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| How College Became a Commodity [subscription required] | Neoliberalism was a diverse but coherent and influential body of theory championed by neoclassical economists and politicians — including, of course, the authors’ own intellectual progenitor, James Buchanan. The reimagining of education as a commodity purchased by individuals, rather than a universal public good provided by the state, was an explicit project of neoliberal economists and politicians on both the right and left as they moved to slice and reorganize the welfare state along leaner, more punitive lines. Neoliberalism hardly explains everything about contemporary higher education, but it explains a lot. [Exhibit A — Nearly every article in this week’s news digest speaks of higher education almost exclusively in terms of the private benefits (or burdens) of college education.]Continue Reading

| Happy New Year, Higher Ed: You’ve Missed Your Completion Goal | It’s barely the beginning of the new year and higher education has already missed its “moonshot,” the goal of making the United States the world leader in college attainment by 2020… [that] President Barack Obama issue. [Note: American higher education’s adherence to the status quo is perhaps the most pressing historical question when considered in a transnational perspective for the early 21st century (see article on China and India above).]Continue Reading