[lbo-talk] 'Universities have changed to meet the needs of their customers and the state'

[socialismorbarbarism]

The Detroit Free Press did a study of Michigan universities and found,
surprise surprise, that there has been a disproportionate jump in
administrators, a drop in faculty, and an increased ratio of part-time to
full-time faculty. But I was struck by the very clear, open ideological
stance of leading higher ed business flack-"officials" as to why this is
happening. Here's the quote:

"The increase in administrative and professional staff is largely due to
three areas -- career services, administrating grants and working to turn
university research into businesses, said Michael Boulus, the executive
director of the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan.

'Professors are not always the best person to take an idea into a
marketplace, or even get it ready for a private-sector company to grab and
use,' he wrote in an e-mail to the Free Press. 'Universities have been
adding staff to help bring those ideas to market and turn them into jobs.

'All of this is to say universities have changed to meet the needs of their
customers and the state. Adding administrators is the smart way to do
that.'"

Look, I know critiques of the business-oriented nature of US higher
education go back to Veblen (at least), but this gross, open restructuring
of universities as service extensions of capital is historically
new--certainly in degree, and I suspect in kind.