Tag: Inquirer

  • Higher Education Inquirer : End of an Era

    Higher Education Inquirer : End of an Era

    We extend our deepest gratitude to the many courageous voices who have contributed to the Higher Education Inquirer over the years. Through research, reporting, whistleblowing, analysis, and public service, you have exposed inequities, challenged powerful interests, and helped the public understand the realities of higher education.

    Special thanks to:

    Bryan Alexander (Future Trends Forum), Stephen Burd (New America), Ann Bowers (Debt Collective), James Michael Brodie (Black and Gold Project Foundation), Randall Collins (UPenn), Keil Dumsch, Garrett Fitzgerald (College Recon), Richard Fossey (Condemned to Debt), Erica Gallagher (2U Whistleblower), Cliff Gibson III (Gibson & Keith), Henry Giroux (McMaster University), Terri Givens (University of British Columbia), Nathan Grawe (Carleton College), Michael Green (UNLV), Michael Hainline (Restore the GI Bill for Veterans), Debra Hale Shelton (Arkansas Times), David Halperin (Republic Report), Bill Harrington (Croatan Institute), Phil Hill (On EdTech), Robert Jensen (UT Austin), Seth Kahn (WCUP), Hank Kalet (Rutgers), Ben Kaufman (Protect Borrowers), Robert Kelchen (University of Tennessee), Neil Kraus (UWRF), LACCD Whistleblower, Michelle Lee (whistleblower), Wendy Lynne Lee (Bloomsburg University of PA), Emmanuel Legeard (whistleblower), Adam Looney (University of Utah), Alec MacGillis (ProPublica), Jon Marcus (Hechinger Report), Steven Mintz (University of Texas), Annelise Orleck (Dartmouth), , Margaret Kimberly (Black Agenda Report), Austin Longhorn (UT student loan debt whistleblower), Debbi Potts (whistleblower), Jack Metzger (Roosevelt University), Derek Newton (The Cheat Sheet), Jennifer Reed (University of Akron), Kevin Richert (Idaho Education News), Gary Roth (Rutgers-Newark), Mark Salisbury (TuitionFit), Stephanie Saul (NY Times), Christopher Serbagi (Serbagi Law), Bill Skimmyhorn (William & Mary), Peter Simi (Chapman University), Gary Stocker (College Viability), Strelnikov, Theresa Sweet (Sweet v Cardona), Harry Targ (Purdue University), Mark Twain Jr. (business insider), Michael Vasquez (The Tributary), Richard Wolff (Economic Update), Helena Worthen (Higher Ed Labor United), DW (South American Correspondent), Heidi Weber (Whistleblower Revolution), government officials who have supported transparency and accountability, and the countless other educators, researchers, whistleblowers, advocates, and public servants whose work strengthens our understanding of higher education.

    Together, you form a resilient network of knowledge, courage, and public service, showing that collective insight can illuminate even the most entrenched systems. Your dedication has been, and continues to be, invaluable.
    Dahn Shaulis and Glen McGhee

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  • Higher Education Inquirer : A Syllabus of Resistance

    Higher Education Inquirer : A Syllabus of Resistance

    Higher education today demands that we strip away illusions. The university is no longer a sanctuary of truth but a contested battleground of austerity, automation, and alienation. Students, adjuncts, and staff are caught in a cycle of debt, precarity, and surveillance. To resist, we need not another glossy strategic plan but a syllabus — a curriculum of solidarity, transparency, and rehumanization.

    Debt defines the student experience. Student loan balances now exceed $1.77 trillion, and repayment programs like PSLF and income-driven repayment offer only partial relief. In 2024, as federal student loan payments resumed after a pandemic pause, millions of borrowers simply refused to pay, transforming individual debt into collective action. The Debt Collective has organized strikes and campaigns to cancel student debt, reframing borrowing as a political issue rather than a private burden. This movement challenges whether the entire financing model of higher education can survive.

    Faculty labor is equally precarious. More than seventy percent of instructors are contingent, often earning poverty wages without benefits. At Harrisburg Area Community College, over 200 faculty went on strike in November 2025 after years of stalled negotiations, exemplifying a growing national labor movement against stagnant pay and weakened job security. Adjunct faculty unions at Rutgers and elsewhere continue to push back against layoffs and austerity measures. The crisis of contingent labor has moved from quiet exploitation to open confrontation.

