He teaches classes on U.S. History, labor and social movement history, labor studies, and digital humanities/history. He is an advisor to the Institute for Research on Labor & Employment and the Labor & Workplace Studies undergraduate minor. Higbie is the author of Indispensable Outcasts: Hobo Workers and Community in the American Midwest, 1880-1930 (2003), and articles on migration, print culture, and working class education. Before coming to UCLA in 2007, Higbie taught labor history and contemporary economics for trade unionists at the University of Illinois, and directed a research center at the Newberry Library in Chicago. He holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Illinois.