relief through borrower defense, income-driven repayment audits, and Gainful Employment rules. The integrity of these processes depends on political leadership that is independent from the private-equity interests that helped create the crisis.
Pritzker’s political style—managerial, technocratic, deeply rooted in elite networks—suggests continuity rather than challenge. The neoliberal framework he embodies does not confront structural inequalities; it manages them. It does not dismantle extractive systems; it attempts to regulate their excesses while leaving their core intact. In higher education, this approach has already failed. It is the reason the for-profit sector was allowed to expand dramatically under both Republican and Democratic administrations. It is why private-equity firms continue to control large segments of the educational marketplace through complex ownership structures and shadow nonprofits. And it is why millions of borrowers remain trapped in debts for degrees that offered little or no economic return.
The Pritzker Paradox is therefore not a story about one wealthy governor. It is a story about the consolidation of political and economic power within a narrow elite that has profited handsomely from the financialization of education while promising, cycle after cycle, to reform the very problems it helped create. Vistria exemplifies this dynamic. The Pritzker family’s history echoes it. And a Pritzker presidency would likely entrench it further.
America needs leadership willing to challenge private-equity influence in higher education, not leadership bound to it. The country needs a president who understands education as a public good, not a marketplace. For borrowers, students, and communities harmed by decades of predatory practices, the stakes could not be higher. The choice before the nation is not simply whether Pritzker is preferable to Trump. It is whether the country will continue to entrust its public institutions to elites who speak the language of equity while advancing the interests of the very networks that undermined educational opportunity in the first place.
Sources Public reporting on Pritzker family investments in for-profit and education-related sectors; investigations by the Senate HELP Committee, GAO, and CFPB; reporting on The Vistria Group’s acquisitions and nonprofit conversions; analyses of private-equity influence in U.S. higher education; academic literature on neoliberalism and elite capture.
The silence of America’s elite is deafening. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Yale professor and corporate leadership expert, does not hesitate to call it out. In a recent email, he warned that the nation’s corporate, academic, and religious leaders—once the backbone of moral and civic accountability—are now “smugly, safely, silently on the sidelines,” while authoritarian forces surge.
“Nope,” Sonnenfeld wrote, “but it’s high time for the neo whiners to get off their lazy, cowardly butts and follow the courageous path of activists across sectors and fields from the 1960s and 1970s. It took nine years to get the No Kings rallies going. Shameful.”
He recalls an era when activism cut across sectors: interfaith clergy, college presidents—from elite universities to small faith-based institutions and HBCUs—trade union leaders, professional associations, environmentalists, and human rights advocates all marched together. Blue state treasurers and attorneys general held corporations accountable; red state officials sometimes applied pressure from the opposite side. CEOs, Sonnenfeld reminds us, are mostly “hired hands, stewards of other people’s money” who respond to engaged stakeholders. Without pressure, they retreat into inaction.
Today, the chorus of accountability is eerily silent. Clergy barely speak out. University presidents remain cautious. Activists blog while the nation teeters. Sonnenfeld’s indictment is clear: where once there was collective courage, there is now passivity—an effective alignment with the very forces undermining democracy.
In practical terms, elite inaction has consequences. Trump and his allies wield influence not only through electoral politics but by exploiting institutional inertia. By failing to mobilize, elites—through default inaction—allow a political agenda that often mirrors their own neoliberal priorities to advance unchecked: deregulation, tax favoritism, corporate consolidation, and a shrinking social safety net.
Sonnenfeld’s challenge is urgent: Will today’s corporate boards, clergy, and academic leaders rise to the occasion, reclaim the moral authority they once wielded, and demand accountability from those they employ and fund? Or will the next generation of Americans grow up seeing democracy as a performance, not a lived responsibility?
The 1960s and 1970s were not perfect, but they demonstrated what cross-sectoral solidarity could achieve. Today, silence is complicity. In a nation at moral and political crossroads, elites cannot afford to play it safe. History is watching—and so is the rest of the world.
For many observers, Jeffrey Epstein, Alan Dershowitz, and Larry Summers appear as separate figures orbiting the world of elite academia, finance, and politics. But together—and through the long lens of history—they represent something far more revealing: the modern expression of a centuries-old system in which elite institutions protect powerful men while sacrificing the vulnerable.
The Epstein-Dershowitz-Summers triangle is not a scandal of individuals gone astray. It is the predictable result of structures that make such abuses almost inevitable.
