The American higher education system was once the envy of the world but now it’s a major contributor to our economic and societal decline for many reasons. Over the last decade, we’ve seen universities drift away from their original mission and core competency — preparing students for productive lives and careers. Academic reform is not just necessary; it’s urgent.
Instead, they have become ideological echo chambers, churning out graduates who are ill-equipped for the job market, burdened with debt, and a warped sense of reality. This academic rot is eroding the economy from within, leaving a generation with degrees but no skills and no idea how to get hired, and businesses scrambling to find qualified workers to propel the future of their workforce.
Let’s face it - once upon a time, higher education was the ticket to upward mobility. If you didn’t have a degree, you didn't even get through the front door for an interview. A degree, let alone an advanced degree, in business, science, engineering, or medicine guaranteed a path to stable employment. But today, students, postdocs and even faculty are leaving universities with degrees and training that are disconnected from market needs. As a result, many Fortune 500 employers no longer require even a basic college degree.
Bachelors, Masters and even PhDs in gender studies, DEI, and environmental justice may be intellectually stimulating for some, but the training in these programs is not providing skills that employers are seeking. It is extremely rare to find any job that actually requires one of these degrees. Even core degrees in science, technology, engineering and math are being suffocated with ideology that does more to prevent employment than gain employment.
Sadly, many universities have shifted their focus from traditional education to indoctrination and I believe this is going to be the decline of America in many ways. Academic departments now offer courses that are more about pushing ideological agendas than preparing students for careers. Professors are encouraged and sometimes threatened to teach in line with certain political beliefs rather than being free to focus on the core curricula and in demand skills.
But it doesn’t end with generations being trained on the art of being offended over the science of being productive. In recent months, we’ve seen an alarming rise in protests on campuses across the country. Many of these protests are encouraged by academia under the guise of political activism. Some of these protests have become violent and have been accused of normalizing hate and intolerance against people for their political or religious beliefs. Meanwhile, fewer and fewer graduates are getting hired into jobs and the majority of those who do get hired are hired into fields that don’t require their degrees.
The consequences of this decay on university campuses are far-reaching. On one hand, the U.S. is facing a growing skills gap, where employers are struggling to find Bachelors degree-level workers with the necessary qualifications. In industries like science, technology, manufacturing and healthcare, there are hundreds of thousands of unfilled positions. On the other hand, for those with higher education degrees such as PhDs and other doctorates, there are fewer highly skilled jobs than ever before. Employers have been forced to use artificial intelligence to replace advanced degree holders who are not getting trained properly by academia on how to execute a non-academic job search, let alone how to actually work in a non-academic job.
The ripple effect of this academic failure is significant. A generation of underemployed, indebted graduates is less likely to buy homes, start families, or invest in their futures. This has a chilling effect on the housing market, the retail sector, and overall economic growth of our country.
Many academic graduates, because they were not trained on how to get a job after graduation, stay in academia. They get degree after degree and never leave, not because they want to stay in academia, but because they don’t know how to get out. Perhaps that is exactly what the academic system wants.
Academia has shifted its focus from intellectual diversity and free inquiry to a culture of grievance and cancel culture, where the loudest activists dictate the terms of acceptable instruction and ideas.This creates graduates who are ill-prepared for the real world, where employers value problem-solving, collaboration, and respect for diverse viewpoints—not ideological conformity or extremism. Why are so many people with so many degrees struggling to get hired? It’s simple. Employers do not hire violent protesters. They do not hire the constantly offended. They do not hire keyboard warriors or online trolls.
So what can we do about all of this? Well, I think it’s time for a reckoning in higher education.
Universities must be held accountable for their role in creating the skills gap, saddling students with debt and refusing to train anyone on how to get hired outside of academia. Federal funding should be tied to outcomes, such as job placement rates and the alignment of curricula with market demands. We need to bring free thinking, creativity and imagination back to universities. This, combined with pragmatic training on today’s in demand skills will set academia on the right path.
As long as our universities prioritize ideology and politics over practical education and intellectual rigor, the job market and the economy will continue to suffer. We cannot afford to let academic rot, in all its forms, destroy the prospects of future generations.
I say gain - academic reform is not just necessary; it’s urgent. Our future is on the line.
Dr. Isaiah Hankel is the author of 3X Best-Selling Books, including The Power of a PhD. He can be reached at and found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaiahhankel/