Why This Blog? Why Now? Welcome to the GCAS Dispatch
Welcome to the official blog of the Global Center for Advanced Studies (GCAS)—a scholar-owned, debt-free, and globally networked alternative to traditional higher education. If you’re new to GCAS, here’s what you should know: we are not just a college or research center. We are a collective experiment in reclaiming the university’s soul from the forces that have hollowed it out—political control, corporate co-option, and economic gatekeeping.
This blog will serve as an evolving public forum. A place to feature student and faculty research, conference presentations, and updates on how higher education, politics, and economic policy intersect in real life. In short, this space is a living extension of our pedagogy—one that reflects the very principles that founded GCAS.
Higher Education at a Crossroads
This launch comes at a crucial moment. The Trump administration’s recent threats to U.S. universities, particularly regarding funding cuts tied to political compliance, reaffirm what many of us have long known: the university, once imagined as a sanctuary for independent thought, is increasingly vulnerable to state and market capture. When government support becomes conditional on ideological conformity, academic freedom withers. But let’s not pretend this is new. The erosion has been gradual and systemic.
As Terry Eagleton wrote in The Guardian nearly 15 years ago in his prescient article, The Death of Universities:
“Universities have come to regard themselves as service industries rather than as centres of critique. They are no longer societies of scholars devoted to truth but corporate bodies concerned above all with market share.”
That was 2010. Today, we see a higher education landscape even more commercialized and politicized. Rising tuition fees, exploitative labor conditions for adjunct faculty, and the monetization of intellectual property have further commodified learning itself.
Why GCAS Is Different
GCAS was created as a direct response to this crisis. We are proud to be fully independent:
We do not rely on any government for funding.
We are not owned by a private corporation.
And our tuition model is designed to keep students out of debt.
Instead, GCAS is scholar-owned—our students and faculty collectively shape and sustain the institution. This means our researchers aren’t bound to political favor or corporate metrics. They’re free to ask the difficult, disruptive, and visionary questions that education was meant to serve.
This is why GCAS can resist the creeping authoritarianism affecting U.S. higher ed. Our autonomy isn’t a fringe feature—it’s the foundation.
What You Can Expect From This Blog
In the weeks and months ahead, you’ll find:
Student blog posts and essays that emerge from our seminars and conferences
Faculty reflections on their research and teaching across continents
Interventions in current events—how philosophy, psychoanalysis, gender theory, and political thought illuminate our world
Critiques of the university system from those living and resisting it
Profiles of GCAS graduates making real-world impact
We are not here to simply comment on the transformation of the university—we are here to model what comes next.
Join Us
In the spirit of dialogue and transformation, we invite you to read, comment, and share. Education cannot survive as a static enterprise. It must evolve, resist, and reimagine.
Welcome to GCAS— the most advanced college on planet earth.
— GCAS Blog Editorial Team