







Look, the price of tuition today is a crushing burden that shocks the conscience. Amid this backdrop, there's no way for families *not* to look at college — or choice of degree — in terms of return on investment. 🧵 1/9 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/20/podcasts/the-daily/is-college-worth-it.html
Why students are throwing tons of money at a program that won’t give them a college degree
There's a hidden dark side of one of the hottest trends in higher education.

Opinion | Michael Bloomberg: Why I’m Giving $1.8 Billion for College Financial Aid (Published 2018)
Let’s eliminate money problems from the admissions equation for qualified students.

Will A.I. Make College Obsolete?
During a time when American trust in institutions is at an all- time low, A.I. is poised to accelerate a growing disillusionment with higher education.

No tuition, no grades, no power grid: why are people flocking to a ‘college’ in the middle of the desert?
Two hundred miles from LA, an off-grid community with roots in Burning Man offers an unorthodox educational experience – is Mars College the future?

Charlie Kirk had a message for the over 2 million unemployed Gen Z NEET men: You don’t need college to make your dreams happen
From dropout to multimillion-dollar nonprofit leader, Kirk claimed college was overrated—and many Gen Zers share his skepticism.
Trump University and the art of the get-rich seminar
We witnessed The Donald's foray into "university" education.

Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges
Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy by Tressie McMillan Cottom (2017, The New Press) is simply excellent. Here's an excerpt, here's Dr. McMillan Cottom's page about the book, here's … | Cogito, Ergo Sumana | Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Apple's Student Discount
The Origin of Student Debt: Reagan Adviser Warned Free College Would Create a Dangerous "Educated Proletariat”
In 1970, Roger Freeman, who also worked for Nixon, revealed the right’s motivation for coming decades of attacks on higher education.

Our universities are not for profit – Victorian Socialists
Higher education should run for students and staff, not for profit. We’re fighting to ensure revenue goes to secure jobs, and abolishing fees and student debt.
University science in the US needs a coherent plan
The Trump administration continues to degrade America’s scientific establishment, causing widespread harm to the country’s broader interests and well-being. Last week, the Association of American Universities reported that graduate student enrollment in major research universities, which award half of all doctorate degrees in the United States, is down 15% compared to a year ago. And no wonder, considering the effect of recent immigration policies that deter international students and the financial uncertainties that universities are facing given the unpredictable nature of federal funding. The ability to support new doctoral students depends heavily on research grants, and any responsible administrator would be cautious about making commitments to students they can’t keep. This is discouraging to the scientific community but should be alarming to everyone.

Clearing College Debt | The Paper Pilot
The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology
How to Break the Academic Silo Mindset - The Community Solution Education System
What’s stopping higher education from reaching its full potential? In this episode of Radical Cooperation, Dr. Michael Horowitz sits down with Dr. Beronda Montgomery—biologist, author of Lessons from Plants, and former Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean at Grinnell College—to unpack why silos persist in colleges and universities, and how those divisions hold institutions […]


Does the Fear of Debt Deter Students from Higher Education?
Concerns over the impact of debt on participation in higher education (HE) have dominated much of the debate surrounding the most recent reforms of financial support for full-time students in England, including the introduction of variable tuition fees. Yet few studies have attempted to explore this issue in a statistically robust manner. This article attempts to fill that gap. It examines the relationship between prospective HE students' attitudes to debt, and their decisions about whether or not to enter HE. Using data derived from a survey of just under 2,000 prospective students, it shows how those from low social classes are more debt averse than those from other social classes, and are far more likely to be deterred from going to university because of their fear of debt, even after controlling for a wide range of other factors. The article concludes that these findings pose a serious policy dilemma for the Westminster government. Their student funding policies are predicated on the accumulation of debt and thus are in danger of deterring the very students at the heart of their widening participation policies.

College admissions insanity is substantially explained by this fact: The number of elite entry level jobs (e.g. McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, Google, The Economist) is flat, demand for them has exploded, and hiring managers and people teams have no cap on the # of hires they can make from target schools
SE Gyges
at some point in looking at university admissions scandals it becomes inescapable that elite colleges are, functionally, granting admission to an aristocracy, which makes this sort of thing much, much more legible the lesser noble houses are upset that their children are not being elevated