In the past, I have written about professors making poverty wages and academic publishing houses profiting off unpaid labor.

For my latest Al Jazeera piece, I take on racial and class inequality in the higher education system, arguing that higher education today is less about the accumulation of knowledge than the demonstration of status – a status conferred by pre-existing wealth and connections. My prediction? The whole thing is going to collapse:

The American higher education system will collapse, but it will not be because of MOOCs. It will be because of time. Right now members of the first generation to take out massive student loans are having children of their own. In the next 10 to 15 years, these children will be the right age for college. But will they go?

Many of today’s young parents are underemployed and drowning in debt. They are working in jobs that have no relation to their degrees. They will be paying off their college loans well into old age. Will they be able to afford their children’s tuition as rates rise exponentially? Will they advise their children to take out loans and live like they did?

Today’s young adults know all too well the value of a college degree. The question is whether they will want their children to pay the same price.

Read the full story at The price of inequality in higher education