Public Higher Education In America Is Facing An Existential Emergency

So, that happened. Here in 2016, America’s institutions of public higher education find themselves at a dangerous inflection point. As state funding for colleges and universities has dried up, more of the cost burden is being shifted onto students in the form of higher tuition. But in our post-crash economic environment, the old glide-path from a liberal arts education to a well-paying job in the workforce has become much more uncertain ― and with it has come an even greater uncertainty that those students will be able to pay down their student debt in short order.

And now, our public institutions of higher learning find themselves facing new vulnerabilities, in the form of policymakers who want to reshape these universities’ research focus and educational curricula in radical ways. They’re joined in their grand designs by oligarchical forces ― weaponized university donors and Silicon Valley-style “disruptors” ― who want to redefine public higher education from its traditional role as a public good to something more business-like, where education becomes a commodity and students become mere consumers.

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