The Modern Version of an Old System
Jeffrey Epstein built his influence not through scholarship or scientific discovery—he had no advanced degrees—but by inserting himself into the financial bloodstream of the Ivy League. Harvard and MIT accepted his money, his introductions, and his promises of access to ultra-wealthy networks. Epstein did not need credibility; he purchased it.
Larry Summers, as president of Harvard from 2001 to 2006, continued to engage with Epstein after the financier’s first arrest and plea deal. Summers’ administration accepted substantial Epstein donations, including funds channeled into the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. Summers and his wife dined at Epstein’s Manhattan home. After leaving Harvard, Summers stayed in touch with Epstein even as the financier’s abuses became increasingly public. Summers used the same revolving door that has long connected elite universities, Wall Street, and presidential administrations—moving freely and comfortably across all three.
Alan Dershowitz, Epstein’s close associate and legal strategist, exemplifies another pillar of this system: elite legal protection. Dershowitz defended Epstein vigorously, attacked survivors publicly, and remains embroiled in litigation connected to the case. Whether one believes Dershowitz’s claims of innocence is secondary to the structural fact: elite institutions reliably shield their own.
Together, Epstein offered money and connections; Summers offered institutional prestige and political access; Dershowitz offered legal insulation. Harvard, meanwhile, offered a platform through which all three profited.
Knowledge as a Shield—Not a Light
For centuries, elite universities have served as both engines of knowledge and fortresses of power. They are not neutral institutions.
They defended slavery and eugenics, supplying “scientific” justification for racial hierarchies.
They exploited labor—from enslaved workers who built campuses to adjuncts living in poverty today.
They marginalized survivors of sexual violence while protecting benefactors and faculty.
They accepted fortunes derived from war profiteering, colonial extraction, hedge-fund predation, and private-equity devastation.
Epstein did not invent the model of the toxic patron. He merely perfected it in the neoliberal era.
A Four-Step Pattern of Elite Impunity
The scandal surrounding Epstein, Dershowitz, and Summers follows a trajectory that dates back centuries:
Wealth accumulation through exploitation
From slave plantations to private equity, concentrated wealth is generated through systems that harm the many to benefit the few.
The purchase of academic legitimacy
Endowed chairs, laboratories, fellowships, and advisory roles allow dubious benefactors to launder reputations through universities.
Reputational attacks, threats of litigation, and internal pressure discourage transparency and accountability.
Epstein operated within this system. Dershowitz defended it. Summers benefited from it. Harvard reinforced it.
Larry Summers: An Anatomy of Power
Summers’ career illuminates the deeper structure behind the scandal. His trajectory—Harvard president, U.S. Treasury Secretary, World Bank chief economist, adviser to hedge funds, consultant to Big Tech—mirrors the seamless circulation of elite power between universities, finance, and government.
During his presidency, Harvard publicly embraced Epstein’s donations. After Epstein’s first sex-offense conviction, Summers continued to meet with him socially and professionally. Summers leveraged networks that Epstein also sought to cultivate. And even after the Epstein scandal fully broke open, Summers faced no meaningful institutional repercussions.
The message was clear: individual wrongdoing matters less than maintaining elite continuity.
Higher Education’s Structural Complicity
Elite universities were not “duped.” They were beneficiaries.
Harvard returned only a fraction of Epstein’s donations, and only after the press exposed the relationship. MIT hid Epstein’s gifts behind false donor names. Faculty traveled to his island and penthouse without demanding transparency.
Meanwhile:
Adjuncts qualify for food assistance
Students carry life-crippling debt
Administrators earn CEO-level pay
Donors dictate priorities behind closed doors
This is not hypocrisy—it is hierarchy. A system built to serve wealth does exactly that.
A Timeline Much Longer Than Epstein
To understand the present, we must zoom out:
Oxford and Cambridge accepted slave-trade wealth as institutional lifeblood.
Gilded Age robber barons endowed libraries while crushing labor movements.
Cold War intelligence agencies quietly funded research centers.
Today’s oligarchs, tech billionaires, and private-equity titans buy influence through endowments and think tanks.
The tools change. The pattern does not.
Universities help legitimate the powerful—even when those powerful figures harm the public.
Why This Still Matters
The Epstein scandal is not resolved. Court documents continue to emerge. Survivors continue to speak. Elite institutions continue to stall and deflect. Harvard still resists meaningful transparency, even as its endowment approaches national GDP levels.
The danger is not simply that another Epstein will emerge. It is that elite universities will continue to provide the conditions that make another Epstein inevitable.
