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Austerity Blues is a must read for people engaged in public higher education and an important addition to Critical University Studies.
They [Michael Fabricant and Stephen Brier.] draw on a wealth of scholarship and journalism across several disciplines and topics, uniting and analyzing phenomena often examined in detailed isolation. These include the broad structural factors shaping public higher education, the incentives that influence university-level decision making, the ways that austerity policies intensify inequality within university systems, and the role of technology in all of these processes. The resulting synthesis reveals the long history and present extent of the impoverishment of public higher education, and what it will take to "protect the public university as a democratic experiment firmly planted in the public commons."
Austerity Blues leaves readers wanting to know more about the forces that have facilitated this trend... Fabricant and Brier’s analysis raises important questions about the kinds of political change that will be necessary to reverse the austerity policies that they describe and what it will take to realize those changes. As such, this book establishes a powerful agenda for future research.
Austerity Blues raises many crucial questions about the purposes of public higher education, pervasive (and growing) inequality, and the consequences of divestment and austerity politics. Most importantly, it ends by asking: "What's next?" And in that question, it urges each one of us to individually and collectively think about the future and our contribution to that future.
Austerity politics have fundamentally altered American public higher education; yet, its influence has largely escaped public attention. In the true spirit of scholar-activism, Michael Fabricant and Stephen Brier shine a bright light on these changes, calling them out without romanticizing public education. Every policy maker and leader in higher education needs to read this book from cover to cover before undertaking educational 'reforms,' and every student, staff member, and professor must consider its arguments as we seek to understand the uncertainty we confront today.
Austerity Blues is a very fine book, well written and well argued. The wide-ranging scope of the topics it covers and its historical perspective are brilliantly synthesized into a compelling narrative indictment of the social and political consequences of disinvestment in higher education. It is a major contribution to knowledge and will be a landmark publication in the debate over the future of public higher education in this country.
Written by two of the most highly qualified figures in labor studies and higher education, this book highlights the devastating impact of austerity by close examination of the rise and fall of two large state systems, New York and California.
By synthesizing the whole array of threats confronting public higher education as we once knew it, Fabricant and Brier make a powerful contribution to our understanding of how educational access for ordinary Americans has narrowed. The general erosion in the quality of life for working and middle-class Americans is accompanied by and partly shaped by an erosion in opportunities to learn and develop, often camouflaged behind austerity politics.
Austerity Blues is a must read for anyone interested in the crisis of public higher education. Fabricant and Brier place the crisis within the overall context of the neoliberal agenda aimed at privatizing public goods, and conclude that the movement to save public higher education must be part of a broader movement for social and economic justice.
About
Book Details
Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x 9
Pages
320
ISBN
9781421420677
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: The Political-Economic Context of Public Higher Education
Chapter 1: Public Assets in an Era of Austerity
Deregulation, Disinvestment, and Degradation
Six Propositions for
Introduction
Part I: The Political-Economic Context of Public Higher Education
Chapter 1: Public Assets in an Era of Austerity
Deregulation, Disinvestment, and Degradation
Six Propositions for Understanding the Restructuring of Public Higher Education
Economic Crisis and the Capitalization of Public Goods
The Radical Restructuring of Public Higher Education
Chapter 2: The State Expansion of Public Higher Education
The G.I. Bill
The Presidential Panel on Higher Education
Public Higher Education in California, New York, and Beyond
The Founding and Expansion of SUNY and the Status of New York City’s Municipal Colleges
The California Master Plan for Higher Education
Chapter 3: Students and Faculty Take Command
New York State, CUNY and the Struggle for Open Admissions-
The Multiversity and the Student Movement
The Fate of Open Admissions
Part II: The State of Austerity
Chapter 4: The Making of the Neoliberal Public University
Neoliberal Reform I: Corporatizing University Culture
Neoliberal Reform II: The Perfect Storm of Online Technology and the Commodification of Knowledge
Elite Politics and Economics
The Curricula of Austerity
Technology as the Tool of Austerity Managers
College Readiness, Low Graduation Rates, and Fiscal Starvation
Resetting Course: Investing in Disposable Citizens
Chapter 5: The Public University as an Engine of Inequality
Unequal Investments in Public Higher Education
Cheapening Public Higher Education
Qualitative Shifts in the Experience of Public Higher Education
The Ascent of For-Profit Colleges
Accountability in an Era of Austerity
Cheap Part-time Labor as an Austerity Fix
Managing Public Universities in a Time of Inverted Priorities
Chapter 6: Technology as a "Magic Bullet" in an Era of Austerity
Expanding Beyond Classroom Instruction
The Emergence of Digital Technology
The Rise of DigitalU
The Open Educational Resources Movement
The Khan Academy
MOOCs and the Reshaping of Public Higher Education
Neoliberal Reformer: Michael Crow and the "New American University"
Part III: Resistance Efforts and the Fight for Emancipatory Education
Chapter 7: Fighting for the Soul of Public Higher Education
Restructuring, Abandonment, and Dissolution
The Struggle Over Purposes and Practices
Achieving Emancipatory Education
What Types of Strategic Investments Are Needed?
Building a Better Knowledge Production Workforce
Where Should Public Higher Education Be Situated?
Deploying Technology to Improve Teaching and Learning
Political Choice and Struggle
Fault Lines in Current Struggles
Grassroots Struggles and Educational Policy Reforms:
Student Debt and the Choice to Strike
Free Tuition and Community Colleges
Increasing Wages and Job Protections for Part-Time Faculty
Cross-Sector Campaigns and Increased Investment
Sustaining and Expanding Universal Access
Resisting Curricular Dilution
Scaling Up and Drilling Down
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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