blog post #3

Privatization of higher education is becoming a problem in America because core corporate principles, such as significance of capital and the quest for profits, are not compatible with education. In NEA, it is argued that "In its narrowest meaning, privatization suggests a movement away from public financing and toward private financing. For higher education, the term includes a range of activities taking place on campus. Generally, in the name of financial necessity, colleges and universities cut services, undertake agressive outsourcing, reduce the number of regular tenured teaching slots, and increase tuition" (NEA, 1). While corporate habits make a financially healthy university, it cuts spending to make profit, spending less per student instruction. Privatization is incompatible for a healthy education system because students, who traditionally have had little power over university policies, can't be as influential and demanding as a regular customer and it is the customers' demand that set the standard. On the contrary, it is the student who has to be on good terms with the school so he can be academically successfull and graduate. In a privatized system, the students' weakness results in a situation where the company (school) doesn't have to satisfy the customer(students). Students are complicit by not standing up for their interests. Low budgeted, poor quality education at arbitrary prices is the endproduct. In an environment where education comes to be regarded as a private good, the quality of education can only be assured by the students' demands. And if those students don't stand up for their rights, higher education will underachieve and lose its significance.