    Climate crisis compounds the meltdown. Universities expand globally in a frenzy of collegemania, while ignoring ecological collapse. Student activists demand divestment from fossil fuels, but boards often resist. At Princeton, campaigners uncovered that the university owns a controlling stake in PetroTiger, a fossil fuel company, profiting directly from extraction. Edge Hill University in the UK recently committed to divest from both fossil fuels and border security companies after sustained student pressure. The University of Illinois, despite pledging to divest years ago, still faces protests demanding action. These campaigns show that climate justice is inseparable from educational justice.

    Surveillance intensifies alienation. Universities increasingly deploy corporate partnerships and AI tools to monitor student dissent. At the University of Houston, administrators contracted with Dataminr to scrape students’ social media activity during Palestine solidarity protests. Amnesty International has warned that tools like Palantir and Babel Street pose surveillance threats to student activists. Truthout reports that campuses have become laboratories for military-grade surveillance technology, punishing dissent and eroding trust. Education becomes transactional and disciplinary, leaving students reporting higher levels of stress and disconnection.

    Resistance must also be moral. University governance remains hierarchical and opaque, resembling corporate boards more than democratic institutions. Calls for transparency and veritas are drowned out by branding campaigns and political capture. A pedagogy of resistance must be rooted in temperance, nonviolence, and solidarity. Rehumanization is the antidote to robostudents, roboworkers, and robocolleges. It is the refusal to be bots, debtors, or disposable labor, and the insistence on reclaiming education as a public good.

    Developing a Democratic Syllabus of Resistance

    This syllabus is not a catalog of courses but a call to action. Debt strikes, adjunct unionization, climate divestment campaigns, and surveillance pushback are fragments of a larger curriculum of resistance. But this syllabus is incomplete without you. Readers are invited to join in creating it — to add new units, case studies, and strategies that reflect the lived realities of students, workers, and communities.

    For inspiration, see the Higher Education Inquirer’s earlier piece on Methods of Student Nonviolent Resistance, which documents the long history of campus activism and the evolving tactics of protest, persuasion, and noncooperation. That archive reminds us that resistance is not only possible but essential.

    The classroom is everywhere, and the time is now.

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  • Higher Education Inquirer : $8 Billion in Liberty University Debt: Engaging a Faith-Driven Constituency

    Higher Education Inquirer : $8 Billion in Liberty University Debt: Engaging a Faith-Driven Constituency

    More than 290,000 Liberty University borrowers owe over $8 billion in federal student loans, yet most remain politically disengaged. Many are veterans or enrolled in accelerated master’s programs often criticized as “robocolleges.” What sets this population apart is not just the size of their debt, but their faith and social conservatism—a demographic frequently overlooked by traditional student debt advocacy.

    For unions and nonprofit organizations committed to civic engagement and economic justice, this represents a unique opportunity: mobilize borrowers in ways that align with their values, rather than against them. Messaging that highlights fairness, personal responsibility, and stewardship—core Christian principles—can resonate deeply while framing student debt as a challenge to both economic and moral accountability.

    These borrowers are approaching peak voting age, meaning that engagement now could influence local and national politics in the coming election cycles. Institutions like the University of Phoenix show the scale of the opportunity: over one million borrowers owe more than $21 billion nationwide, suggesting that faith-aligned organizing strategies could have broad impact.

    The strategy is clear: educate borrowers about their rights, expose predatory practices, and organize them into civic action, all while respecting their values and beliefs. Done thoughtfully, this approach can build trust and spur meaningful participation in democracy, turning a population long overlooked into an informed, motivated constituency.

    The coming years will test whether unions and nonprofits seize this moment. Hundreds of thousands of conservative, Christian borrowers could become a powerful force for accountability and change—but only if engagement is value-driven, strategic, and timely.

    Sources:

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  • Higher Education Inquirer Resources, Spring 2026

    Higher Education Inquirer Resources, Spring 2026

    [Editor’s note: Please let us know of any corrections, additions, or broken links.  We always welcome your feedback.]  

    This list traces how U.S. higher education has been reshaped by neoliberal policies, privatization, and data-driven management, producing deepening inequalities across race and class. The works examine the rise of academic capitalism, growing student debt, corporatization, and the influence of private interests—from for-profit colleges to rankings and surveillance systems. Together, they depict a sector drifting away from its public mission and democratic ideals, while highlighting the structural forces that created today’s crises and the reforms needed to reverse them.

    Ahn, Ilsup (2023). The Ethics of Educational Healthcare: Student Debt, Neoliberalism, and Justice. Palgrave Macmillan.
    Alexander, Bryan (2020). Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education. Johns Hopkins Press.
    Alexander, Bryan (2023). Universities on Fire. Johns Hopkins Press.

    Alexander, Bryan (2026). Peak Higher Ed. Johns Hopkins Press.