What Breaking the Pattern Requires
Ending this system demands more than symbolic gestures or public-relations apologies. Real reform requires:
Radical donor transparency—with all gifts, advisory roles, and meetings disclosed
Worker and student representation on governing boards
Strong whistleblower protections and the abolition of secret NDAs
Robust public funding to reduce reliance on elite philanthropy
Independent journalism committed to exposing institutional power
Ida B. Wells, Jessica Mitford, Upton Sinclair, and other muckrakers understood what universities still deny: scandals are symptoms. The disease is structural.
Epstein was not an anomaly.
Dershowitz is not an anomaly.
Summers is not an anomaly.
They are products of a system in which universities serve power first—and truth, only if convenient.
If higher education wants to reclaim public trust, it must finally decide which side of history it is on.
Dartmouth CollegeFile photoDartmouth College has declined to sign the Trump administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” becoming the latest prestigious institution to prioritize institutional autonomy over preferential federal funding access.
In a statement released Saturday, Dartmouth President Dr. Sian Beilock firmly articulated the college’s position ahead of Monday’s deadline, emphasizing that governmental oversight—regardless of political affiliation—represents an inappropriate mechanism for directing the mission of America’s top research universities.
“I do not believe that the involvement of the government through a compact—whether it is a Republican- or Democratic-led White House—is the right way to focus America’s leading colleges and universities on their teaching and research mission,” Beilock stated.
The compact, extended to nine select institutions, promised enhanced access to federal research dollars in return for compliance with several administration policy mandates. These requirements included adopting the administration’s gender definitions for campus facilities and athletics, eliminating consideration of race, gender and various demographic factors from admissions decisions, and restricting international student enrollment.
Despite rejecting the compact’s terms, Beilock expressed openness to dialogue, indicating her willingness to explore how to strengthen the traditional federal-university research partnership while maintaining higher education’s focus on academic excellence.
The decision followed significant campus pressure, with nearly 500 Dartmouth faculty members and graduate students signing a petition advocating for rejection, according to the Valley News.
In her statement, Beilock emphasized the fundamental principle at stake: “Universities have a responsibility to set our own academic and institutional policies, guided by our mission and values, our commitment to free expression, and our obligations under the law.”
She framed institutional independence as essential to rebuilding public confidence across political lines and preserving American higher education’s global preeminence.
Dartmouth’s decision aligns with rejections announced last week by peer institutions including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California, suggesting a coordinated defense of academic autonomy among elite research universities.
For decades, U.S. universities have served as the finishing school for China’s elite. Children of Communist Party officials, wealthy businesspeople, and top scientists have often ended up at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, or the Ivy League, polishing their English and acquiring the cultural capital necessary for global finance, diplomacy, and technology. At the same time, thousands of middle-class Chinese families have made enormous financial sacrifices to send their children abroad, betting on an American degree as a ticket to upward mobility.
But the question today is whether China still needs U.S. universities to educate its elite.
Shifting Global Power Dynamics
The rise of China’s own research universities has complicated the old narrative. Institutions such as Tsinghua University and Peking University now rank among the top in the world in science, engineering, and AI research. China produces more STEM graduates annually than any other country, and its funding for science and technology rivals that of the U.S. While U.S. universities still command prestige, their monopoly on global academic excellence has weakened.
Politics and National Security
Relations between Washington and Beijing have soured, and U.S. policymakers increasingly view Chinese students as potential security risks. Visa restrictions on STEM fields, FBI investigations into Chinese scholars, and rhetoric about intellectual property theft have chilled the academic exchange. For Chinese elites, the risks of having children in the U.S. — politically and reputationally — are higher than in the 1990s or 2000s.
Yet at the same time, political figures like Donald Trump have openly courted the financial benefits of Chinese enrollment. Trump has said that China can send 600,000 students to the United States — a number that would far exceed current levels — underscoring the contradiction between security anxieties and the revenue-driven priorities of American higher education.
Meanwhile, China has invested heavily in partnerships with Europe, Singapore, and even African nations to build alternative networks of elite education. For some families, sending a child to Oxford or ETH Zurich carries less geopolitical baggage than Harvard or MIT.
The Prestige Factor
Yet prestige is not easily replicated. An Ivy League degree still carries enormous weight, especially in global finance, law, and diplomacy. American universities remain unmatched in their ability to offer “soft power” — connections, cultural fluency, and credibility in international markets. For Chinese elites with ambitions beyond national borders, U.S. universities still provide networking opportunities that cannot be fully duplicated in Beijing, Shanghai, or Shenzhen.
