Dr. Sajay Samuel is a Clinical Professor of Accounting at the Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University, where he brings a critical and interdisciplinary approach to accounting, management, and the political economy of education.

 

With over two decades of teaching experience, he has taught across undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs at institutions including Bucknell University and the University of Connecticut.

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Dr. Samuel’s scholarship examines the cultural, political, and ethical dimensions of accounting and professional practice. His work has been published in leading academic journals such as Accounting, Organizations and Society, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Symbolic Interaction. He is also a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics, reflecting a long-standing engagement with the ethical implications of measurement, responsibility, and institutional trust.

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A prominent public intellectual, Dr. Samuel has been widely recognized for his critique of the financial architecture of higher education. In his TEDx Talk, “How College Loans Exploit Students for Profit”, he makes the case for fundamentally rethinking how education is priced, arguing that tuition should be proportionate to the earning potential of a degree. The talk, which has amassed nearly 1.5 million views on social media, has contributed meaningfully to national conversations on student debt, institutional accountability, and the commodification of learning.

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At TrustED, Dr. Samuel brings a critical lens to the economics of higher education. His insights sharpen the organization’s mission to promote transparency, challenge institutional opacity, and foreground the ethical responsibilities of education systems in both global and local contexts.