    Angulo, A. (2016). Diploma Mills: How For-profit Colleges Stiffed Students, Taxpayers, and the American Dream. Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Apthekar, Bettina (1966). Big Business and the American University. New Outlook Publishers.

    Apthekar, Bettina (1969). Higher Education and the Student Rebellion in the United States, 1960–1969: A Bibliography.

    Archibald, R. & Feldman, D. (2017). The Road Ahead for America’s Colleges & Universities. Oxford University Press.

    Armstrong, E. & Hamilton, L. (2015). Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality. Harvard University Press.

    Arum, R. & 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.

    Barr, Andrew & Turner, Sarah (2023). The Labor Market Returns to Higher Education. Oxford University Press.

    Bennett, W. & Wilezol, D. (2013). Is College Worth It? Thomas Nelson.

    Berg, I. (1970). The Great Training Robbery: Education and Jobs. Praeger.

    Berman, Elizabeth P. (2012). Creating the Market University. Princeton University Press.

    Berman, Elizabeth Popp & Stevens, Mitchell (eds.) (2019). The University Under Pressure. Emerald Publishing.

    Berry, J. (2005). Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education. Monthly Review Press.

    Berry, J. and Worthen, H. (2021). Power Despite Precarity: Strategies for the Contingent Faculty Movement in Higher Education. Pluto Books.

    Best, J. & Best, E. (2014). The Student Loan Mess. Atkinson Family Foundation.

    Bledstein, Burton J. (1976). The Culture of Professionalism. Norton.

    Bogue, E. Grady & Aper, Jeffrey (2000). Exploring the Heritage of American Higher Education.

    Bok, D. (2003). Universities in the Marketplace. Princeton University Press.

    Bousquet, M. (2008). How the University Works. NYU Press.

    Brennan, J. & Magness, P. (2019). Cracks in the Ivory Tower. Oxford University Press.

    Brint, S. & Karabel, J. (1989). The Diverted Dream. Oxford University Press.

    Burawoy, Michael & Mitchell, Katharyne (eds.) (2020). The University, Neoliberalism, and the Politics of Inequality. Routledge.

    Burd, Stephen (2024). Lifting the Veil on Enrollment Management: How a Powerful Industry is Limiting Social Mobility in American Higher Education. Harvard Education Press

    Cabrera, Nolan L. (2018). White Guys on Campus. Rutgers University Press.

    Cabrera, Nolan L. (2024). Whiteness in the Ivory Tower. Teachers College Press.

    Cantwell, Brendan & Robertson, Susan (eds.) (2021). Research Handbook on the Politics of Higher Education. Edward Elgar.

    Caplan, B. (2018). The Case Against Education. Princeton University Press.

    Cappelli, P. (2015). Will College Pay Off? Public Affairs.

    Carney, Cary Michael (1999). Native American Higher Education in the United States. Transaction.

    Cassuto, Leonard (2015). The Graduate School Mess. Harvard University Press.

    Caterine, Christopher (2020). Leaving Academia. Princeton Press.

    Childress, H. (2019). The Adjunct Underclass. University of Chicago Press.

    Chomsky, Noam (2014). Masters of Mankind. Haymarket Books.

    Choudaha, Rahul & de Wit, Hans (eds.) (2019). International Student Recruitment and Mobility. Routledge.

    Cohen, Arthur M. (1998). The Shaping of American Higher Education. Jossey-Bass.

    Collins, Randall (1979/2019). The Credential Society. Columbia University Press.

    Cottom, Tressie McMillan (2016). Lower Ed.

    Cottom, Tressie McMillan & Darity, William A. Jr. (eds.) (2018). For-Profit Universities. Routledge.

    Domhoff, G. William (2021). Who Rules America? Routledge.

    Donoghue, F. (2008). The Last Professors.

    Dorn, Charles (2017). For the Common Good. Cornell University Press.

    Eaton, Charlie (2022). Bankers in the Ivory Tower. University of Chicago Press.

    Eisenmann, Linda (2006). Higher Education for Women in Postwar America. Johns Hopkins Press.

    Espenshade, T. & Walton Radford, A. (2009). No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal. Princeton University Press.

    Faragher, John Mack & Howe, Florence (eds.) (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.

    Gildersleeve, Ryan Evely & Tierney, William (2017). The Contemporary Landscape of Higher Education. Routledge.

    Ginsberg, B. (2013). The Fall of the Faculty. Oxford University Press.

    Giroux, Henry (1983). Theory and Resistance in Education. Bergin and Garvey Press.

