Week 4- Alexandra Tan- A01

Often times I think we overlook the flaws of the institutions that we attend because we are here to get degrees and leave. As someone slightly spoiled, I don't often worry about my tuition being paid or why it costs as much as it does. There is a very corporate side of the university system that I have turned a blind eye to. One of this weeks articles A Tale of Two Campuses: Berkeley and Davis Respond to Occupy Movements opened my eyes to the fact that, as much as I would like to think UC Davis cares about me as a student, it is clear I am nothing but a $14,000 payment each year. I remember being just a couple days late in paying my tuition for one quarter. They were ruthless at the registrar, they dropped me from all of the classes I registered for, and even though the waitlists became extremely long and I was now in line to be at the end of them all, they did not care to help. I cried, and my tears saw no compassion. Why do I pay so much to attend a university that doesn't have enough space in their classes to accommodate the students who need them? It was then that I realized that the university cares very little about me, they care much much more about the money I pay to attend the university. Just like they did not address the concerns of the Occupy student movement, and instead focused on the damage done because of the movement, they did not address my concerns as a student and only focused on the fact my payment was two days late. Why We Should Fear University, Inc. also addresses the corporatism of universities. It is corporatism that is making the university experience less about students and what the students need, and instead about how to exploit and profit off of the desperate young adult population with dreams of landing decent jobs, and need degrees to do just that.
Question: How can we confront this, as a student population being exploited, since protest does not seem to be effective, at least not at UC Davis?

Citations:

Deboer, Fredrik. (2015). “Why We Should Fear University, Inc.” New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/why-we-should-fear-university-inc.html

Markow, A. (2011, December 22). "A Tale of Two Campuses: Berkeley and Davis respond to Occupy movements". Retrieved from https://ivn.us/2011/12/19/a-tale-of-two-campuses-berkeley-and-davis-respond-to-occupy-movements/

Mcgettigan, A. (2013). The great university gamble: Money, markets and the future of higher education.