China’s Billionaires Build Private Universities to Challenge Stanford
In recent years, a number of China’s wealthiest business leaders have begun pouring billions into the creation of new private universities. Their ambitions are not modest: to build research institutions that can compete directly with the world’s most elite schools—Stanford, MIT, Oxford, and Harvard.
At first glance, such aspirations sound quixotic. Building a university brand that rivals Stanford typically takes a century of reputation, research, and networking. Yet, in China, examples already exist to show that rapid ascent is possible.
Westlake and Geely as Proof-of-Concept
Westlake University, founded in Hangzhou just seven years ago by leading biologists, is already outperforming global top 100 schools in specific fields, including the University of Sydney and the University of North Carolina. Its model—deep pockets, aggressive recruitment of top scientists, and a narrow focus on high-impact fields—demonstrates that prestige can be manufactured in years rather than generations.
Geely Automotive Group, meanwhile, established its own university to train engineers, feeding talent directly into one of the world’s largest car manufacturers. Today, Geely ranks among the ten biggest automakers worldwide, with its university playing a central role in workforce development.
A Stanford Model with Chinese Characteristics
The parallel to Stanford is intentional. Stanford thrived not only because of academic excellence but because it was embedded in Silicon Valley, benefiting from venture capital, defense contracts, and a culture of entrepreneurship. China’s industrialists are attempting something similar: building universities adjacent to industrial clusters and pairing them with massive R&D investments.
For billionaires, these institutions serve dual purposes: they act as innovation engines and as political insurance policies. In an era when Beijing has cracked down on tech moguls and capital excesses, aligning one’s fortune with education and national advancement offers a form of protection.
Political Constraints and Academic Freedom
The long-term question is whether these billionaire-founded institutions can sustain the openness and intellectual risk-taking that has characterized Stanford and MIT. While China’s system excels in applied sciences and technology, political controls may limit innovation in social sciences and fields that thrive on dissent, debate, and unconventional thinking.
Still, if the aim is dominance in biotech, engineering, AI, and materials science, the model may succeed. In fact, Westlake’s rapid climb already suggests mid-tier Western universities could soon find themselves leapfrogged by Chinese institutions less than a decade old.
A Changing Balance
So, does China need U.S. universities for its elite? The answer is complicated.
Yes, for families who want global reach, especially in finance, technology entrepreneurship, and diplomacy. The cultural capital of an American education still matters.
No, for families satisfied with domestic prestige and security. China’s own universities — both traditional public institutions and billionaire-backed ventures — increasingly provide sufficient training for leadership roles.
What is clear is that U.S. universities can no longer assume a steady flow of Chinese elite students. The market has shifted, the politics have hardened, and the prestige gap has narrowed. For American higher education, already struggling with enrollment cliffs and financial strain, this shift could have serious consequences.
Sources:
Institute of International Education, Open Doors Report
Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), “Chinese STEM Students in the U.S.”
Times Higher Education World University Rankings
South China Morning Post, Why China’s super-rich are spending billions to set up universities
Guangming Daily, Hello, Westlake University
CGTN, Westlake University established in Hangzhou
Geely Automotive Group, Overview
KE Press Global, China’s Billionaires Are Building Universities to Drive Innovation and Stay Politically Favorable
This blog was authored by Charlotte Gleed, who is undertaking an internship at HEPI this summer. Charlotte is a BA History Graduate from Jesus College, Oxford and holds a Graduate Diploma in Law, supported by the Exhibition Scholarship from the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. Following this internship, Charlotte will be studying an MPhil in Education: Knowledge, Power, and Politics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
‘Barristers: they make coffee, don’t they?’
A family member said this to me recently. Not thinking much of it, I laughed and replied, ‘not quite, the ones who wear the wig and gown and bang the stick’. This conversation got me thinking: why is it that some professions seem so far removed from everyday life that not only does the possibility of entry appear distant, but what a person does in that profession is misunderstood? The English Bar falls in this category.
The Bar is the profession of barristers, a set of specialist legal advocates who represent parties usually in courts or tribunals. The Bar has historically been a profession preserved for the elite. The requirement of high grades from top-ranked universities, together with financial instability during legal studies and in practice, compound this assumption. However, there can be an alternative narrative. As social mobility schemes arise, universities develop closer ties with the profession, and the availability of scholarships widen, there is a real opportunity to change the composition of the Bar.