    Giroux, Henry (2014). Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education. Haymarket Books.

    Giroux, Henry (2022). Pedagogy of Resistance. Bloomsbury Academic.

    Gleason, Philip (1995). Contending with Modernity. Oxford University Press.

    Golden, D. (2006). The Price of Admission.

    Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). Paying the Price.

    Graeber, David (2018). Bullshit Jobs. Simon and Schuster.

    Groeger, Cristina Viviana (2021). The Education Trap. Harvard Press.

    Hamilton, Laura T. & Kelly Nielson (2021). Broke.

    Hampel, Robert L. (2017). Fast and Curious. Rowman & Littlefield.

    Hirschman, Daniel & Berman, Elizabeth Popp (eds.) (2021). The Sociology of Higher Education.

    Johnson, B. et al. (2003). Steal This University.

    Kamenetz, Anya (2006). Generation Debt. Riverhead.

    Keats, John (1965). The Sheepskin Psychosis. Lippincott.

    Kelchen, Robert (2018). Higher Education Accountability. Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Kezar, A., DePaola, T., & Scott, D. (2019). The Gig Academy. Johns Hopkins Press.

    Kinser, K. (2006). From Main Street to Wall Street.

    Kozol, Jonathan (1992). Savage Inequalities. Harper Perennial.

    Kozol, Jonathan (2006). The Shame of the Nation. Crown.

    Kraus, Neil (2023). The Fantasy Economy: Neoliberalism, Inequality, and the Education Reform Movement. Temple University Press, 2023.

    Labaree, David (1997). How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning. Yale University Press.

    Labaree, David F. (2017). A Perfect Mess. University of Chicago 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. Thomas Dunne Books.

    Lucas, C.J. (1994). American Higher Education: A History.

    Lukianoff, Greg & Haidt, Jonathan (2018). The Coddling of the American Mind. Penguin Press.

    Maire, Quentin (2021). Credential Market. Springer.

    Mandery, Evan (2022). Poison Ivy. New Press.

    Marginson, Simon (2016). The Dream Is Over. University of California Press.

    Marti, Eduardo (2016). America’s Broken Promise. Excelsior College Press.

    Mettler, Suzanne (2014). Degrees of Inequality. Basic Books.

    Morris, Dan & Targ, Harry (2023). From Upton Sinclair’s ‘Goose Step’ to the Neoliberal University.

    Newfeld, C. (2011). Unmaking the Public University.

    Newfeld, C. (2016). The Great Mistake.

    Newfield, Christopher (2023). Metrics-Driven. Johns Hopkins Press.

    O’Neil, Cathy (2016). Weapons of Math Destruction. Crown.

    Palfrey, John (2020). Safe Spaces, Brave Spaces. MIT Press.

    Paulsen, M. & Smart, J.C. (2001). The Finance of Higher Education. Agathon Press.

    Piketty, Thomas (2020). Capital and Ideology. Harvard University Press.

    Reynolds, G. (2012). The Higher Education Bubble. Encounter Books.

    Rojstaczer, Stuart (1999). Gone for Good. Oxford University Press.

    Rosen, A.S. (2011). Change.edu. Kaplan Publishing.

    Roth, G. (2019). The Educated Underclass. Pluto Press.

    Ruben, Julie (1996). The Making of the Modern University. University of Chicago Press.

    Rudolph, F. (1991). The American College and University.

    Rushdoony, R. (1972). The Messianic Character of American Education. The Craig Press.

    Schrecker, Ellen (2010). The Lost Soul of Higher Education: New Press.

    Selingo, J. (2013). College Unbound.

    Shelton, Jon (2023). The Education Myth. Cornell University Press.

    Simpson, Christopher (1999). Universities and Empire. New Press.

    Sinclair, U. (1923). The Goose-Step.

    Slaughter, Sheila & Rhoades, Gary (2004). Academic Capitalism and the New Economy. Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Smyth, John (2017). The Toxic University. Palgrave Macmillan.

    Sperber, Murray (2000). Beer and Circus. Holt.

    Stein, Sharon (2022). Unsettling the University. Johns Hopkins Press.

    Stevens, Mitchell L. (2009). Creating a Class. Harvard University Press.

    Stodghill, R. (2015). Where Everybody Looks Like Me.

    Tamanaha, B. (2012). Failing Law Schools. University of Chicago Press.

    Tatum, Beverly (1997). Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? Basic Books.

    Taylor, Barret J. & Cantwell, Brendan (2019). Unequal Higher Education. Rutgers University Press.

    Thelin, John R. (2019). A History of American Higher Education. Johns Hopkins Press.

