Tag: HEI

  • Higher Education Inquirer : HEI Investigation: Campus.edu

    Higher Education Inquirer : HEI Investigation: Campus.edu

    In a sector under constant strain, Campus.edu is being heralded by some as the future of community college—and by others as a slick repackaging of the troubled for-profit college model. What many don’t realize is that before it became Campus.edu, the company was known as MTI College, a private, for-profit trade school based in Sacramento, California.

    Campus.edu rebranded in 2020 under tech entrepreneur Tade Oyerinde, is backed by nearly $100 million in venture capital. Campus now markets itself as a tech-powered alternative to traditional community colleges—and a lifeline for students underserved by conventional higher ed.

    The rebranding, however, raises red flags. While Campus.edu pitches a student-first mission with attractive promises—zero-cost tuition, free laptops, elite educators—the model has echoes of the troubled for-profit sector, with privatization, outsourcing, and digital-first delivery taking precedence over public accountability and academic governance.

    The Promises: What Campus.edu Offers

    Campus.edu markets itself with a clean, six-step path to success. The pitch is aspirational, accessible, and designed to appeal to working-class students, first-generation college-goers, and those shut out of elite institutions. Here’s what the company promises:

    1. Straightforward Application – A simple application process, followed by matching with an admissions advisor who helps identify a student’s purpose and educational fit.

    2. Tech for Those Who Need It – A free laptop and Wi-Fi access for students who lack them, ensuring digital inclusion.

    3. Personal Success Coach – Each student is assigned a personal success coach, offering free tutoring, career advising, and 24/7 access to wellness services.

    4. Elite Educators – Courses are taught live via Zoom by faculty who also teach at top universities like Stanford and Columbia.

    5. Enduring Support – Whether transferring to a four-year college or entering the workforce, Campus promises help with building skills and networks.

    6. More Learning, Less Debt – For Pell Grant-eligible students, Campus markets its programs as costing nothing out-of-pocket, with some students completing degrees debt-free.

    It’s a compelling narrative—combining social mobility, digital access, and educational prestige into a neat online package.

    Behind the Curtain: MTI College and the For-Profit Legacy

    Campus.edu did not rise out of nowhere. It emerged from the bones of MTI College, a long-running, accredited for-profit vocational school. MTI offered hands-on training in legal, IT, cosmetology, and health fields—typical offerings in the for-profit world. The purchase and transformation of MTI into Campus.edu allowed Oyerinde to retain accreditation, avoiding the long and uncertain process of seeking approval for a brand-new college.

    This kind of maneuver—buying a for-profit and relaunching it under a new brand—is not new. We’ve seen similar strategies with Kaplan (now Purdue Global), Ashford (now the University of Arizona Global Campus), and Grand Canyon University. What makes Campus.edu unique is the degree to which it blends Silicon Valley aesthetics with the structural DNA of a for-profit college.

    Missing Data, Big Promises

    Campus.edu boasts high engagement and satisfaction, but as of now, no independent data on student completion, debt outcomes, or long-term career impact is publicly available. The company remains in its early stages, with aggressive growth goals and millions in investor backing—but little regulatory scrutiny.

    With investors like Sam Altman (OpenAI), Jason Citron (Discord), and Bloomberg Beta, the pressure to scale is intense. But scale can come at the expense of quality, especially when students are promised the moon.

    Marketing Meets Memory

    Campus.edu is savvy. Its marketing strikes all the right notes: digital equity, economic mobility, mental health, and student empowerment. It presents itself as the antidote to everything wrong with higher education.

    But as its past as MTI College shows, branding can obscure history. And as for-profit operators adapt to a new digital age, it’s essential to distinguish innovation from opportunism. Without transparency, regulation, and democratic oversight, models like Campus.edu could replicate the same old exploitation—with better user interfaces.

    The stakes are high. For students already at the margins, a false promise can be more damaging than no promise at all.

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  • HEI Supports Upcoming Boycotts and Strikes

    HEI Supports Upcoming Boycotts and Strikes

    The Higher Education Inquirer (HEI) is in solidarity with nonviolent protests against the Trump administration.  Two upcoming events include a 24-hour boycott of Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy (February 28th) and a 10-day General Strike. We hope enough people join these and other nonviolent protests to make our messages heard loudly enough. To our readers, if you know of any public protests and other nonviolent acts of civil disobedience that we can highlight, please contact us.  

    Related links:

    Protests Under Trump 207-2021 (Pressman, et al, 2022)

    Timeline of protests against Donald Trump (Wikipedia)

    List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States (Wikipedia)

    Methods of Student Nonviolent Resistance (2024) 

    Democratic Protests on Campus: Modeling the Better World We Seek (Annelise Orleck)

    Elite Universities on Lockdown. Protestors Regroup. (2024)

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  • HEI and the Nature of Work

    HEI and the Nature of Work

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  • Higher Education Inquirer : HEI Resources 2025

    Higher Education Inquirer : HEI Resources 2025

    [Editor’s Note: Please let us know of any additions or corrections.]

