Understanding The State Of University Education As A Reflection Of the Dominant Economic Model Of Today

To understand where we are today, it is revealing to know the factors that have impacted university education in the past. In that regard, a book written by Julia Schleck and titled, Dirty Knowledge, Academic Freedom in the age of Neoliberalism was quite informative. It should come as no surprise that the initial university education followed the golden rule. Those with the gold ruled, namely, the wealthy benefactors of the university who set an educational agenda that would not conflict and often supported their own financial interests. As the American economy became more complex demanding expertise without bias, the controlling influence of the wealthy founders was having a stifling effect on creative thinking and a system was needed to broaden the input from a faculty of experts.

Thus, in 1915 the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) composed a document, Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure that supported the independence of faculty by giving key faculty tenure and endowing those tenured professors with being a self-regulating body creating a barrier between them and the founders and the administration they put in place to run the universities. The need for this academic structure gradually became more accepted over time and in 1940, a concise vision was jointly adopted and signed by the AAUP and the Association of American Colleges, “a bedrock document in American education stating the role of the university in society is to promote the common good.”

“It is rooted in the idea that higher education contributes to the creation of a well-educated public. In the words of the 1940 statement, institutions of higher education are conducted for the common good and are not to further the interests of either the individual teacher or the institute as a whole. The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition independent of economic and political elites. Professors are the appointees, but not in any proper sense employees. It was the job of the faculty to assess the particulars of each others performances in areas, in other words to self-govern.” Tenure was the key.

“In creating and broadly adopting this structure, the historic influence of the wealthy and powerful in a faculty’s local community who were most likely to enforce social expectations for normalization, seeking out non-conformity and exclude it from society, in this case from university employment, was greatly diminished. No longer could the dominant political and economic powers at the turn of the twentieth century exert their discipline through governing boards to ensure that the knowledge produced by universities did not disrupt the profits and authority of the ruling elite, but would instead work to reinforce or increase them. The intimidation that produced these circumstances was nullified by tenure and self-regulation.”

“The shift in power from the elites to the professional were discussed less in terms of the empowerment of the faculty and more in terms of the protection of the public interest. In this way academic freedom became tied to the liberal political freedoms of the country at large.” The contrast between the old and new ways of thinking is starkly stated as follows: On the one hand, the university’s responsibility is “to form minds prepared to support the goals of those in power.” On the other hand, “it is better for students to think about heresies than not think at all.”

The independence resulting from a tenured economically secured faculty produced a great increase in knowledge covering a broad range of subjects without necessarily leading to the introduction of new products. After, much of this new knowledge was not seen to have immediate economic application, but having been developed is now available if and when circumstances require its need. In short, there is value in the development of all knowledge even if it does not have immediate commercial application. As an example, consider the technology that was developed for the rapid manufacturing of vaccines created long before they were needed when Covid ran rampant. If immediate profit had been the only motivating factor there would have been little incentive for pursuing that knowledge considering the lack of imminent reward.

This mentality has been undermined as the country adopted a neoliberal mode of capitalist production emphasizing the influence of the market in decision-making, a reduction in regulations, shrinkage in government and privatization of what were formally government supported functions. Universities started to conduct themselves as corporations thinking in terms of increasing their profit margins. One obvious way is to higher continent faculty at low rates of remuneration and without health benefits, the Uber model. Another obvious way was to dramatically increase tuition rates.?

While increased tuition rates did not impact the independence of tenured faculty, there was a great decrease in the number of professors hired under these circumstances and the body they represent has shrunk considerably along with their impact on open-ended research. Today about 75% of faculty at universities are held by non-tenured contingent individuals. Along with the adoption of a neoliberal model, government funding of research has dramatically declined due to the shrunken tax base resulting from the neoliberal goal of tax reduction on the wealthiest sectors of the economy. That works out well for wealthy corporations who are more than willing to supply the funds that are no longer attainable from government sources. Unlike government sources, however, these funds come with strings attached that are more readily accepted by continent faculty that have no long term security and are not protected by the self-regulation that applies to tenured faculty.

Given the present conditions, it is reasonable to question the level of unbiased knowledge that is being projected onto the student bodies particularly where an end product is to be purchased by the students upon their graduation. Neoliberalism states that the market is king and the criteria for market success is the maximization of profits. Seen in this light, let me be specific about the adoption of the neoliberal mindset.

• Universities are no longer beholden to an independent tenured faculty
• Universities actively seek corporate ties for increased profits
• The universities trade access to the student bodies for a range of corporate financial incentives that are not related in any way to the quality of the product that the students will incorporate into their “education”
• Universities restrict access to information that would broaden a student’s awareness of what?else is available
• This is a symbiotic relationship between corporations and academia brought home most vividly by the November 2021 study in JADA that stated 80% of academic endodontists receive industrial payments.

That last point illustrates just how far we have come from the days that stated the attainment of unbiased knowledge for the common good should be the goal of higher education. From a practical point of view, the adoption of the neoliberal model has led to the creation of a whole body of academic corporate supporters knowing who butters their bread. They accept the success of this highly manipulated market where such success is equated with product superiority and are on the lookout for any non-conformists reminiscent of earlier days where the school founders would not tolerate viewpoints that did not support their vested interests.

With corporations in collaboration with universities, the broad spectrum of knowledge is narrowed down to what the dominant interests perceive as the best interests maximizing profits. What is lost is the diversity of discovery that can only occur where such open debates are not only allowed but encouraged, something that no longer exists in these institutions conforming to the neoliberal model, a state of affairs that is admittedly?hard to avoid with the entire country presently exposed to these conditions.

Be that as it may, we should all understand the educational environment we are operating in and realize present conditions are more in line with indoctrination rather than education. Education becomes marketing when other points of view are proscribed and the students are confined to repeating both academically and clinically procedures determined by a corporate/academic combine where mutual profit is the prime incentive.

I should add that I highly recommend this book. I have read it 2 times over and reach time I read it I get more profound insights. If you are at all interested in the dynamics of education and what the impact is, you are in for a real treat.

Regards, Barry