    Tolley, K. (2018). Professors in the Gig Economy. Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Trow, Martin (1973). Problems in the Transition from Elite to Mass Higher Education. Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. 

    Twitchell, James B. (2005). Branded Nation. Simon and Schuster.

    Vedder, R. (2004). Going Broke By Degree.

    Veysey, Lawrence R. (1965). The Emergence of the American University.

    Washburn, J. (2006). University Inc.

    Washington, Harriet A. (2008). Medical Apartheid. Anchor.

    Whitman, David (2021). The Profits of Failure. Cypress House.

    Wilder, C.D. (2013). Ebony and Ivy.

    Winks, Robin (1996). Cloak and Gown. Yale University Press.

    Woodson, Carter D. (1933). The Mis-Education of the Negro.

    Zaloom, Caitlin (2019). Indebted. Princeton University Press.

    Zemsky, Robert, Shaman, Susan & Baldridge, Susan Campbell (2020). The College Stress Test. Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Zuboff, Shoshana (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs. 

    Activists, Coalitions, Innovators, and Alternative Voices

     College Choice and Career Planning Tools

    Innovation and Reform

    Higher Education Policy

    Data Sources

    Trade publications

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  • Higher Education Inquirer : Higher Education Without Illusions

    Higher Education Inquirer : Higher Education Without Illusions

    In 2025, the landscape of higher education is dominated by contradictions, crises, and the relentless churn of what might be called “collegemania.” Underneath the polished veneer of university marketing—the glossy brochures, viral TikToks, and celebrity endorsements—lurks a network of systemic pressures that students, faculty, and society at large must navigate. The hashtags trending below the masthead of Higher Education Without Illusions capture the full spectrum of these pressures: #accountability, #adjunct, #AI, #AImeltdown, #algo, #alienation, #anomie, #anxiety, #austerity, #BDR, #bot, #boycott, #BRICS, #climate, #collegemania, #collegemeltdown, #crypto, #divest, #doomloop, #edugrift, #enshittification, #FAFSA, #greed, #incel, #jobless, #kleptocracy, #medugrift, #moralcapital, #nokings, #nonviolence, #PSLF, #QOL, #rehumanization, #resistance, #robocollege, #robostudent, #roboworker, #solidarity, #strikedebt, #surveillance, #temperance, #TPUSA, #transparency, #Trump, #veritas.

    Taken together, these words map the terrain of higher education as it exists today: a fragile ecosystem strained by debt, automation, political polarization, and climate urgency. Students are increasingly treated as commodities (#robostudent, #strikedebt), faculty are underpaid and precarious (#adjunct, #medugrift), and universities themselves are subjected to the whims of markets and algorithms (#algo, #AImeltdown, #robocollege).

    Financial pressures are unrelenting. The FAFSA system, once intended as a bridge to opportunity, now functions as a tool of surveillance and debt management (#FAFSA, #BDR). Public service loan forgiveness (#PSLF) continues to be delayed or denied, leaving graduates to navigate the twin anxieties of indebtedness and joblessness (#jobless, #doomloop). Meanwhile, austerity measures squeeze institutional budgets, often at the expense of research, mental health support, and academic freedom (#austerity, #anomie, #anxiety).

    Automation and artificial intelligence are now central to the higher education ecosystem. AI grading tools, predictive enrollment algorithms, and administrative bots promise efficiency but often produce alienation and ethical dilemmas (#AI, #AImeltdown, #roboworker, #bot). In this context, “robocollege” is not a metaphor but a lived reality for many students navigating hyper-digitized classrooms where human mentorship is increasingly rare.

    Political and cultural currents further complicate the picture. From the influence of conservative campus organizations (#TPUSA, #Trump) to global shifts in power (#BRICS), universities are battlegrounds for ideological and material stakes. Moral capital—the credibility and legitimacy of an institution—is increasingly intertwined with corporate sponsorships, divestment movements, and climate commitments (#moralcapital, #divest, #climate). At the same time, greed and kleptocracy (#greed, #kleptocracy) permeate administration and policy decisions, eroding trust in higher education’s social mission.

    Yet amid this bleakness, there are threads of resistance and rehumanization. Student debt strikes, faculty solidarity networks, and advocacy for transparency (#strikedebt, #solidarity, #transparency, #rehumanization) reveal a persistent desire to reclaim the university as a space of collective flourishing rather than pure financial extraction. Nonviolence (#nonviolence), temperance (#temperance), and boycotts (#boycott) reflect strategic, principled responses to systemic crises, even as anxiety and alienation persist.

