As the low-consensus field of higher education grows, it negotiates constraints and possibilities in the topics engaged and the scholars included. To trace the shifting patterns of research topics in higher education studies during the past 20 years, we examined networks of the topical structures of ASHE conference papers and a subset of U.S. higher education journals. Topical and co-citation networks indicated that the field may be at a point of reconfiguration. We found shifts in terminology, frameworks, and methodologies related to increasingly disconnected topic clusters. Currently, the field seems capable of encompassing these distinctions through more independent discourse subcommunities.