Brown student exposing Ivy League bloat gives House testimony, urges Congress to ‘mandate transparency’

EXCLUSIVE - Brown University student Alex Shieh, who was recently cleared of wrongdoing after he sent campus employees a DOGE-like email, is testifying Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee on rising costs at elite universities. 

"Brown University, like many of its Ivy League peers, presents itself as a selective meritocratic institution," reads Shieh’s testimony, obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital.  

"But according to data from The New York Times, the median family income of Brown students is over $200,000 — the highest among Ivy League universities," his prepared statement continues. "Forty-seven percent of the student body comes from the top 5% of earners in the U.S. A study by Brown University economist John Friedman confirms that low and middle-income students remain significantly underrepresented at selective colleges including Brown, even after controlling for academic qualifications." 

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Shieh, a rising junior who was cleared of wrongdoing by the university on May 14, had previously angered school officials by sending a DOGE-like email to non-faculty employees identifying himself as a journalist for The Brown Spectator and asking them what they do all day to try to determine why the school's tuition has gotten so expensive.

The Brown Spectator, a right-leaning publication which has a board of three people, including Shieh, was revived this year after it ceased publication in 2014. 

The board members faced a disciplinary hearing on May 7 over allegations that they violated Brown University’s name, licensing and trademark policies. 

Shieh and the Spectator faced scrutiny from the university after Shieh began investigating positions he deemed redundant after reviewing 3,805 non-faculty employees who worked at Brown and emailing them to ask, "What do you do all day?" 

"As an investigative reporter for The Brown Spectator, I launched Bloat@Brown, a website that used AI to analyze administrative staff roles and necessity, and Trialhouse.com, a website that performed similar analysis on Columbia University, Cornell University, and the University of Pennsylvania," Shieh said in his prepared remarks. 

"I emailed each administrator at Brown with a request for comment," Shieh added. "Only 20 responded. One…  replied with ‘F--k off.’ Soon after, the university instructed employees not to respond, and the site was hacked. My social security number was leaked. Associate Dean Kirsten Wolfe initiated a disciplinary process against me, first under charges of ‘emotional/psychological harm,’ ‘misrepresentation,’ ‘invasion of privacy,’ and later for alleged technology policy and alleged trademark policy violations." 

Shieh sent a follow-up email to Brown administrators on May 27, which Shieh previously told Fox News Digital was "one last opportunity to justify their roles."

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In his prepared remarks, Shieh said that tuition and fees at the Ivy League have exceeded $90,000 per year, and that the school is "projected to run a $46 million deficit for the current fiscal year."

"According to Brown’s own disclosures, the university employs 3,805 full-time non-instructional staff," Shieh will say in his testimony. "With 7,229 undergraduate students, this translates to one non-teaching staff member for every 1.9 undergraduates. These staff do not include faculty members, but rather administrators, consultants, and support staff, many in roles of unclear necessity." 

Shieh is urging the House Judiciary Committee to look into why his school has become so expensive. 

His recommendations include subpoenaing Brown University President Christina Paxson "for testimony and documents related to administrative growth, financial aid coordination, and retaliation." 

He also calls for student journalists and whistleblowers to be protected from "institutional retaliation," a review of financial aid methodology used by Ivy League schools, transparency in "administrative-to-student staffing ratios and compensation for nonprofit universities receiving federal funds," and for higher learning institutions that have large tuition and spending increases to be audited. 

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"Thank you for your attention to these matters," Shieh will say in his prepared remarks. "I respectfully urge this Subcommittee to act in defense of students, families, and the American Dream."

A Browkn spokesperson defended university practices in a statement to Fox News Digital.

"As Brown has grown over recent decades in both the number of students we teach and the volume and impact of its research, our staff has expanded to support these important goals. In the last 15 years, we have worked responsibly to build a staff infrastructure that enables us to generate medical treatments and scientific breakthroughs that lead to real solutions for real patients and real people. We also added staffing to prepare students for successful lives and careers, which is important to students and families. Brown’s staff members are vital — behind every research breakthrough and student success story, non-faculty staff are a quiet force making those accomplishments possible," the spokesperson said. 

"We continue to see a false ‘one administrator for every two students at Brown’ claim that misrepresents the university, its mission and its student body. A total of 11,232 students were enrolled at Brown in the academic year that just ended — 7,226 of those students were undergraduates. We take no issue with the 3,800 staff number. However, the false "one administrator for every two students" claim ignores the presence of our approximately 4,000 graduate and medical students. These students make up more than one third of our student body, and the staffing to support their advanced education and research is significant. Our staffing numbers should be understood in the context of the fact that Brown is a major research university that supports both undergraduate and graduate education and research. We’re not an undergraduate college."

They added that Brown has one of the most robust financial aid programs in the nation, and that "claims that administrative staff growth has not supported the academic experience for students" were misleading.