    Ultimately, higher education without illusions demands that we confront both the structural and human dimensions of its crises. Universities are not just engines of credentialing and profit—they are social institutions embedded in broader networks of power, ideology, and technology. A recognition of #veritas and #QOL (quality of life) alongside the demands of #collegemania and #enshittification is essential for any hope of reform.

    The hashtags are more than social media markers—they are diagnostics. They chart a system in flux, exposing the frictions between automation and humanity, austerity and access, greed and moral responsibility. They call on all of us—students, educators, policymakers, and citizens—to act with accountability, solidarity, and courage.

    Higher education without illusions is not pessimism; it is clarity. Only by naming the pressures and contradictions can we begin to imagine institutions that serve human flourishing rather than perpetuate cycles of debt, alienation, and social inequality.

    Sources & Further Reading:

    • An American Sickness, Elisabeth Rosenthal

    • Medical Apartheid, Harriet Washington

    • Body and Soul, Alondra Nelson

    • HEI coverage of student debt, adjunct labor, and AI in higher education

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  • Higher Education Inquirer : Teens Who Made A Difference: Barbara Rose Johns

    Higher Education Inquirer : Teens Who Made A Difference: Barbara Rose Johns

    History often portrays social change as the work of seasoned leaders, elected officials, or famous intellectuals. Yet again and again, it is young people—often teenagers with little formal power—who ignite movements that reshape institutions and force nations to confront injustice. Long before they could vote, hold office, or even graduate, these teens recognized wrongs that adults had normalized and acted with courage that altered the course of history.

    Among the most consequential examples in U.S. education history is Barbara Rose Johns, a 16-year-old high school student whose leadership in 1951 helped set in motion events that would culminate in Brown v. Board of Education and the formal end of legalized school segregation.

    In the spring of 1951, Johns was a junior at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. The school, designated for Black students under Jim Crow law, was overcrowded and severely underfunded. Students were taught in makeshift tar-paper shacks without adequate heat. Textbooks and supplies were outdated, and facilities bore little resemblance to those at the nearby white high school. For years, parents and community leaders had petitioned local officials for improvements, but their appeals were ignored.

    Johns concluded that waiting for adults or authorities to act was futile. Acting largely on her own initiative, she secretly organized a student strike. On April 23, 1951, more than 450 students walked out of their classrooms. Johns had planned an assembly in advance, arranging for a speaker and framing the protest not as a request for cosmetic improvements but as a challenge to the underlying injustice of segregation itself. At just 16 years old, she demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of how institutional inequality operated and how public action could force change.

    The strike quickly attracted attention beyond Prince Edward County. It led to involvement from the NAACP, including attorneys Spottswood Robinson and Oliver Hill, and later Thurgood Marshall. What began as a protest against unsafe and unequal facilities evolved into a direct legal challenge to segregated schooling. The resulting case, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, became one of the five cases consolidated into the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

    The personal consequences for Johns were severe. She and her family faced threats and intimidation, and she was sent to live with relatives outside Virginia for her safety. For decades, her role received relatively little public recognition, even as the Brown decision became one of the most celebrated rulings in American history. Yet without her initiative, one of the central cases behind Brown might never have existed.

    Barbara Johns’ story underscores a broader truth about social change: teenagers are not merely passive recipients of policy decisions, especially in education. They experience institutional inequality firsthand, and when they organize, they often articulate moral truths that adults have learned to tolerate or rationalize. From desegregation to contemporary student movements challenging unequal funding, surveillance, gun violence, and climate inaction, youth activism has repeatedly forced institutions to confront contradictions between democratic ideals and lived reality.

    More than seventy years after the Moton High School strike, American education remains deeply unequal. Schools are still segregated by race and income, facilities vary dramatically by zip code, and access to opportunity is uneven. Johns’ legacy remains relevant precisely because the conditions that provoked her action have not fully disappeared. Her story challenges educators, policymakers, and communities to ask why it so often falls to young people to demand justice—and why their leadership is so frequently overlooked.

    Barbara Rose Johns did not wait for permission to make history. She organized, resisted, and changed the trajectory of American education while still a teenager. In remembering her, we are reminded that meaningful change often begins not in boardrooms or legislatures, but in classrooms where students decide that injustice is no longer acceptable.

    Sources

    Barbara Rose Johns, Wikipedia.

    Smithsonian National Museum of American History, “The Moton School Strike, 1951.”

    Library of Congress, Civil Rights History Project, Prince Edward County and Davis v. County School Board.

    National Park Service, Robert Russa Moton High School National Historic Landmark.

