The Banality of Corruption

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Pepper Spray at UC Davis

In a sane world, this image would galvanize public opinion in the way that the images of civil rights protesters being hosed galvanized public opinion in the 1960’s. In our world, it only underlines the profound corruption that is rotting away the U.S. academic system.  It isn’t dramatic, but it is the sort of evil committed by men (mostly men, so far) in expensive suits making small daily decisions.

It’s a cliché, of course, but it’s also a truism that the last three or perhaps four decades has been dominated by a counter-revolution aimed at the perceived accomplishments of the 1960s.  In academia, this meant, more than anything, a determined and successful focus on the destruction of tenure, academic freedom of speech, and full-time employment. We’ve gone from majority tenure track to majority adjunct in a generation.

That shift meant an increasing concentration of power in administrative offices and a paradigm shift from public service to the competitive market. Meanwhile, as administrators increased their salaries , cut the cost of labor,  and drove tuition up, student financial aid focused on loans and debt. Too often, like UC Davis, the administration armed themselves against their own students.

When students protest this system, the administration is ready to protect its own privilege and power with so-called non-lethal force, claiming that they had no other choice.  Water-boarding, of course, is non-lethal too. At Penn State, the administration protected its own material and social privilege even when it meant tacitly allowing a rapist to roam its football program for years if not decades.  How far do they have to go?

Posted in: Writing

The Rabbit Takes a Hit

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Each of the companies has recently taken steps to reform their student-recruiting practices and reduce their dependence on federal student-aid funds. Mr. Marshall, in an interview, dismissed those moves as mostly “window dressing” that don’t deal with deeper challenges. “We don’t think the reforms are going to work,” he said. “The culture within these companies is not changing. (“Firm Says Poor Governance Puts 3 Higher-Education Companies at Risk of ‘Outright Failure‘”)

There’s more evidence this week that the fast rabbit for-profit universities (where I work) may be loosing their advantage against the slow-moving tortoises of the public sector.  This seems particularly serious, because it could impact a company’s ability to attract new investment as well as borrow money at a reasonable rate.  It also suggests the  economic dilemma that will dominate business in the next decade.

For the last two or three decades, and especially in the last decade, a clever company or university could thrive  by taking advantage of the Republican ideology that disabled regulations.  No one was watching. As the regulatory apparatus slowly and unevenly comes back to life, these companies and schools will have to adapt. The pubic schools will no doubt survive but some for-profits may well go out of business.

The line between public and for-profit is blurry, though, and neither side has a monopoly on ethics or effective governance. The for-profits are so reliant on public money they are arguably not really private at all. That’s why the emerging regulatory system is going to have such an impact. And many of the public universities, like Penn State, are as corrupt and greedy as anything on Wall Street.

Posted in: Economics, Professional, Writing

Less Than Zero

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In the year ahead, Texas plans to reduce its arts budget by 77 percent; Wisconsin by 67 percent. Kansas will eliminate arts funding altogether. Even New York, with an economy that is driven by culture, will cut funding by 12 percent. Since National Endowment for the Arts statutes don’t allow a state to receive a distribution without an arts budget, Kansas will receive no appropriation from the NEA either, leaving the arts without a penny of public support in that state (“As Appropriations Dry Up, Arts Infrastructure Is Dismantled“).

One of the main reasons economics in general, and the discussion of politics in particular, bugs me so much is that so little energy seems to be devoted to what we want to do as opposed to what we are supposed to do. Or, at least, what we are told we are supposed to do. It’s an obvious point, but it’s worth asking: do we want the wealthy to get wealthier or do we want the arts in our schools and in our communities?

What we are supposed to do, what we are told we have to do, what Europe is being asked to do, and what the U.S. will be asked to do soon, is to set aside our desires so that material privilege and profits can be protected. In the schools, administrators rarely cut their own salaries or trim their own budgets in times of crisis, and in the economy at large corporations rarely accept reduced profits in the name of the public good.

Posted in: Autobiographical, Miscellaneous, Professional