The Great Higher Education Reset

Colleges are crumbling under debt, distrust, and irrelevance—meet the bold new models redefining learning

This is a guest post by Dr. John Seel.

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The tide has turned. American higher education is undergoing a quiet but profound revolution—one that challenges the long-standing authority, assumptions, and structures of the academic establishment. While critiques of educational performance have been ongoing since the Reagan era, this moment feels different. A genuine paradigm shift is underway.

Like the Copernican revolution that displaced Earth from the center of the universe, today's educational upheaval is decentering the university as the sole source of intellectual formation and career preparation. The cultural dominance of the academy is no longer assumed. In its place, a growing appetite for new models is emerging—defined by affordability, relevance, community, and purpose.

The Trump administration has added its voice to the widespread attacks on colleges and universities. As expected in reaction, many universities are launching public relations campaigns to strengthen their public image. Colleges are even using social media influencers to create authentic and engaging content that resonates with their target Gen Z audience. The scope and speed of the President's actions are creating instability among university faculties and administrators, but few have shown a willingness for introspection as to how higher education might be a part of the problem. Beneath the headlines a broader educational crisis is brewing.

We have reached an inflection point in American education.

The Pandemic as Revelation

The COVID-19 pandemic did not create the crisis in higher education, but it revealed its extent. While it may seem dated to bring up the pandemic, this was a key factor in undermining the value legitimacy of higher education. Public support does impact the business pressures of cost and demographics, but more importantly it created skepticism about the value of college itself. For decades, critics warned of skyrocketing costs, ideological conformity, and weak educational outcomes. It took a global disruption—the pandemic—to expose how deep the problems run. Students paid full tuition for lackluster online courses. Institutions struggled to adapt, revealing a fragile infrastructure and an absence of true innovation. The long-promised "new normal" never arrived—because the old normal had already lost credibility.

As a result, the conversation around reform shifted decisively. Once focused primarily on K–12 education, attention now centers on colleges and universities. Headlines are filled with controversies involving university campus culture and leadership failures. Stories of Harvard, Columbia, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota capture the headlines. The long-anticipated “demographic cliff” has arrived, threatening the viability of smaller colleges. Meanwhile, trust in the value of a college degree is plummeting.

Political leaders, business owners, and families alike are asking hard questions: Is a four-year degree worth it? Are students graduating with marketable skills? Is the university even delivering on its core educational promise? Should the taxpayer be paying for scientific research conducted at universities that have billions in endowments? These are the questions now being raised daily.

A System in Decline

This is the very definition of an inflection point: the past trajectory is no longer sustainable, and a new path forward has yet to be fully forged.

The academic status quo is crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions. The business model of ever-rising tuition backed by federal loans is unraveling. Employers find that college graduates are often ill-equipped for the workforce. Parents are alienated by hegemonic ideological agendas—on race, gender, and politics—that are increasingly disconnected from their personal values. And with AI poised to automate many academic functions and redefine the meaning and method of education, the threat looms that students will graduate having learned little of substance.

As Rod Dreher bluntly observes, “We are raising kids who can’t read, can’t calculate, can’t figure, can’t think, can’t write—and it’s all being done under our noses, with the educational establishment’s blessing.” There are almost no outcome metrics proving students are actually learning over four years of college. Once insulated from cultural critique, the academy is now at the epicenter of public distrust and political conversation.

Barriers to Reform—and the Need for Courage

The core question is not whether change is coming. It already has. The question is what kind of change we will pursue in the future?

Will we tinker with the current system—repackaging the same model in digital form or merely accept superficial reforms? Or will we fundamentally reimagine education’s purpose, audience, and delivery? An increasing number of people are clamoring for the latter.

True reform faces formidable barriers. Accreditation systems, licensure standards, faculty senates, and government-mandated programs discourage innovation. Bloated administrative structures have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Elite institutions often deploy ideological gatekeeping, endowment resources, and legacy prestige to resist meaningful change. Christian colleges often think that mere fidelity to past beliefs is all that is needed for success. Such a narrow focus can blind them to the other factors that are limiting needed innovation. Yet despite these obstacles, market pressures and political momentum are shifting the terrain and forcing an academy-wide rethink.

The old privileges of the academic elite are under scrutiny as never before.

A New Model Emerging

A growing number of institutions are responding not just with verbal critique but with practical action. These new models are grounded in five essential pillars:

1. Cost: Rejecting the myth that education must come with lifelong debt, they offer affordable, often debt-free, paths to graduation.

2. Content: Merging the liberal arts—critical thinking, cultural literacy, and ethical reasoning—with practical, real-world application. There is a fusion happening between traditional liberal arts courses and common community college programs.

3. Community: Recognizing that true learning includes character development, they embed students in intentional communities where maturity, responsibility, and relationships flourish. "Adulting" is necessary and is being provided.

4. Career: Treating work as integral to learning, not an afterthought, they incorporate apprenticeships and job training as part of the curriculum. Moreover, they consider post-graduation employment an important metric for their academic success.

5. Cause: Anchoring education in meaning and service, they invite students to live for something greater than themselves. In a world where narcissism and nihilism are ubiquitous, they call their students to a larger life of meaning and purpose.

When students are offered education framed around these five elements, they respond with enthusiasm. The market has spoken. Many of the most promising alternatives belong to the growing micro-college movement—small institutions (typically under 250 students) offering a single liberal arts degrees alongside trade or marketplace apprenticeships.

Examples include Hildegard College (CA), Gutenberg College (OR), St. Andrew’s College (CA), and Excel College (NC). Each offers its own distinctive expression of this new model, but they are united by a shared mission: they are not in the business of information transfer, but life transformation. They aim to graduate students who are mature, literate, ethical, and equipped for all dimensions of life. These are colleges that successfully launch their graduates.

The Excel College Case Study

Excel College, located in Black Mountain, North Carolina, exemplifies this new paradigm. Launched in 2016, Excel combines classical education with real-world apprenticeship, equipping students not only for jobs but for purposeful lives.

Its funding model is both equitable and sustainable: students work part-time to pay one-third of their tuition, parents contribute another third, and philanthropic partners cover the rest—ensuring that graduates are debt-free and that all parties are invested in the student's success. But even more significant is the fact that all its graduates are gainfully employed, often in positions of leadership responsibility. Excel considers this an essential outcome metrics by which to judge their educational success.

Excel’s most powerful testimony came in a time of crisis. When Hurricane Helene devastated their region, Excel didn’t shut down. It mobilized. Students stayed on campus to serve. The college became a regional hub for relief: distributing two million pounds of supplies, supporting rebuilding efforts, and assisting first responders. Their education continued—made deeper through sacrifice, resilience, and civic responsibility.

Excel has demonstrated that a college education can form both mind and character. It didn’t just survive disaster; it became indispensable to its community. And this disaster experience became indispensable to the growth and maturity of its students.

The Opportunity Ahead

We are living through a generational shift in education. The old model is faltering. Its assumptions no longer hold. In its place, a new vision is taking shape—one that is holistic, grounded, and responsive to the realities of modern life.

This moment demands clarity and courage. Colleges and universities must confront the truth: the era of their assumed authority is over. But with this collapse comes opportunity—the chance to build institutions that are financially sustainable, intellectually formative, socially enriching, and spiritually grounded.

The academic monopoly may be ending, but the mission of education has never been more vital. We must not waste this inflection point.

Cover image: Excel College