    Kluger, Richard. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality.

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  • Higher Education Inquirer : HELU’s Wall-to-Wall & Coast-to-Coast Report: December 2025

    Higher Education Inquirer : HELU’s Wall-to-Wall & Coast-to-Coast Report: December 2025

    To win the higher education system we want will require national, coordinated, multi-union organizing campaigns that build collective power across the sector. As one important step towards this broader goal, HELU is organizing a Northeast Regional Bargaining Summit in Amherst, MA on Jan 9-10, 2026.

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  • Higher Education Inquirer : Understanding U.S. Campus Safety and Mental Health: Guidance for International Students

    Higher Education Inquirer : Understanding U.S. Campus Safety and Mental Health: Guidance for International Students

    The tragic shooting at Brown University in December 2025, which claimed two lives and left nine students wounded, is a stark reminder that even elite U.S. campuses are not immune to violence. For international students, understanding this incident requires placing it in the broader context of the United States’ history of social dangers, treatment of mental illness, and policies affecting foreigners.

    The United States has historically had higher rates of violent crime, including gun-related incidents, than many other developed nations. While campus shootings remain statistically rare, they reflect deeper societal issues: widespread gun access, social inequality, and a culture that often prioritizes armed self-protection over preventative public safety measures. Universities, traditionally viewed as open spaces for learning and discussion, are increasingly sites of surveillance and armed response, reshaping the student experience.

    Foreign students and immigrants may face additional vulnerabilities. Throughout U.S. history, immigrants have often been subject to discrimination, harassment, or violence based on nationality, race, or religion. Universities are not insulated from these pressures, and international students can be particularly susceptible to microaggressions, exclusion, or even targeted hostility. These risks were heightened under the Trump administration, when rhetoric and policies frequently cast foreigners as suspicious or undesirable. Visa restrictions, heightened scrutiny of foreign scholars, and public statements fostering distrust created an environment in which international students might feel unsafe or isolated.

    Mental illness plays a critical role in understanding campus violence, but its treatment in the United States is inconsistent. While many universities provide counseling centers, therapy services, and crisis hotlines, the broader mental health system in the U.S. remains fragmented and under-resourced. Access often depends on insurance coverage, ability to pay, and proximity to care, leaving some individuals untreated or inadequately supported. Cultural stigmas and underdiagnosis can exacerbate the problem, particularly among minority and immigrant populations. International students, unfamiliar with local mental health norms or hesitant to seek care due to cost or cultural barriers, may be less likely to access help until crises arise.

    U.S. universities deploy extensive surveillance systems, emergency protocols, and campus police to respond to threats. These measures aim to mitigate harm once an incident occurs but focus less on prevention of violence or addressing underlying causes, including untreated mental illness. Students are required to participate in drills and safety training, creating a reactive rather than preventative model.

    Compared to other countries, the U.S. approach is distinct. Canadian universities emphasize mental health support and unarmed security. European campuses often maintain open environments with minimal surveillance and preventive intervention strategies. Many Asian universities operate in low-crime contexts with community-based safety measures rather than extensive surveillance. The U.S. approach emphasizes rapid law enforcement response and monitoring, reflecting a society with higher firearm prevalence and less coordinated mental health infrastructure.

    The Brown University tragedy underscores a sobering reality for international students: while the U.S. offers world-class education, it is a nation with elevated risks of violent crime, inconsistent mental health care, and historical and ongoing challenges for foreigners. Awareness, preparedness, community engagement, and proactive mental health support are essential tools for international students navigating higher education in this environment.

    Sources

    The Guardian: Brown University shooting: police release more videos of person of interest as FBI offers reward

    Reuters: Manhunt for Brown University shooter stretches into fourth day

    Washington Post: Hunt for Brown University gunman starts anew as tension rises

    AP News: Brown University shooting victims identified

    People: Brown University shooting victim Kendall Turner

    WUSF: Brown University shooting victims update

    Wikipedia: 2025 Brown University shooting

    Pew Research Center: International Students in the United States

    Brookings Institution: Immigrant Vulnerability and Safety in the U.S.

    National Alliance on Mental Illness: Mental Health in Higher Education

    Journal of American College Health: Mental Health Services Utilization Among College Students

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  • Higher Education Inquirer : Nonprofits and Nothingness: Follow the Money

    Higher Education Inquirer : Nonprofits and Nothingness: Follow the Money

    In the world of higher education and its orbiting industries—veteran-serving nonprofits, student-debt advocacy groups, educational charities, “policy” organizations, and campus-focused foundations—there is a great deal of motion but not always much movement. Press releases bloom, awards are distributed, partnerships are announced, and donors beam from stages and annual reports. Yet too often, the people who most need substantive support—servicemembers, student-loan borrowers, contingent faculty, low-income students, and other working-class communities—receive only fragments of what the glossy brochures promise.

