A student at Brown University delivered scathing testimony before a congressional committee, condemning the Ivy League institution for excessive administrative spending, ballooning tuition, and what he described as a betrayal of the American dream for working-class families.
Alex Shieh, a rising junior at Brown and reporter for the Brown Spectator, testified that the university has strayed far from its educational mission and has become a bloated, elitist institution increasingly out of reach for middle- and low-income Americans.
“My name is Alex Shieh, and I’m a rising junior at Brown University, one of the most exclusive institutions in the world,” Shieh began
. “But I’m not here to glorify the Ivy League. I’m here to warn you that the promise of American higher education, of opportunity through meritocracy, is under attack.”
Shieh, who described himself as a legacy student from a privileged background, said that while he can afford the $93,000-per-year price tag at Brown, many students cannot.
“My parents are doctors who can afford, afford the $93,000 a year sticker price. In other words, I’m exactly who the Ivy League was built for. But what about the kids who weren’t born on third base?”
He pointed to economic data showing that the median student at Brown comes from a family earning over $200,000 annually and that half of the student body is drawn from the top 5% of income earners.
Shieh then criticized the school’s financial management, highlighting a projected $46 million deficit despite sky-high tuition costs.
“Even while charging students the price of a luxury car, Brown is on track to run a $46 million deficit this year. Where’s all the money going? I’ll tell you where it’s going. It’s going into an empire of administrative bloat and bureaucracy.”
According to Shieh, Brown employs 3,805 full-time non-instructional staff for 7,229 undergraduate students — a ratio of more than one administrator for every two students.
“This isn’t education. This is bloat paid for on the backs of students and families who are mortgaging their futures for a shot at a better life,” he said.
Shieh highlighted specific administrative expenditures, including over $1 million in salary for Brown’s athletic director Grace Calhoun, and a household assistant assigned to University President Christina Paxson.
He claimed such spending continues while student conditions deteriorate, stating, “My dorm floods when it rains, and the burger patties in our dining hall have been replaced by an unappetizing beef mushroom blend.”
Citing national trends, Shieh added, “The number of university administrators has risen by 162% in recent decades, and it’s no coincidence that correspondingly, the cost of education has risen 181% in inflation-adjusted dollars since the 90s.”
He compared the Ivy League model to the British system: “Across the pond, a world-class education at Oxford or Cambridge can cost about half as much as an Ivy League degree, in part due to a much lower administrative burden.”
Shieh also criticized Brown’s financial aid policies, which he claimed disproportionately hurt middle-class students who are “earning too much to qualify for generous scholarships, but not enough to go to Brown without straddling themselves with significant amounts of debt.”
He called attention to Brown’s involvement in a federal antitrust lawsuit, in which the university was one of several Ivy League schools that settled allegations of colluding to suppress financial aid offers.
“Brown says it meets 100% of demonstrated need, but Brown gets to decide what that need is,” he said.
Shieh testified about the backlash he faced after launching a website called “Bloat at Brown,” which used AI to analyze the necessity of various administrative roles.
“I sent each administrative employee a Doge style email to ask them, What do you do all day?” he said.
“Instead of answering, Brown’s response was retaliation. My Social Security Number was leaked. Our website was hacked, and Associate Dean Kirsten Wolf launched a disciplinary investigation into a litany of baseless charges such as emotional harm.”
Shieh said the administration brought charges against every board member of the Brown Spectator, but “we refused to back down, and we won our hearings. There was no misconduct, only exposure, and that’s what Brown feared the most.”
He closed by urging Congress to investigate Ivy League antitrust practices and to subpoena President Paxson.
“This committee has a responsibility not just to investigate Ivy League antitrust violations, but to reclaim the American dream from those who have twisted it into a racket,” he said.
“The American dream isn’t just for the legacies the coastal elites or the children of privilege. It belongs to the kid in rural Kansas with a 4.0 GPA, the first gen student working in night shift, and the families who did everything right and still got priced out. They deserve a seat at the table.”
Shieh concluded, “They deserve a shot at making it big. Their American Dreams matter too.”
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