An Angry Indictment of Higher Ed: Reviewing 'The College Scam

The College Scam: How America's Universities Are Bankrupting and Brainwashing Away the Future of America's Youth , Charlie Kirk

Let’s be clear from the title alone: The College Scam: How America's Universities Are Bankrupting and Brainwashing Away the Future of America's Youth is not an attempt at a balanced, academic study. This book is a full-throated, fiery indictment of the modern American university system. It’s written with a sense of outrage that will feel either refreshingly blunt or dangerously hyperbolic, depending entirely on your starting point.

The book’s argument rests on two main pillars, neatly summarized by its subtitle. First, the “bankrupting” part: the author delves into the skyrocketing cost of tuition, bloated administrative salaries, and the crushing student debt crisis, framing it as a predatory financial system that preys on young people and their families. Second, and more provocatively, is the “brainwashing” charge. The book argues that campuses have become ideological monocultures where left-wing orthodoxy is enforced, conservative voices are silenced, and students are taught what to think instead of how to think.

The strength of The College Scam is its passionate, rallying-cry energy. It gives voice to the deep-seated frustrations of many parents, taxpayers, and conservative students who feel the system is fundamentally broken. The chapters on the financial aspects are often compelling, highlighting real economic anxieties that are hard to dismiss. The book succeeds in sounding an alarm and questioning the “college for all” mantra that has dominated for decades.

However, the book’s aggressive tone is also its greatest weakness. To make its case, it often relies on broad generalizations and cherry-picked examples of campus absurdity rather than a nuanced analysis. The language of “brainwashing” and “scam” leaves little room for acknowledging the vast number of universities, professors, and programs that do provide immense value and foster genuine intellectual diversity. It paints with an extremely wide brush, treating every institution from community colleges to Ivy League schools as part of the same sinister plot. This lack of nuance ultimately undermines its more valid points about cost and debt, making it easy for critics to dismiss the entire work as a polemic.

Verdict: The College Scam is a book that preaches powerfully to its choir. If you already believe universities are corrupt institutions pushing a radical agenda, this book will feel like a validating confirmation of your beliefs. However, if you are looking for a measured, data-driven critique of higher education that might actually persuade someone in the middle, this is not it. Its value is as a cultural artifact of a significant strain of modern political thought, not as a sober policy analysis. Read it to understand the depth of conservative anger toward academia, but take its strongest claims with a heavy dose of salt.