    To understand why, you need only follow the money.

    The Neoliberal Philanthropy Trap

    Over the last four decades, American nonprofit culture has been reshaped and disciplined by neoliberal capital. So-called “impact philanthropy” and “venture philanthropy” introduced a corporate mindset: donors expect brand alignment, flattering metrics, and ideological safety. The result is a nonprofit sector that frequently mimics the institutions it claims to critique.

    Organizations become risk-averse. They avoid structural analysis. They sidestep direct confrontation with the powerful. They produce white papers instead of organizing. They praise the very elite funders who limit their scope.

    The most severe problems facing servicemembers and veterans—predatory for-profit schools, Pentagon-to-college corruption pipelines, GI Bill waste, chronic under-support—rarely get the oxygen they deserve. Advocacy groups that rely on neoliberal donors often focus on “financial literacy” workshops rather than taking on the multi-billion-dollar scams that actually trap servicemembers in debt.

    Student-debt nonprofits, similarly, lean into “awareness campaigns” and technocratic fixes that avoid challenging lenders, profiteering institutions, or federal policy failures. Many will deliver testimonials and infographics, but few will call out the philanthropic class whose own investments are entangled in servicing and securitizing student debt.

    And when it comes to helping working-class people more broadly—those navigating food insecurity, unstable housing, wage stagnation, and the crushing costs of education—the nonprofit sector too often does what neoliberal donors prefer: it performs compassion rather than redistributing power. It focuses on individual resilience rather than collective remedy.
    Appearance Over Impact

    This creates a strange ecosystem in which organizations are rewarded for looking productive rather than for being productive.

    • Events over empowerment.
    • Reports over results.
    • Branding over coalition-building.
    • Strategy sessions over structural change.

    The donor’s name gets its plaque, its press release, its tax receipt. The nonprofit gets to survive another cycle. But the problems—deep, persistent, systemic—remain unchallenged.

    Nonprofits that speak too directly about exploitation in higher education risk alienating the very people who write the checks. Some are nudged away from naming predatory universities. Others are steered toward “innovation,” “entrepreneurship,” or “student success” frameworks that sanitize the underlying issues. Many are encouraged to “partner” with the same institutions harming the people they were formed to help.

    In the end, we get a sector filled with earnest staff but hollowed-out missions—organizations doing just enough to appear active but rarely enough to threaten the arrangement that keeps donors comfortable and inequality intact.

     
    What Could Be—If Nonprofits Were Free

    Imagine a nonprofit sector liberated from neoliberal constraints:
    Organizations could openly challenge predatory colleges instead of courting them as sponsors.
    Veteran-serving groups could expose fraud rather than “collaborate” with federal contractors.
    Debt-advocacy groups could organize mass borrower actions rather than hold polite policy forums.
    Working-class students could find allies who fight for public investment, not piecemeal philanthropy.

    We could have watchdogs instead of window dressing.
    We could have mobilization instead of marketing.
    We could have justice instead of jargon.

    But as long as donor-driven nonprofits prioritize appearance over impact, we’re left with what might be called “nonprofits and nothingness”: organizations whose glossy public-facing work obscures the emptiness underneath.

     
    The Way Forward: Independent, Ground-Up Power

    Real change in higher education—on affordability, accountability, labor rights, and fairness—will not come from donor-managed nonprofits. It will come from independent journalism, grassroots organizing, debt-resistance movements, student-worker coalitions, and communities willing to challenge elite decision-makers directly.

    Those efforts don’t fit neatly into annual reports. They don’t flatter philanthropists. They don’t offer easy wins. But they build the kind of power that higher education, and the country, desperately needs.

    Until more nonprofits break free from the neoliberal donor leash, we should continue to follow the money—and then look beyond it, to the people whose work actually changes lives.

    Sources
    — Eikenberry, Angela. The Nonprofit Sector in an Age of Marketization.
    — Giridharadas, Anand. Winners Take All.
    — Reich, Rob. Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy.

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  • The Higher Education Inquirer is requesting all emails from the US Department of Education regarding selling off the student loan portfolio.

    The Higher Education Inquirer is requesting all emails from the US Department of Education regarding selling off the student loan portfolio.







    Higher Education Inquirer : The Higher Education Inquirer is requesting all emails from the US Department of Education regarding selling off the student loan portfolio.




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