Fortunate to be a product of these changes, my journey to the Bar has highlighted three main obstacles for university graduates. First, the precarious financial situation. We are all aware that higher education of any form is expensive, even with government-backed student loans. However, further vocational study required for the Bar stretches student finances considerably. The cost of the Bar Vocational Course ranges from £12,640 to £20,220. Unless supported by family, scholarships and/or private bank loans, the costs can be both difficult to justify and even harder to deliver.
Second, it is increasingly clear that a law degree alone is no longer sufficient. For students who complete an LLB or BA Jurisprudence, competition is so fierce that postgraduate study – a master’s or equivalent – is beneficial. For students who study a non-law undergraduate degree, the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) is necessary. The cost of the law conversion course, ranging from £7,150 to £13,590 dependent on region and university provider, exacerbates the gap between those who can afford the additional university costs and those who cannot.
Third, the essence of the Inns of Court is strikingly akin to an Oxbridge college. Each aspiring and practising barrister across England and Wales chooses membership of one of four Inns: Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Lincoln’s Inn, and Gray’s Inn. This is both a blessing and a curse for university graduates. A blessing because its magic and mystery is something to aspire to; a curse because its majesty can be intimating and can feel exclusionary. One barristers chambers, Essex Court Chambers, have partnered with the Social Mobility Foundation to improve accessibility to the commercial Bar. This is a welcomed step. But more needs to be done.
What is the solution? Postgraduate study needs investment. The aggregate £12,000 postgraduate loan available from the government goes some way. Yet, this amount falls short of most postgraduate course fees and does not include maintenance costs. If university is to be a true social leveller, access to more advanced levels of higher education must be supported – and funded. Furthermore, the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple and Inner Temple interview all applicants for both their GDL and Bar Course scholarships. This is a start. It is advantageous to students who have not attended prestigious schools or universities with a raft of academic prizes and extra-curriculars to be seen and heard. Interviews for all scholarship candidates is one way to level the playing field. Together with links between university careers services, student societies, and mentorship schemes, this could be an era of genuine collaboration between students, universities, and professions.
Education pays. But it cannot pay if access to elite professions, and its required higher education courses, is hindered in the first place.
The Pritzker family stands as a symbol of wealth, influence, and access in American public life. From the luxury of Hyatt Hotels to the boardrooms of private equity and the highest ranks of government, their reach extends across economic sectors and institutional spheres. But beneath the carefully managed public image lies a troubling contradiction—one that implicates higher education, for-profit exploitation, and national politics.
Penny Pritzger
Penny Pritzker, a former U.S. Secretary of Commerce and current trustee of Harvard University, has been a key figure in shaping education policy from elite perches. She also had a working relationship with Vistria Group, a private equity firm that now owns the University of Phoenix and Risepoint. These two entities have been central to the subprime college industry—profiting from the hopes of working-class students while delivering poor outcomes and burdensome debt.
Pritzker’s relationship with Vistria runs deeper than simple association. In the late 1990s, she partnered with Vistria co-founder Marty Nesbitt to launch The Parking Spot, a national airport parking venture that brought them both business success and public recognition. When Nesbitt founded Vistria in 2013, he brought with him the experience and elite networks formed during that earlier partnership. Penny Pritzker’s family foundation—Pritzker Traubert—was among the early funders of Vistria, helping to establish its brand as a more “socially conscious” private equity firm. Although she stepped away from any formal role when she joined the Obama administration, her involvement in Vistria’s formation and funding set the stage for the firm’s expansion into sectors like for-profit education and healthcare.
Vistria’s acquisition of the University of Phoenix, and later Risepoint, positioned it as a major player in the privatization of American higher education. The firm continues to profit from schools that promise economic mobility but often deliver student debt and limited job prospects. This is not just a critique of business practices, but a systemic indictment of how elite networks shape education policy, finance, and outcomes.
Penny’s role as a trustee on the Harvard Corporation only sharpens this contradiction. Harvard, a university that markets itself as a global champion of meritocracy and inclusion, remains silent about one of its trustees helping to finance and support a firm that monetizes educational inequality. The governing body has not publicly addressed any potential conflict of interest between her Harvard role and her involvement with Vistria.
JB Pritzger
These contradictions are not limited to Penny. Her brother, J.B. Pritzker, is currently the governor of Illinois and one of the wealthiest elected officials in the country. Though he has no documented personal financial stake in Vistria, his administration has significant ties to the firm. Jesse Ruiz, J.B. Pritzker’s Deputy Governor for Education during his first term, left state government in 2022 to take a top leadership position at Vistria as General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer.
