“Academically Speaking” is a series by Campus Reform Editor in Chief Zachary Marschall that, drawing on his firsthand experience working with other scholars across the globe, reveals how radical ideas originating in academia impact Americans’ daily lives.
Marschall holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies and is an adjunct professor at the University of Kentucky. His research investigates the intersections of democratic political systems, free market economies, and technological innovation in the production of national and cultural identities, as well as the exchange of cultural goods, services, and practices.
Money matters in higher education because universities, as social institutions, like to behave simultaneously as if they are and are not businesses. And in recent years, they enjoy being woke.
Those two behaviors are connected.
Most colleges are not-for-profits with educational and research missions, but entrepreneurial speculation is present all over campus. Large new shiny buildings, corporate partnerships, and new academic programs resemble the components of a for-profit growth strategy.
Money dictates the trajectory of higher education because revenue and spending influence the composition of people who have a political stake in the research, curriculum, and programming on campus.
In previous editorials, I have argued that hiring practices and administrative hierarchies are the sources of leftist indoctrination on campus. Those trends represent the spending side of financial matters.
Revenue is equally important.
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Aug. 17 report “State Support for Public Colleges, 2002-20” is essential to understanding why university revenue influences social institutions so strongly.
The stratospheric rise in revenue since 2002 is indicative of an institutionalized growth strategy throughout higher education that uses rising tuition and fees to fund new programs, initiatives, and offices that specifically cater to college as an experience for leftist activism….
h/t Glenn