    Books

    • Alexander, Bryan (2020). Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education. Johns Hopkins Press.  
    • Alexander, Bryan (2023).  Universities on Fire. Johns Hopkins Press.  
    • Angulo,
      A. (2016). Diploma Mills: How For-profit Colleges Stiffed Students,
      Taxpayers, and the American Dream. Johns Hopkins University Press.
    • Archibald, R. and Feldman, D. (2017). The Road Ahead for America’s Colleges & Universities. Oxford University Press.
    • Armstrong, E. and Hamilton, L. (2015). Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality. Harvard University Press.
    • Arum, R. and Roksa, J. (2011). Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. University of Chicago Press. 
    • Baldwin, Davarian (2021). In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities. Bold Type Books.  
    • Bennett, W. and Wilezol, D. (2013). Is
      College Worth It?: A Former United States Secretary of Education and a
      Liberal Arts Graduate Expose the Broken Promise of Higher Education.
      Thomas Nelson.
    • Berg, I. (1970). “The Great Training Robbery: Education and Jobs.” Praeger.
    • Berman, Elizabeth P. (2012). Creating the Market University.  Princeton University Press. 
    • Berry, J. (2005). Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education. Monthly Review Press.
    • Best, J. and Best, E. (2014) The Student Loan Mess: How Good
      Intentions Created a Trillion-Dollar Problem. Atkinson Family
      Foundation.

      • Bledstein, Burton J. (1976). The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America. Norton.

    • Bogue, E. Grady and Aper, Jeffrey.  (2000). Exploring the Heritage
      of American Higher Education: The Evolution of Philosophy and Policy. 
    • Bok, D. (2003). Universities in the Marketplace : The Commercialization of Higher Education.  Princeton University Press. 
    • Bousquet, M. (2008). How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low Wage Nation. NYU Press.
    • Brennan, J & Magness, P. (2019). Cracks in the Ivory Tower. Oxford University Press. 
    • Brint, S., & Karabel, J. The Diverted Dream: Community colleges
      and the promise of educational opportunity in America, 1900–1985. Oxford
      University Press. (1989).
    • Cabrera, Nolan L. (2024) Whiteness in the Ivory Tower: Why Don’t We Notice the White Students Sitting Together in the Quad? Teachers College Press.
    • Cabrera, Nolan L. (2018). White Guys on Campus: Racism, White Immunity, and the Myth of “Post-Racial” Higher Education. Rutgers University Press.
    • Caplan, B. (2018). The Case Against Education: Why the Education
      System Is a Waste of Time and Money. Princeton University Press.
    • Cappelli, P. (2015). Will College Pay Off?: A Guide to the Most Important Financial Decision You’ll Ever Make. Public Affairs.
    • Carney, Cary Michael (1999). Native American Higher Education in the United States. Transaction.
    • Childress, H. (2019). The Adjunct Underclass: How America’s Colleges
      Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission University of
      Chicago Press.
    • Cohen, Arthur M. (1998). The Shaping of American Higher Education:
      Emergence and Growth of the Contemporary System. San Francisco:
      Jossey-Bass.
    • Collins, Randall. (1979/2019) The Credential Society. Academic Press. Columbia University Press. 
    • Cottom, T. (2016). Lower Ed: How For-profit Colleges Deepen Inequality in America
    • Domhoff, G. William (2021). Who Rules America? 8th Edition. Routledge.
    • Donoghue, F. (2008). The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities.
    • Dorn, Charles. (2017) For the Common Good: A New History of Higher Education in America Cornell University Press.
    • Eaton,
      Charlie.  (2022) Bankers in the Ivory Tower: The Troubling Rise of
      Financiers in US Higher Education. University of Chicago Press.
    • Eisenmann, Linda. (2006) Higher Education for Women in Postwar America, 1945–1965. Johns Hopkins U. Press.
    • Espenshade, T., Walton Radford, A.(2009). No Longer Separate, Not
      Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life.
      Princeton University Press.
    • Faragher, John Mack and Howe, Florence, ed. (1988). Women and Higher Education in American History. Norton.
    • Farber, Jerry (1972).  The University of Tomorrowland.  Pocket Books. 
    • Freeman, Richard B. (1976). The Overeducated American. Academic Press.
    • Gaston, P. (2014). Higher Education Accreditation. Stylus.
    • Ginsberg, B. (2013). The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All Administrative University and Why It Matters
    • Gleason, Philip. Contending with Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth Century. Oxford U. Press, 1995.
    • Golden, D. (2006). The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling
      Class Buys its Way into Elite Colleges — and Who Gets Left Outside the
      Gates.
    • Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream.
    • Graeber, David (2018) Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. Simon and Schuster. 