This revolving-door dynamic—where a senior education policymaker transitions directly from a progressive administration to a private equity firm profiting from for-profit colleges—underscores the ideological alignment and operational synergy between the Pritzker political machine and firms like Vistria. While the governor publicly champions equity and expanded public education access, his administration’s former top education official is now helping manage legal and compliance operations for a firm that extracts value from struggling students and public loan programs.
J.B. Pritzker has announced plans to run for a third term as governor in 2026, but many observers believe he is positioning himself for a 2028 presidential campaign. His high-profile public appearances, pointed critiques of Donald Trump, and increased visibility in early primary states all suggest a national campaign is being tested. With his vast personal wealth, Pritzker could self-fund a serious run while drawing on elite networks built over decades—networks that include both his sister’s role at Harvard and their shared business and political allies.
Elites in US Higher Education, A Familiar Theme
What emerges is a deeply American story—one in which the same elite networks shape both the problems and the proposed solutions. The Pritzkers are not alone in this dynamic, but their dual influence in higher education and politics makes them a case study in elite capture. They are architects and beneficiaries of a system in which public office, private equity, and nonprofit institutions converge to consolidate power.
The for-profit education sector continues to exploit regulatory gaps, marketing expensive credentials to desperate individuals while avoiding the scrutiny that traditional nonprofit colleges face. When private equity firms like Vistria acquire troubled institutions, they repackage them, restructure their branding, and keep extracting value from public loan dollars. The government lends, students borrow, and investors profit. The people left behind are those without political clout—low-income students, veterans, working parents—who believed the marketing and now face debt with little return.
Harvard’s silence, University of Phoenix’s reinvention, the rebranding of Academic Partnerships/Risepoint, and J.B. Pritzker’s ambitions all signal a troubling direction for American democracy. As more billionaires enter politics and public institutions become more dependent on private capital, the line between public service and private gain continues to erode.
The Higher Education Inquirer believes this moment demands not only scrutiny, but structural change. Until elite universities hold their trustees accountable, until political candidates reject the influence of exploitative industries, and until the public reclaims its voice in higher education policy, the Pritzker paradox will continue to define the American experience—where access to opportunity is sold to the highest bidder, and democracy is reshaped by those who can afford to buy it.
Sources
– U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard
– University of Phoenix outcome data (IPEDS, 2024)
– Harvard University governance and trustee records
– Vistria Group investor reports and public filings
– Wall Street Journal, “America’s Second-Richest Elected Official Is Acting Like He Wants to Be President” (2025)
– Associated Press, “Governor J.B. Pritzker positions himself as national Democratic leader” (2025)
– Vistria.com, “Marty Nesbitt on his friendship with Obama and what he learned from the Pritzkers”
– Politico, “Former Obama Insiders Seek Administration’s Blessing of For-Profit College Takeover” (2016)
– Vistria Group announcement, “Jesse Ruiz Joins Vistria as General Counsel and CCO” (2022)
On stage, baton in hand, Rebecca Bryant Novak found her calling in the precarious. She says conducting an orchestra sometimes “feels like trying to do brain surgery on a conveyor belt. You don’t get to stop. You don’t get to pause and say, ‘Hold on, let me think.’” But that high-stakes intensity, the kind that crackles through a Brahms crescendo or explodes in a Mahler finale, is what drew her in. “I love that,” she says. “To conduct an orchestra once in your lifetime, much less dozens or hundreds of times, is just an enormous privilege.”
But behind the podium at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, one of the world’s premier conservatories, the peril Bryant Novak faced was not merely musical. In October 2023, she reported her doctoral program advisor and the director of orchestras, Neil Varon, for harassment. What followed, by her account and email correspondence describing the university’s own investigative findings, was a spiral of institutional dysfunction in which Eastman abandoned its own policies to retaliate against Bryant Novak for speaking out.
What began as a childhood dream — “I saved my babysitting money to buy tickets for me and my mom to go to St. Louis Symphony concerts,” she recalls — has now soured into a fight not merely for her academic degree but for her dignity, for institutional transparency, and for a measure of justice in an industry she loves.
A pianist by training, she fell for music director David Robertson’s conducting as a teenager in St. Louis, where she was captivated by his orchestra’s sound and force. “I loved the idea of being part of it,” she says. “As I look back at that person, she had no idea what she was getting into. But the draw was strong.”
Chasing the grueling dream of the podium was a particularly steep climb for a woman. “There have only been three women admitted to my program in over 20 years,” she says, referring to Varon’s conducting studio, which she estimates has accepted approximately 40 students during that time. “The resources are immense. So is the gender disparity. I mean, it’s extreme.”
