How Our Universities Have Been Turned into Corporate Marketing Centers

How Our Universities Have Been Turned into Corporate Marketing Centers | Alternet
Universities that once prided themselves as being centers of free thinking are increasingly dominated by corporate-think, turning their institutions into sales centers.

A Fuller Accounting for Goverment?

Debra K. Decker: A Fuller Accounting
Discussions about the economy and the fiscal cliff may be urgent but they are not the most important discussions we need to be having. We keep getting twisted and tied up by urgent matters because we don't address America's important underlying issues: what we want as a people and the role of government in helping us achieve that. These important issues are difficult ones to address -- made only more difficult by the lack of a framework for discussing them. To develop a framework, we need a fuller accounting.

War on Youth

War on Youth
Henry A. Giroux, History of Violence Project,  Annual Address

The critically acclaimed public intellectual Henry A. Giroux discusses the state sponsored assault being waged against young people across the globe, especially in the United States. For Giroux, what is no longer a hidden order of politics is that American society is at war with its children, and that the use of such violence against young people is a disturbing index of a society in the midst of a deep moral and political crisis. 

Higher tuitions: Harbinger of a Hybrid University? | UT Watch on the Web

Higher tuitions: Harbinger of a Hybrid University? | UT Watch on the Web

From Master Plan to No Plan: The Slow Death of Public Higher Education | Dissent Magazine

From Master Plan to No Plan: The Slow Death of Public Higher Education | Dissent Magazine

The precedents for the crisis in higher education go back to the 1980s with Ronald Reagan's first blows against the California system and specifically Berkeley.  This is what has happened since.

How Higher Education in the US Was Destroyed

How Higher Education in the US Was Destroyed in 5 Basic Steps | Alternet

The liberal arts stood at the center of a college education, and students were exposed to philosophy, anthropology, literature, history, sociology, world religions, foreign languages and cultures. Of course, something else happened, beginning in the late '50s into the '60s — the uprisings and growing numbers of citizens taking part in popular dissent — against the Vietnam War, against racism, against destruction of the environment in a growing corporatized culture, against misogyny, against homophobia. Where did much of that revolt incubate? Where did large numbers of well-educated, intellectual, and vocal people congregate? On college campuses. Who didn’t like the outcome of the '60s? The corporations, the war-mongers, those in our society who would keep us divided based on our race, our gender, our sexual orientation.

Occupy 2.0: Strike Debt

Occupy 2.0: Strike Debt | The Nation
“Debt is the tie that binds the 99 percent,” Occupy organizer Yates McKee has written: from the underwater and foreclosed-upon homeowners who were first pummeled by the economic crisis, to the millions of debt-strapped students who are in default or on the brink, to all those driven into bankruptcy by medical bills, to workers everywhere who have been forced to compensate for more than thirty years of stagnating wages with credit card debt, to the firefighters and teachers who have had to accept pay cuts because their cities are broke, to the citizens of countries where schools and hospitals are being closed to pay back foreign bondholders. Given the way debt operates at the municipal and national levels, the issue affects us all—even those who are fortunate enough to be debt-free, as well as those so poor they don’t have access to credit. Debt is one of the ways we all feel Wall Street’s influence most intimately, whether it’s because of a ballooning mortgage payment or a subway fare hike or a shuttered clinic.

Academia Becoming a Profession Only the Elite Can Afford

Professors Making $10,000 a Year? Academia Becoming a Profession Only the Elite Can Afford | Alternet
One after another, the occupations that shape American society are becoming impossible for all but the most elite to enter. 

On the Corporitization of Public Universities

What Terry Sullivan's Reinstatement at U. Va Really Tells Us about the Future of Higher Ed | Education | AlterNet
Does the reappointment of University of Virginia's president mark a triumph over corporate interests? Or is it more proof that public universities are headed for demise?

Neil Gaiman – The Best Commencement Speech You May Ever Hear (20 Minutes)

Neil Gaiman – The Best Commencement Speech You May Ever Hear (20 Minutes)



http://vimeo.com/uartsphilly/neil-gaiman-addresses-the-university-of-the-arts-class-of-2012

Charles Ferguson: The Sellout of the Ivory Tower, and the Crash of 2008 (Excerpt)

Charles Ferguson: The Sellout of the Ivory Tower, and the Crash of 2008 (Excerpt)

How the Conservative Worldview Quashes Critical Thinking -- and What That Means For Our Kids' Future | Education | AlterNet

How the Conservative Worldview Quashes Critical Thinking -- and What That Means For Our Kids' Future | Education | AlterNet

Toward a More Perfect Student Unionism: Lessons From the Maple Spring | Education | AlterNet

Toward a More Perfect Student Unionism: Lessons From the Maple Spring | Education | AlterNet
Perspective from being a student these days in the U.S.

DIY Education - interview with Anya Kamenetz

Watch Anya Kamenetz on the 'Debt Generation' on PBS. See more from Need to Know.

"Good for Wall Street - Bad for Students": SEIU Hosts Webinar on Predatory, Proprietary Colleges and Universities | Truthout

"Good for Wall Street - Bad for Students": SEIU Hosts Webinar on Predatory, Proprietary Colleges and Universities | Truthout
A cursory investigation of the for-profit higher education industry reveals striking parallels between the economics of the for-profit colleges and universities and the Wall Street financial meltdown of 2008.