For several years I’ve been observing a rapidly accelerating crisis in higher education. Twenty-one years of teaching and serving in leadership roles at a college gave me one side of the story. Having three kids in college at the same time gave me the other.
It’s much harder to go to college than it was 40, 20 or even 10 years ago. This is true for all but the wealthiest students. Tuition and fees are higher. Living expenses on or off campus are much higher. Available financial aid was already failing to keep up, and now new changes will make paying for college more challenging.
That’s certainly what inspired today’s column (gift link) about the likely consequences of changes to college financial aid. But I will add a few notes from my point of view.
When I say that higher ed is in “crisis,” it is first and foremost a philosophical crisis. The way people see college and what they expect from it has created a sort of paradox.
Decades ago, people started noticing that college graduates were enjoying more financial security and career success than those who did not graduate from college. Education advocates argued that this proved how a liberal arts curriculum prepared students for advanced careers.
This is true.
Conversely, a skeptic might have said that those who attended college had more means to begin with, and that half of college is just career networking that leads to better jobs. This is also true.
But in keeping with the way America tends to approach valuable things, college became commodified into a key credentialing that “guaranteed” more success. By the time I first attended college in the late 1990s, going to college or a technical school was a social expectation. My graduation speaker told us that our degree was our “passport to the middle class.” I remember laughing, but maybe I shouldn’t have.
Market dynamics and technological change entered the picture. As costs rose, the financial “success” of college became more muted. Upward mobility was still possible (and remains possible now), but the logistics of college debt and high cost of living made the payoff less obvious.
Then we started experiencing a sort of cultural political division over everything, including college. College “eggheads” were always distrusted in certain circles, but most regarded educated professionals as experts who provided service to society. Most would have been proud if their kids became one.
Now, expertise is distrusted by many — perhaps out of resentment or association with unwanted social change. Prospective students often arrive at a college tour with at least one scowling parent just waiting for someone to start indoctrinating their child.
Then there is the financial crisis that goes along with these changes in social attitudes. College is more expensive. Taking 2-4 years to earn less money just to learn is more difficult. Working while going to college is easier in some ways, thanks to online classes, but diminishes the enjoyment and expanded benefits of the experience. You can’t earn enough working to pay for everything anyway, so that means debt.
I haven’t even touched on the technological crisis that comes from the adaptation of artificial intelligence agents in education. As the machines learn, what is the true purpose of human learning? Because we’ve turned learning into a money equation — straying far from the original intent of human improvement — many people who should know the answer to that question simply don’t. Our business and elected leaders are foremost among them. How much capacity for knowledge will we destroy by diminishing the humanity that knowledge is supposed to support?
A complicated topic for these complicated times. In the short run, I expect college enrollments will be down this fall because of specific changes in our financial aid system.
Read “Students, your financial aid may shrink this year. Here’s why” in the Sunday, July 26, 2026 edition of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.
