This is a very interesting book on a very important subject: the reduced funding (over multiple decades) for public higher education. All seem to agree that what was once seen as a public good is now seen, largely, as a private good. In general, those with college degrees make more money than those without such degrees. Thus, they pay more taxes. Hence it should be simple common sense for states to support their institutions of higher education because the end result (assuming that the graduates remain within the state) will be enhanced tax revenue which will offset the cost of education. This is a no-risk, sure-thing proposition. And yet, public support for public higher education has diminished. One straightforward answer to this situation is that if, indeed, a college degree will lead to manifestly higher income there is no need for the taxpayer to subsidize this process at former levels. Individuals will be willing to pay for this private good and the states will get the enhanced tax revenue anyway. The wide availability of student loans makes this an even easier decision.
In the absence of approximately one-third of their former state support, what are public universities to do? They do whatever they can. They gin up elaborate extension programs; they establish cash-cow professional programs. At the top publics they mimic the activities of top privates. They raise tuition. They seek a greater number of (usually out-of-state) `full-payers'. They conduct major development campaigns. They build incubators to facilitate tech transfer and acquire patent income. They `commercialize' in multiple ways. They achieve budgetary flexibility by hiring part-time or long-term, non-tenure track faculty. This enables them to react to enrollment spikes and enrollment dips without challenging the institution of indefinite tenure.
Some of the steps that have been taken have simply brought public higher education into line with its own possibilities. Some, however, have been detrimental to education. Commercialization in particular has, in some of its forms, been very detrimental to both public and private higher education.
Christopher Newfield's take on all of this is one involving a large, master narrative. Essentially, he argues that the reduction in resources can be traced to a coordinated plan to reduce the opportunities of a multiracial middle class in order to cement a conservative hegemony which would be threatened by the attitudes and impulses of that middle class. That middle class is imagined to have benefited in particular by new curricular additions within the postwar university, especially the culture-based studies within the arts and humanities. The conservative attack has functioned like a neutron bomb--destroying cultural study but not harming technocratic content (thus hitting the arts and humanities, but saving the sciences, engineering and the professional schools).
This is a fascinating argument and the author pursues it by looking at certain issues, events, books, individuals and legislation in great detail. Those examinations constitute the book's greatest strengths. It is up to the reader to decide just how important those individual items (e.g. the Clinton withdrawal of the Lani Guinier DOJ nomination) are, in the larger scheme of things.
It is certainly the case that there are other large narratives that one might consider. For example, with the vast expansion in college attendance we have seen a comparable expansion of student interest in vocational education. The (comparable) reduced interest in the arts and humanities may not be because of the attacks on their curricula by Lynn Cheney or David Horowitz but rather because of the desire by first-generation college students to see their degrees yield high-paying jobs. The fact that reduced support for public education has led to higher tuition is a part of this picture. With costs rising students do not have the luxury of pursuing high-risk fields, e.g. in the arts, or low-income fields, e.g. public interest law. At the same time, the vast expansion of federal loans has enabled institutions (including the top, already-wealthy ones) to raise their tuitions. Students who could afford to study at public institutions take out large loans and study at distinguished private institutions. Their loan burdens thus `reduce' their choices. Harvard's largest undergraduate major in the college is Economics, not some area of cultural studies, and many of its students aspire to Wall Street wealth, despite the fact that Harvard is very well supported indeed and its faculty is not known for its overweening conservatism.
Readers can decide for themselves whether or not the conservative assaults on certain aspects of public education were sufficiently coordinated and sufficiently effective to actually do the damage that Newfield claims. There is a sense of conspiracy here that will not ring true for all. One would wonder, e.g., why certain undeniably-blue states (in the northeast, e.g.) have not been great supporters of public education. Have they been overwhelmed by the arguments of Dinesh D'Souza and Roger Kimball?
It is also the case that the author fails to distinguish between political conservatives and academic conservatives. When I entered the profession in the late 60's I was surrounded by individuals who voted either democrat or socialist but who were rigidly meritocratic in their professional lives. These individuals were just as sceptical of growing `60's' elements in the university as the political conservatives. Along that same line, the point is often made that academics tend to be politically liberal but personally conservative. Newfield's research does indeed suggest that when faculty interest is at stake, faculty behavior can align very nicely with the deleterious aspects of commercialization which he and others (including political conservatives) deplore.
Newfield writes of `cultural warriors' and their assault on the multiracial middle class students, who were enlivened and enriched by cultural studies and aided by affirmative action, but the picture that he draws is incomplete. He attacks Allan Bloom, of course (dwelling on his thought rather than his lifestyle) but fails to mention E. D. Hirsch at all, despite the fact that Hirsch's writings on cultural literacy were seen as central elements of the culture wars. Hirsch, of course, is politically liberal, but believes that the erosion of coherent curricula has both limited our ability to share a common conversation and, in particular, reduced the opportunities for minorities, immigrants and the poor to achieve the kind of education which elites already possess. (Raymond Chandler once said that he sought a classical education to protect himself from those who already had one.) Amorphous curricula and, indeed, lowered expectations, grade inflation and the view of students as consumers (part of the `60's' legacy) have not necessarily enhanced the opportunities of the weak, particularly in a global economy with far greater competition.
Along that line, there is no mention of the studies of Richard Sander of affirmative action. These are potentially very consequential and come from a colleague within the UC system, at UCLA. Sander, another confirmed, traditional liberal, found that the admission of minority students to `reach' law schools served to diminish their success. The dropout rate and bar exam failure rate were raised by practices that were well-meaning. The bottom line is that people of good will, across the political spectrum, can share the same hopes for our fellow citizens, particularly those operating at significant disadvantage, but disagree strongly on the means to turn those hopes into realities. Back in the 60's a friend of mine was teaching at Cornell. He was teaching a black lit course and had a black student in one of his other courses. He told the student that she might be interested in his black lit course. She responded, "Thanks, Professor McConnell, but I already know what it means to be black; I came to Cornell to become an engineer."
Finally, all of the books on education tend to focus on the home institution of the author. This author teaches at UCSB and has been very active (and, given his command of the issues and facts, probably very effective) in taking leadership positions within the faculty councils that govern the UC system. He is troubled by what he has encountered within that system, as well he might be. One must question, however, the `representativeness' of California within the current discussion. Its state assembly is broadly considered to be dysfunctional. Individuals are fleeing its levels of taxation and regulation. At the same time, its tuition and room and board costs are extremely high. Still, the state is solidly blue, despite its occasional Republican governors. The tuition and room and board in many red state public flagships are much lower. So too, one might argue, is quality, but the quality of the UC system should have enabled its individual institutions to seek alternative sources of revenue with greater ease. These are very complex issues, of course. Newfield's argument is more simple and not necessarily in a bad sense. I like a strong master narrative. It is clear and thought-provoking and that narrative here is very nicely articulated and strongly argued. It is also open to challenges of various kinds.
