Public higher education in the postwar era was a key economic and
social driver in American life, making college available to
millions of working men and women. Since the 1980s, however,
government austerity policies and politics have severely reduced
public investment in higher education, exacerbating inequality
among poor and working-class students of color, as well as
part-time faculty. In Austerity Blues, Michael Fabricant and
Stephen Brier examine these devastating fiscal retrenchments
nationally, focusing closely on New York and California, both of
which were leaders in the historic expansion of public higher
education in the postwar years and now are at the forefront of
austerity measures. Fabricant and Brier describe the extraordinary
growth of public higher education after 1945, thanks largely to
state investment, the alternative intellectual and political
traditions that defined the 1960s, and the social and economic
forces that produced austerity policies and inequality beginning in
the late 1970s and 1980s. A provocative indictment of the negative
impact neoliberal policies have visited on the public university,
especially the growth of class, racial, and gender inequalities,
Austerity Blues also analyzes the many changes currently sweeping
public higher education, including the growing use of educational
technology, online learning, and privatization, while exploring how
these developments hurt students and teachers. In its final
section, the book offers examples of oppositional and emancipatory
struggles and practices that can help reimagine public higher
education in the future. The ways in which factors as diverse as
online learning, privatization, and disinvestment cohere into a
single powerful force driving deepening inequality is the central
theme of the book. Incorporating the differing perspectives of
students, faculty members, and administrators, the book reveals how
public education has been redefined as a private benefit, often
outsourced to for-profit vendors who "sell" education back to
indebted undergraduates. Over the past twenty years, tuition and
related student debt have climbed precipitously and degree
completion rates have dropped. Not only has this new austerity
threatened public universities' ability to educate students,
Fabricant and Brier argue, but it also threatens to undermine the
very meaning and purpose of public higher education in offering
poor and working-class students access to a quality education in a
democracy. Synthesizing historical sources, social science
research, and contemporary reportage, Austerity Blues will be of
interest to readers concerned about rising inequality and the
decline of public higher education.
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