1st Literature Review

1) photo of the author or a relevant picture

2) Full citation, MLA format
Mills, Nicolaus1. "The Corporatization Of Higher Education." Dissent (00123846) 59.4 (2012): 6-9. OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson)
3)summary as to what the reading is about
The author talks about the changes in US higher education in terms of corporatization and privatization of the education system. He gives universities' unceasing efforts to make it to the rankings as an example of this corporatization. He argues that desire for high rankings is so significant that it comes to shape university policies. Administrators, he argues, resemble CEOs with their high salaries; schools are turning into corporations.
4)information about the author
Nicolaus Mills, a professor of American Studies at Sarah Lawrence College, is author of “Winning the Peace: The Marshall Plan and America’s Coming of Age as a Superpower"
5)define at least two key terms/concepts  
corporatization:  Adoption of corporate practices by universities, such as budged cuts and outsourcing.
privatization: The increasing role private capital plays in the US education system through partnerships and for-profit colleges.
6)give 3 quotes
"In 2003, only two colleges charged more than $40,000 a year for tuition, fees, room, and board. Six years later more than two hundred colleges charged that amount...By driving down endowments and giving tax-starved states a reason to cut back their support for higher education, the recession put new pressure on colleges and universities to raise their price " (Nicolaus, 6). The very first paragraph of the article identifies one of the most significant problems of US higher education; the fact that education is the first target for budget cuts when states face economic problems. . Even though a correlation between the well-being of national economy and public funding for universities is to be expected, education seems to be the first department to cut due to its inability to produce 'physical' evidence of its benefits to the state and the nation. These cuts, in turn, make universities raise tuition to make up for the difference, putting a heavier burden on the students.
"If corporatization meant only that colleges and universities were finding ways to be less wasteful, it would be a welcome turn of events. But an altogether different process is going on, one that has saddled us with a higher-education model that is both expensive to run and difficult to reform as a result of its focus on status, its view of students as customers, and its growing reliance on top-down administration" (Nicolaus, 6). Privatization and the corporatization that followed it were introduced with the hopes that universities would be less extravagant in their spending and their dependence on public funding would diminish in time. Instead of incorporating itself to the existing education structure, corporatization and its concepts came to dominate the system.
"It is now a standard practice for many schools to solicit applications from students who have done well on their SAT tests, even though they know there is no room for most of these students. Admissions officers don’t mind this waste of their time. The more students a college or university gets to reject, the higher it is ranked on the all-important U.S. News selectivity scale" (Nicolaus, 6). One of corporatization's effects, quest for rankings, became so important for university administrators that they find it within themselves to play with students' futures for sake of rankings. What is worse is that getting high rankings does not make a university academically better, only more marketable - and more expensive.
7)how does this help explore my research question?
This article is helpful for my research because it explains the process of  hijacking of higher education sytem by corporate principles. Those principles, which first crept in with the purpose of cutting waste, ended up spreading to all aspects of higher education.Result, as the author argues, is an overpriced and failing system.