Bryant Novak, a first-generation college graduate, said that upon arrival she felt “very much a fish out of water in the fancy music school scene.” Still, she was undeterred. “I said to myself, look, I won the audition. The orchestra voted, and I got an overwhelming orchestra vote. Everyone was thrilled about my being here.” She believed — naïvely, she now says — that the music would speak for itself. “Gender has nothing to do with this. My work stands on its own. So I was kind of in that mindset going in.”
Her optimism did not last.
I had jobs in this field before going back for my doctorate. I knew the scene. My actual experience is that staying silent doesn’t help you that much.
Bryant Novak claims that during one rehearsal, as she was conducting in front of about 60 students, Varon told her she was “Gibson impregnated,” a reference to her former teacher at the University of Cincinnati, Mark Gibson, with whom she had cut contact after completing her master’s degree. Bryant Novak’s history with Gibson was fraught with alleged maltreatment: she says she suffered “inappropriate behavior, including comments on [her] physical appearance” and “physical contact under the guise of instruction” that resulted in “lasting professional harm.”
Gibson and Varon were close professional contacts, and though Bryant Novak says Varon repeatedly noted Gibson’s problematic history and widely known reputation for abuse, she claims he “began referencing [her] history with Gibson as early as [her] audition.” According to Bryant Novak, Varon’s increasingly hostile and erratic behavior in class eventually forced her to end a conducting session with the orchestra, which typically lasted almost an hour, after just fifteen minutes.
In what she describes as a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” calculation, Bryant Novak chose to report Varon. “I had jobs in this field before going back for my doctorate. I knew the scene,” she says. “There have been situations where I’ve stayed silent before, as in my master’s program studying with Mark Gibson. My actual experience is that staying silent doesn’t help you that much.”
Initially, she raised the alarm privately, requesting the administration limit her contact with Varon rather than filing a formal complaint. Her request was denied. Instead, Bryant Novak says Title IX coordinator John Hain suggested she transfer. “I remember asking, ‘How is that supposed to work?’ These programs are very competitive. They’re very small. It’s not like I’m getting my bachelor’s in history. How is this the solution? It was just not at all thought through.”
“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to call it sabotage,” she said, after her final recital was stacked with outlandishly difficult material. (Smiley Photography)
“I got this whole lecture about how there’s no law against being a jerk. I’m like, ‘I’m aware of that.’” Worse, she adds, “They disclosed the report to [Varon]. They kind of wagged their finger at him and said ‘good luck’ to me. I was stunned.”
Faced with Eastman’s inaction, Bryant Novak used the only tool she had left — her voice. She wrote about the experience in a post on her Substack, The Queen of Wands, sharing conversations with administrators, naming names, and describing Eastman’s lack of support.
That’s when the retaliation began.
A senior administrator threatened her with a defamation lawsuit — the very same John Hain in charge of handling her Title IX complaint. Students who once applauded her presence grew cold. Some faculty offered quiet support but refused to speak publicly. “It got very bizarre,” she says. “Very, very weird.”
According to email correspondence between Rebecca and university officials, the University of Rochester — Eastman’s parent institution — conducted an investigation that concluded Varon had indeed violated their harassment policy and that Eastman had grossly mishandled her complaint. Despite this, rather than offering protection to Rebecca, Eastman remained intent on shielding its own faculty.
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By the following semester, “there was some nastiness” from some of her fellow students in the orchestra. Her conducting opportunities were reduced. The faculty grew tight-lipped. She would walk into a room and people would stop talking. One tenured professor whispered to her that he’d written a letter of support but begged her not to tell anyone.
Meanwhile, Bryant Novak continued writing publicly about her experience on Substack. Her posts were measured, personal, and often devastating. Her first post, titled “My First Year at Eastman,” told the story of the initial incident and the process that ensued from her point of view. Another, titled “Cease and desist,” detailed John Hain’s defamation threat against her.
Then, however implausibly, things got worse.
In December 2024, the University of Rochester launched a second investigation, this time into Eastman’s continued mishandling of Bryant Novak’s complaint and the retaliation she alleged had taken place against her. That might seem like a reason to think things were finally looking up — except two weeks after Bryant Novak disclosed the second investigation in a Substack post, Eastman expelled her for a “lack of academic progress.”
