Higher Education in an Era of Market Triumphalism: The Current State and Future of a Crucial Institution at the Heart of the Meritocratic Promise
Abstract
In 1976, Daniel Bell argued that the "focal point of opportunity ... is being defined, increasingly, by education". In an era of 'post-industrial societies', education and knowledge become more important than ever before in the context of (in-)equality as a societal force.
Education, particularly, higher education is frequently described as an institution with the capacity to serve as a 'great equalizer', equipped with the ability to disrupt a hereditary plutocratic reproduction of advantages and privileges, and to, instead, allow for social mobility. Correspondingly, colleges and universities are crucial tools for the provision of opportunities and rank among the most important pillars of the 'meritocratic promise' so deeply intrenched in American and European liberal democracies and beyond. 'Meritocracy' is a neologism introduced by the British sociologist Michael Young in 1958 in his 'The Rise of Meritocracy' - a fictional tale about a near-future dystopia.
Ironically, the term has ever since been adopted by a variety of politicians ranging from the political left to the political right, both in Europe and in the U.S., as a positive ideology and fairness principle. It dictates that merit as a product of intelligence combined with effort ought to define societal occupation and rewards.
In many countries, however, higher education has substantially been affected by the neoliberal marketization trend that has gained traction since the late 1970s, calling into question both the survival of universities' traditional purposes, and their ability to enable continuous social mobility. They find themselves in a challenging situation of declining federal funding and a shift in 'consumer culture' which, in turn, changes society's expectations of a proper curriculum.
As a result of neoliberal market-logic becoming the guiding principle, the marketization process entails the social rationalization of university aims and missions, new approaches in terms of regulations and assessments of higher educations and research, and a growing commercialization of science and educational institutions. One of the core problems of this trend is the shifting relationship between society and knowledge.
Put differently: Whereas universities were previously regarded as institutions providing opportunities and pursuing what is 'true', 'good', or 'right' for such knowledge's inherent value, the new model of higher education has far greater concern for the production of 'useful' or 'marketable' knowledge. Universities following the marketization trend increasingly stray away from their traditional ambition to provoke reflection and critical thinking and, instead, offer a coursework shaped by the demand for workplace preparation and the production of 'practical' knowledge to be subsequently applied in the labor market.
The proposed article (presentation) scrutinizes the changes in educational culture in universities and colleges on a meta level. And yet, the debate directly affects concrete developments and policies at the heart of the educational sector, inviting the audience to a discussion of affirmative action as a fairness policy, the nature of adequate research funding, the purpose of higher education, and the design of tuition schemes that respect the imperatives of equality of opportunity and the aspiration for social mobility.