Education as such, is under attack on many fronts in America - by Republican politicians, by the current Depression, and by corporate vulture capitalists who want to gut the whole liberal arts and sciences edifice, fire serious educators, outsource teaching (this mission is more than half accomplished already), and institute the usual "austerity measures" to make higher profits.
What's next? I assume the new corporate-crony President and Boards of Trustees and Regents won't want to put any profits the U. realizes from these measures into facilities, books or teaching personnel. Of course they'll want to siphon off said profits by treating themselves to million-dollar bonuses à la Bain Capital. Bad news for higher education. That's how you run a University like a Fortune 500 company.
Just read this on HuffPost: UVA Teresa Sullivan Ouster Reveals Corporate Control Of Public Education.
Brief synopsis: UVA's President Sullivan, a serious and respected educational administrator, stepped down (i.e. was forced out) after two years in office because of "philosophical differences" with the institution's governing Board of Visitors, all corporate crony appointees.
(Summary of article below the squiggle)
Emails reveal said Board of Visitors wants to "institute austerity measures and re-engineer its academic offerings around inexpensive, online education" Led by real estate developer Rector Helen Dragas, , the board "shared a guiding vision that the university could, and indeed should, be run like a Fortune 500 company."
The University of Virginia academic community is in open revolt against the coup. Amid faculty and student calls for Sullivan's reinstatement, the Provost' has threatened to resign, and the board-appointed interim president from the business school (Carl Zeithaml) has stepped down.
But readthe whole article. How many of these things are happening, or have happened, where you teach or go (went) to college? My undergrad college in Colorado appointed a corporate crony, a meat company's attorney, as president.