According to Bryant Novak, this came despite Eastman’s prior confirmation that her academic plan and credits were sufficient in order to graduate. Worse, Eastman’s letter to Bryant Novak ended with a list of non-academic allegations: “misuse of University email systems,” “creating a hostile environment,” and “language that has been perceived as threatening violence.” All this was presented without detail or evidence. It was also described as not the actual cause of her dismissal, but worth “remark.” For her part, she sees it as a last-ditch attempt to discredit her. “The double standards were pretty intense,” she says. The school claimed there wasn’t much it could do to restrain Varon but, she says, “When it was time to expel me — boy, their hands were not tied.”
People assume we’ve moved past this stuff. But no, speech is still powerful. People are still afraid of it. And they’ll try to shut you up.
In a June 18 letter to the university, FIRE detailed how Eastman skipped every procedural safeguard required by their own academic progress policy: no warnings, no probation, no appeal. It doesn’t take a bloodhound to sniff out the pretext: just after Bryant Novak disclosed the second investigation on Substack, Eastman’s concerns about her suddenly became so acute that it bypassed the two-semester review process its own policy required before dismissal. FIRE lambasted the university for this egregious betrayal of due process and charged that the expulsion — taking place amidst baseless legal threats and conflicts of interest — was retaliation against Bryant Novak for speech Rochester’s policies protected.
Bryant Novak says it was Eastman itself that endangered her academic progress. After she reported his behavior, she says, “They let Neil [Varon] have control over my degree recital, which is the centerpiece of my degree. I mean, it was retaliatory. He put material on it that was outlandishly difficult — so much so that two guest faculty intervened and said, ‘This is not okay.’ One of them actually said directly to me, ‘That is a giant middle finger from him to you.’ I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to call it sabotage. They did ultimately change it, although you’re supposed to have up to a year to work on this. I was left with two months. And then they were trying to get me out the door. It was very, very clear they wanted me out in any way possible. They created a situation that was unsustainable.”
“There are consequences either way. There are consequences to yourself if you stay silent. There are consequences out in the world if you speak out.” (Smiley Photography)
The situation became so upsetting that she began seeing a university therapist. In her final semester, at the therapist’s request, she started going multiple times a week. “I was just kind of personally deteriorating,” Bryant Novak recalls. “I was honestly kind of having a breakdown.” She spent roughly a month working through her difficulties with her professors and her therapist, who was willing to offer the school documentation of her situation. In turn, Bryant Novak offered to submit that documentation to the school, but says that “a week later,” the school “responded with an expulsion letter.”
In the broader Eastman community, Bryant Novak was shunned by what she describes as a “cultish culture.” Online, including on FIRE’s own social mediaposts, her classmates have left comments smearing her reputation. Some think their interpersonal issues with Bryant Novak, or whatever shortcomings they see in her as a student or conductor, justify her expulsion.
But being unpopular does not cost you your rights. It does not strip you of due process protections. It does not neuter your expressive freedom.
Bryant Novak sees her case as part of a larger trend. This isn’t the first time Eastman has allegedly blacklisted a student for standing up against misconduct. And beyond its Rochester campus, other classical music artists have suffered similar fates for stepping forward. Bryant Novak has no illusions about the conservatoryculture she sees as responsible. “The culture’s awful. It just is,” she says. “Everybody knows it. But at the same time, the music is phenomenal.”
She references a case, documented in New York Magazine, in which an alleged rape victim and an ally were pushed out of the New York Philharmonic and bullied by their peers for speaking up while the accused perpetrators remained. “That story jolted me,” she says. “And now I’m living my own version of it. People assume we’ve moved past this stuff. But no, speech is still powerful. People are still afraid of it. And they’ll try to shut you up.”
Reflecting on it all, Rebecca says that though she is grateful for FIRE’s help, she found it hard to believe she needed it for something like this. “You know, I wasn’t in a Gaza protest. It wasn’t that. It was just saying: ‘Hey, harassment is bad. Can you stop?’ The fact that speaking out against harassment is controversial in this space? That says a lot.”
Still, Bryant Novak refuses to be silenced. In April, she submitted a 200-page complaint to the New York State Division of Human Rights under penalty of perjury. Believing sunlight is the best disinfectant, she is documenting everything and wants it all out in the open. “If there’s an online Neil Varon fan club,” she quips, “I think that’s good for us to know. Surface it all.”
As for her future? “I still want to conduct,” she says. “But more than that, I want a world where women can do this without fear.”
Pausing to think about it, she says, “There are consequences either way. There are consequences to yourself if you stay silent. There are consequences out in the world if you speak out. I prefer the consequences out in the world.”