      • Groeger, Cristina Viviana (2021). The Education Trap: Schools and the Remaking of Inequality in Boston. Harvard Press.

    • Hamilton, Laura T. and Kelly Nielson (2021) Broke: The Racial Consequences of Underfunding Public Universities

      • Hampel, Robert L. (2017). Fast and Curious: A History of Shortcuts in American Education. Rowman & Littlefield.

    • Johnson, B. et al. (2003). Steal This University: The Rise of the Corporate University and the Academic Labor Movement
    • Keats, John (1965) The Sheepskin Psychosis. Lippincott.
    • Kelchen, R. (2018). Higher Education Accountability. Johns Hopkins University Press.
    • Kezar, A., DePaola, T, and Scott, D. The Gig Academy: Mapping Labor in the Neoliberal University. Johns Hopkins Press. 
    • Kinser, K. (2006). From Main Street to Wall Street: The Transformation of For-profit Higher Education
    • Kozol, Jonathan (2006). The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. Crown. 
    • Kozol, Jonathan (1992). Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools. Harper Perennial.
    • Labaree,
      David F. (2017). A Perfect Mess: The Unlikely Ascendancy of American Higher
      Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
    • Labaree,
      David (1997) How to Succeed in School without Really Learning: The
      Credentials Race in American Education, Yale University Press.
    • Lafer, Gordon (2004). The Job Training Charade. Cornell University Press.  
    • Loehen, James (1995). Lies My Teacher Told Me. The New Press. 
    • Lohse, Andrew (2014).  Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy: A Memoir.  Thomas Dunne Books. 
    • Lucas, C.J. American higher education: A history. (1994).
    • Lukianoff,
      Greg and Jonathan Haidt (2018). The Coddling of the American Mind: How
      Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.
      Penguin Press.
    • Maire, Quentin (2021). Credential Market. Springer.
    • Mandery, Evan (2022) . Poison Ivy: How Elite Colleges Divide Us. New Press. 
    • Marti, Eduardo (2016). America’s Broken Promise: Bridging the Community College Achievement Gap. Excelsior College Press. 
    • Mettler, Suzanne ‘Degrees of Inequality: How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream. Basic Books. (2014)
    • Newfeld, C. (2011). Unmaking the Public University.
    • Newfeld, C. (2016). The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them.
    • Paulsen, M. and J.C. Smart (2001). The Finance of Higher Education: Theory, Research, Policy & Practice.  Agathon Press. 
    • Rosen, A.S. (2011). Change.edu. Kaplan Publishing. 
    • Reynolds, G. (2012). The Higher Education Bubble. Encounter Books.
    • Roth, G. (2019) The Educated Underclass: Students and the Promise of Social Mobility. Pluto Press
    • Ruben,
      Julie. The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation
      and the Marginalization of Morality. University Of Chicago Press.
      (1996).
    • Rudolph, F. (1991) The American College and University: A History.
    • Rushdoony, R. (1972). The Messianic Character of American Education. The Craig Press.
    • Selingo, J. (2013). College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students.
    • Shelton, Jon (2023). The Education Myth: How Human Capital Trumped Social Democracy. Cornell University Press.
    • Sinclair, U. (1923). The Goose-Step: A Study of American Education.
    • Stevens, Mitchell L. (2009). Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites. Harvard University Press. 
    • Stodghill, R. (2015). Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America’s Black Colleges and Culture. 
    • Tamanaha, B. (2012). Failing Law Schools. The University of Chicago Press. 
    • Tatum, Beverly (1997). Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria. Basic Books
    • Taylor,
      Barret J. and Brendan Cantwell (2019). Unequal Higher Education:
      Wealth, Status and Student Opportunity. Rutgers University Press.
    • Thelin, John R. (2019) A History of American Higher Education. Johns Hopkins U. Press.
    • Tolley, K. (2018). Professors in the Gig Economy: Unionizing Adjunct Faculty in America. Johns Hopkins University Press.
    • Twitchell, James B. (2005). Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld. Simon and Schuster.
    • Vedder, R. (2004). Going Broke By Degree: Why College Costs Too Much.
    • Veysey Lawrence R. (1965).The emergence of the American university.
    • Washburn, J. (2006). University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education
    • Washington,
      Harriet A. (2008). Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical
      Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present.
      Anchor. 
    • Whitman, David (2021). The Profits of Failure: For-Profit Colleges and the Closing of the Conservative Mind. Cypress House.
    • Wilder, C.D. (2013). Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities. 
    • Woodson, Carter D. (1933). The Mis-Education of the Negro.  
    • Zemsky,
      Robert, Susan Shaman, and Susan Campbell Baldridge (2020). The College
      Stress Test:Tracking Institutional Futures across a Crowded Market.
      Johns Hopkins University Press. 

     

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