Critique of Marc Bousquet’s work How the University Works
Mark Bousquet in How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation reveals the exploitive nature of higher education’s labor system striving to reap cheap labor from faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students. He does so by analyzing how graduate students are used as cheap labor to replace tenured faculty in teaching position, the emergence of corporate managements in higher education, and gives a detailed example of how undergraduates are being exploited by UPS under an education benefit work program (Bousquet, 2008). These points are covered in separate chapters and then in sections in the book which was published by NYU press in 2008; it is currently on sale for 22.80 in paperback or as an ebook for 9.99 and is 281 pages. While Bousquet’s work could have been an interesting and almost compelling read, such thoughts were quickly broken
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Despite having several articles published on the structure of work in higher education, I found his arguments and work generally disappointing (Emery, 2009). One I did like however, was how Bousquet demonstrated the exploitive nature of the higher education labor system with his analysis of using graduate students as cheap labor to fill teaching positions once held by tenured faculty (Bousquet, 2008). With a surplus of graduate students and PhD holders, the universities cut down on costs by being able to hire part time faculty for low pay and no benefits (Bousquet, 2008). His analysis was detailed enough to show how corporate practices made their way into higher education as did corporate management theory (Bousquet, 2008). I would have liked if he included narratives from graduate students and part time faculty to get a more personnel view of the struggles individuals face and possible solutions for these
What stands out about American universities today? Is it the academic opportunities offered to students, experienced faculty, or strong sense of community? Or...perhaps they have lost their focus. It is not uncommon for universities to focus their efforts and budgets elsewhere; by building state of the art gyms, for example, remodeling luxury dorms, grooming campuses, or creating more management positions. College students and professors alike are subject to the nationally occurring changes in higher level education. Colleges are becoming commercialized and tuition is rising, but is the quality of education improving? In “Why We Should Fear University, Inc.”, Fredrik DeBoer is able to provide a personal take on the issue of corporate domination
In his essay, “Why Colleges Shower Their Students with A’s,” Brent Staples argues that grade inflation in colleges results in college degrees becoming less valuable. Staples points out that grade inflation is happening among all colleges and there are many factors contributing to this problem. Colleges are willingly giving students good grades that they do not deserve so that the course will not be omitted from the lack of attendance. Part-time teachers’ jobs are at risk because their position is not guaranteed. These teachers were sometimes threatened by the students saying they will complain if their grades are not adjusted for a higher score. With this being said, students are putting pressure on teachers, causing their jobs to be in danger.
Instead, Sanford J. Ungar presents the arguments that all higher education is expensive and needs to be reevaluated for Americans. He attempts to divert the argument of a liberal arts education tuition by stating “ The cost of American higher education is spiraling out id control, and liberal-arts colleges are becoming irrelevant because they are unable to register gains i productivity or to find innovative ways of doing things” (Ungar 661). The author completely ignores the aspects of paying for a liberal arts degree or even the cost comparison to a public university. Rather, Ungar leads the reader down a “slippery slope” of how public universities attain more funding and grants from the government, while liberal arts colleges are seemingly left behind. The author increasingly becomes tangent to the initial arguments he presented by explaining that students have a more interactive and personal relationship with their professors and other students. Sanford J. Ungar did not address one aspect of the cost to attend a liberal arts college or how it could be affordable for students who are not in the upper class.
John Marsh, Ph.D., shares his epiphany, that his sharing the popular belief that higher education was the answer to bringing about economic equality and curing poverty, was in fact wrong; in this short selection, “Why Education Is Not an Economic Panacea”, taken from his book, “Class Dismissed: Why We Cannot Teach or Learn Our Way Out of Inequality”. Marsh had felt that gaining a higher education himself worked to bring him to a level of economic equality, so, it should work the same way for everyone else. His change of heart comes after perhaps stepping down from the pedestal that many, with lots of letters after their name, sit on, or are put upon by others, and witnessing first-hand the dismal rates of graduation of students in the single course he teaches for The Odyssey Program. Serving as good Public Relations for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the program’s purpose was two-fold; it was to provide, at no cost, college level course(s) for low-income adults and look good for the University. In this excerpt, Marsh’s narrow vision seems to have opened up somewhat, however, it does not demonstrate that his visual field widened enough to see that there is much, much more than simply economics or education that is at play in determining where people end up in the spectrum of being considered successful in the United States. (Marsh 914)
There was a time in America where college was based solely on merit, higher education and pursuing the American Dream to obtain a career and gain social status to be successful in society. According to the Economist newspaper, rising fees and increase of student debt, shared with dwindling financial and educational returns, are undermining at least the perception that university is a good investment. Now due to high cost of an average good university, students are leaving college owing back over $100,000 and are not getting the job of their original dreams.
