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.

This book has emerged in response to social service workers' vivid descriptions of changes in the practice of their craft during the past 15 years and to the scanty literature that addressed their concerns. Few works have attempted to explore the interplay between the recent broader changes affecting the welfare state (fiscal crisis, cost containment, privatization, etc) and the restructuring of social service work. Yet, it is clear that the fiscal decisions of the 1980s profoundly affected both the context and content of social service practice. "The Welfare State Crisis and the Transformation of Social Service Work" explores how these larger forces have created significant changes for the line practitioner. The greater push for caseload volume in the face of resource scarcity is redefining service encounters in ways that are more likely to meet the fiscal needs of the agency rather than the service needs of clients and the professional concerns of the worker. In short, the fiscal crisis of the past two decades has placed the enterprise of social services at risk. After empirically documenting the seriousness of the risk, "The Welfare State Crisis and the Transformation of Social Service Work" concludes with an exploration of new social service practice strategies that have the potential to integrate the individual, organization, communal, and social changes necessary for effective service interventions.

This book has emerged in response to social service workers' vivid descriptions of changes in the practice of their craft during the past 15 years and to the scanty literature that addressed their concerns. Few works have attempted to explore the interplay between the recent broader changes affecting the welfare state (fiscal crisis, cost containment, privatization, etc) and the restructuring of social service work. Yet, it is clear that the fiscal decisions of the 1980s profoundly affected both the context and content of social service practice. "The Welfare State Crisis and the Transformation of Social Service Work" explores how these larger forces have created significant changes for the line practitioner. The greater push for caseload volume in the face of resource scarcity is redefining service encounters in ways that are more likely to meet the fiscal needs of the agency rather than the service needs of clients and the professional concerns of the worker. In short, the fiscal crisis of the past two decades has placed the enterprise of social services at risk. After empirically documenting the seriousness of the risk, "The Welfare State Crisis and the Transformation of Social Service Work" concludes with an exploration of new social service practice strategies that have the potential to integrate the individual, organization, communal, and social changes necessary for effective service interventions.

The authors persuasively argue that the present cascade of reforms to public education is a consequence of a larger intention to shrink government. The startling result is that more of public education's assets and resources are moving to the private sector and to the prison industrial complex. Drawing on various forms of evidence-structural, economic, narrative, and youth-generated participatory research-the authors reveal new structures and circuits of dispossession and privilege that amount to a clear failure of present policy. Policymaking is at war with the interests of the vast majority of citizens, and especially with urban youth of color. In the final chapter the authors explore democratic principles and offer examples essential to mobilizing, in solidarity with educators, youth, communities, labor, and allied social movements, the kind of power necessary to contest the present direction of public education reform.

The authors persuasively argue that the present cascade of reforms to public education is a consequence of a larger intention to shrink government. The startling result is that more of public education's assets and resources are moving to the private sector and to the prison industrial complex. Drawing on various forms of evidence-structural, economic, narrative, and youth-generated participatory research-the authors reveal new structures and circuits of dispossession and privilege that amount to a clear failure of present policy. Policymaking is at war with the interests of the vast majority of citizens, and especially with urban youth of color. In the final chapter the authors explore democratic principles and offer examples essential to mobilizing, in solidarity with educators, youth, communities, labor, and allied social movements, the kind of power necessary to contest the present direction of public education reform.