What Works Rethinking Higher Ed for the 21st-Century Economy with Lauren Lassabe Shepherd
Feb 5, 2026
Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, historian of U.S. higher education and host of the American Campus Podcast, explores how colleges connect to work and the economy. She discusses neoliberalism’s reshaping of campuses, the rise of adjunct and gig labor, culture-war pressures on academic freedom, and alternatives to the traditional university. Short, sharp conversations about institutional change and the future of learning.
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Neoliberalism Recast The University
- Neoliberalism reshaped U.S. higher education by shrinking public funding and increasing privatization.
- This returned universities to a pre‑golden‑age model and enabled labor casualization and financialization of campuses.
Adjunctification Is The New Norm
- Casualization turned many faculty roles into contingent, low‑paid contracts without benefits.
- Two‑thirds of U.S. faculty now work in contingent positions, producing instability and poverty‑level wages for many teachers.
Education As A Private Investment
- Higher education shifted from a public good to a private investment tied to individual careers and debt.
- Students now shoulder costs and borrow against futures because the public sector retreated from funding campuses.