In the article “College is Not a Commodity. Stop treating it like one,” Hunter Rawlings explains how people today believe that college is a commodity, but he argues that it’s the student’s efforts; which gives value to their education. Rawlings states that in recent years college has been looked at in economic terms, lowering its worth to something people must have instead of earn. As a professor Rawlings has learned that the quality of education has nothing to do with the school or the curriculum, but rather the student’s efforts and work ethic. Rawlings explains the idea that the student is in charge of the success of his or her own education, and the professor or school isn’t the main reason why a student performs poorly in a class. Rawlings
“Take This Internship and Shove It” by Anya Kamenetz is about the declining state of jobs for new college graduates or current college students. Anya Kamenetz is attempting to prove that internships, particularly unpaid internships, are part of the problem of new graduates finding employment in their field of study. Kamenetz is also trying to prove internships are harmful to the job market in general. Kamenetz describes internships as “fake jobs” and states internships cause low wages and decline in young workers being part of a union. When an employer can hire someone for free he or she is more likely to do so instead of spending company money on a paid employee. Employers get away with these practices because with an already troubling job market, new graduates worry about finding jobs in their field. Colleges are either requiring students to participate in an internship to graduate or are pushing that internships are the gateway to careers. Kamenetz points out that two-thirds of college students are receiving loans to help pay for their education and it is harmful to the individual to work for free when that time is essential to make money to pay for living and school expenses.
College has long been a bastion of hope for those not fortunate enough to inherit a business or fortune from their predecessors, on the other side of the coin; it has also been the site of major controversy and debate, especially surrounding the ever-growing cost of attendance and the rewards that a degree realistically gives onto its holder. The debate is not a new one, but with the recent economic downturn, and the vast sums of new college graduates entering the world without the chance of finding a job, more fuel was added to the fire, and the debate began anew. In order to present new arguments on both sides, articles have been written and published in major newspapers like The Economist and The New York Times, with some varying data and conclusions. David Leonhardt, author of the article published in the NYT by the name of, “Is College Worth?
Today colleges are growing more and more necessary for attaining a solid path towards a successful career, yet the rapidly increasing cost of tuition is driving students away from their dream of attending college, due to the preposterous amount of money that is now being demanded by colleges across the nation and world as a whole. It is sad to see students being turned away from a successful future due to the money-hungry nature of the universities that dot the globe. More and more impossible it is becoming to have a “rags-to-riches” scenario that used to highlight the American Dream, as if a student doesn’t have the riches to afford a higher education and the tuition that is drug upon its coattails, then our society is doomed to be clothed in rags forever, unless major changes are brought about to restructure and end the indefatigable growth of tuition rates across the board.
...Graduating from college is one of the few sure fire ways to make a relatively large amount of money in your lifetime, but what is learned at college is not responsible for their graduate's success. The benefits from a college diploma come from the signal it sends to employers that you are worthy of being hired. But this signaling is collectively immensely costly. Millions of young men and women spend billions of dollars and years of their lives in unproductive and costly signaling. The current relationship between college and future wages and employment is imposing enormous deadweight losses on the United States economy. Altering long-held norms about college will be difficult, but it is vital. A slow transition to a new regime with alternative screening mechanisms for employers and colleges teaching specialized skills and knowledge would make everyone better off.
In this article Nemko is illuminating the issues that our modern society is facing involving higher education. Students are starting off college with bare minimum requirements for next level learning and feeling disappointed when they are not succeeding in their courses. The author acknowledges that the courses being taken by students are sometimes not beneficial to life after college. Nemko states, “A 2006 study supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 50 percent of college seniors scored below ‘proficient’ levels on a test that required them to do such basic tasks…”(525). Students are specializing in areas of learning to in turn be denied to working in that field and stuck with unnecessary skills. “Many college graduates are forced to take some very nonprofessional positions, such as driving a truck or tending bar”( ...
In Caroline Bird’s “College is A Waste of Time and Money”, it’s argued that there are many college students who would be better off if they were to begin working after high school graduation. Colleges and universities can no longer ensure that one will go on to get a better job, getting paid more than they would have without a higher education. However, high school seniors still stress about where they will be attending college, how they’re going to pay for it and what they’re going to study for the next four years. Bird points out how college has changed over the past few decades and how, in turn, it has set many young adults up for disappointment, if nothing else.
Carlson, Scott. “A President, Fighting For Every Nickel. (Cover Story).” Chronicle of Higher Education 56.30 2010: A1-A19. Academic Search Premier. Web. 11 May 2014.
A college education costs a lot these days, but is a huge investment. The amount of money that the average college graduate earns is much greater than the money that the average high school graduate earns. Over the decades, the education pay gap between the educated, and the ...
A diverse array of arguments concerning the costly price of college and its equivalency to the ultimate result of attending persists along a vastly debatable spectrum of economic and social influences. Those seeking a better standard of living by the means of higher education often find themselves in conditions that are more adverse than their lifestyle prior to attending college. Efforts to dwindle the expenditure of college education have potential to produce a heightened reality for the world, with intellectual knowledge as the pivotal key. The expensive cost and limitability of a college education has potential to invoke incentive to work harder in one’s studies; however, obtaining a college degree does not ensure employment, the cost can