Billy Chen - Week 4

Billy Chen

Section A02

Week 4

Growing up in a lower-middle class family in Oakland, college was always a dream and a nightmare at the same time. I knew it would open limitless doors for me but also burden my family and me with burden of student debt. Fredik DeBoer's "Why We Should Fear University Inc." brought to light the scary reality that higher education is longer an institution with the students’ best interests at mind; instead administrative changes have directed the current state to focus on the bottom line: attract and admit the largest number of students possible. Students are a commodity, a cash cow, a statistic, that universities manipulate to gather the most money possible while still maintaining a passable reputation. These changes don’t reflect the university and its faculty as most professors and staff I’ve met acknowledged the new sad reality as well. The people who truly care about academia, the faculty and students, are the ones getting taken advantage of while administrators sit on cushy chairs behind closed doors counting their piles of ill-gotten gains. Administrative and “support” positions and their salaries are growing while faculty positions and salaries are staying relatively constant. The consequence of this is unsustainable sub-par education, but us students can’t exactly just boycott our education as this is our livelihood. So the questions remains: how can students, the ones being affected by this unfortunate reality, stand together and take arms against the tide of growing tuition costs and unfair business practices?

References:

1. DeBoer, F. (2015, September 9). Why We Should Fear University, Inc.. The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved October 15, 2017.
2. Five Ways To Save Money While In College [Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2017, from http://financenize.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Five-Ways-To-Save-Money-While-In-College.jpg