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I won't disagree about the effects of oversight at the state level - but the system usually isn't changed that much by this. The disciplines have their own lite

I won't disagree about the effects of oversight at the state level - but the system usually isn't changed that much by this. The disciplines have their own literature and mores. I don't think the conservatives have anything to do with it. For one, most of the conservatives I've read work from within the academic system. For another, an original conservative might have been someone like Edmund Burke, who died in 1797. What changed was - there was rather suddenly a lot of money. There was the mandate that "(nearly) everybody needs a degree." When you go from 5% of the population to 50%, things will be different. Take UT Austin - its endowment is sufficient that they need never charge tuition, but they do to keep capacity matched to demand. What's really changed is just galloping careerism. Nothing else is needed to explain this.

woodandsteel 10y ago
I agree that other causes were involved. But as for the need for more money, this happened when conservatives were taking over one state house after another, and a large part of their agenda was cutting state budgets, and one happy consequence of this, from their perspective, is that it forced public universities to become much more like corporations. And when this happened, they did nothing to stop it, and just sat back and smiled. As to conservative academics, ask them and they will tell you American academia is overwhelmingly liberal. It is the conservative politicians who brounght about the change, not the academics. Also one thing the conservative movement did in response is set up a vast network of think tanks to give brainy conservatives alternative employment. And remember, there are two sides to this. On the one side, they force universities to become more like corporations by cutting funds. On the other hand, conservatives are pro-corporate and so are happy that, in order to get the needed cash, they had to do the corporations bidding. As to galloping careerism, that begs the question of why, for the first time in history, ambitious people go into university administration, when that has always been a poor-paying job for people who were basically academics.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  >But as for the need for more money, this happened when conservatives were taking over one state house after another, and a large part of their agenda was cutting state budgets, and one happy consequence of this, from their perspective, is that it forced public universities to become much more like corporations. And when this happened, they did nothing to stop it, and just sat back and smiled. It's worth noting that Governor Reagan was one of the first to take this path. He actually introduced tuition to the UC system just for "hippie-punching" the folks at Berkeley.
- woodandsteel 10y ago
  Oh, wait, by careerism do you mean among the students? Yes, that is a good point, but again it is because the jobs they are after require degrees.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    Partly that, but I mainly mean the utter "publish or perish" treadmill is the main manner in which careerism is expressed in academia.
    - woodandsteel 10y ago
      Ok, you're right that is an important factor.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  There are lots of different kinds of universities. If funding to universities was (relatively) cut, it was because demand surged. The California system had free, taxpayer supported universities but that wasn't sustainable due to demographics. Of course the story is different everywhere. It's not like universities are poverty pockets. Conservatives are not uniformly pro-corporate. There may be a central tendency towards "free markets" ( or some caricature thereof ) but that's not a central tenet. I follow the Arnold Kling model; conservatives are primarily concerned with perceived barbarism. People who work steadily are seen as less barbaric. Corporations hire people. Think tanks are an artifact of an expanding media system. I watch a lot of CSPAN, and they are a lot on there. There are similar liberal institutions, and varying degrees of conservatism even among AEI or the like. Much of that is simply exploiting the business model created by Wm. F Buckley. I know nothing of who goes into university administration. but the tendency of people to go into administration in general should be apparent in the larger culture.
  - woodandsteel 10y ago
    As to different types of universities, the private ones still have boards of directors that tend to be dominated by businessmen, and of course the money in their endowments mostly come from rich businessmen. And as to the problem of demographics, as others have pointed out they should have handled this by remaining lean in expenses but instead went the opposite direction. You're right there are different types of conservatives. But the conservative politicians are almost all strongly pro-corporate. That is partly because that is where they get a lot of their campaign contribution. Conservatives who don't make the free market central I think should instead be labeled traditionalists.
    - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
      There's only so much lean you can do. At some point, you will need to predict a growth pattern and steer towards it, and you'll be wrong. IMO, the most succinct way to explain education now is: we subsidize it. That which you subsidize, you get more of, and it costs more.

woodandsteel 10y ago

I agree that other causes were involved. But as for the need for more money, this happened when conservatives were taking over one state house after another, and a large part of their agenda was cutting state budgets, and one happy consequence of this, from their perspective, is that it forced public universities to become much more like corporations. And when this happened, they did nothing to stop it, and just sat back and smiled. As to conservative academics, ask them and they will tell you American academia is overwhelmingly liberal. It is the conservative politicians who brounght about the change, not the academics. Also one thing the conservative movement did in response is set up a vast network of think tanks to give brainy conservatives alternative employment. And remember, there are two sides to this. On the one side, they force universities to become more like corporations by cutting funds. On the other hand, conservatives are pro-corporate and so are happy that, in order to get the needed cash, they had to do the corporations bidding. As to galloping careerism, that begs the question of why, for the first time in history, ambitious people go into university administration, when that has always been a poor-paying job for people who were basically academics.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>But as for the need for more money, this happened when conservatives were taking over one state house after another, and a large part of their agenda was cutting state budgets, and one happy consequence of this, from their perspective, is that it forced public universities to become much more like corporations. And when this happened, they did nothing to stop it, and just sat back and smiled. It's worth noting that Governor Reagan was one of the first to take this path. He actually introduced tuition to the UC system just for "hippie-punching" the folks at Berkeley.
woodandsteel 10y ago
Oh, wait, by careerism do you mean among the students? Yes, that is a good point, but again it is because the jobs they are after require degrees.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  Partly that, but I mainly mean the utter "publish or perish" treadmill is the main manner in which careerism is expressed in academia.
  - woodandsteel 10y ago
    Ok, you're right that is an important factor.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
There are lots of different kinds of universities. If funding to universities was (relatively) cut, it was because demand surged. The California system had free, taxpayer supported universities but that wasn't sustainable due to demographics. Of course the story is different everywhere. It's not like universities are poverty pockets. Conservatives are not uniformly pro-corporate. There may be a central tendency towards "free markets" ( or some caricature thereof ) but that's not a central tenet. I follow the Arnold Kling model; conservatives are primarily concerned with perceived barbarism. People who work steadily are seen as less barbaric. Corporations hire people. Think tanks are an artifact of an expanding media system. I watch a lot of CSPAN, and they are a lot on there. There are similar liberal institutions, and varying degrees of conservatism even among AEI or the like. Much of that is simply exploiting the business model created by Wm. F Buckley. I know nothing of who goes into university administration. but the tendency of people to go into administration in general should be apparent in the larger culture.
- woodandsteel 10y ago
  As to different types of universities, the private ones still have boards of directors that tend to be dominated by businessmen, and of course the money in their endowments mostly come from rich businessmen. And as to the problem of demographics, as others have pointed out they should have handled this by remaining lean in expenses but instead went the opposite direction. You're right there are different types of conservatives. But the conservative politicians are almost all strongly pro-corporate. That is partly because that is where they get a lot of their campaign contribution. Conservatives who don't make the free market central I think should instead be labeled traditionalists.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    There's only so much lean you can do. At some point, you will need to predict a growth pattern and steer towards it, and you'll be wrong. IMO, the most succinct way to explain education now is: we subsidize it. That which you subsidize, you get more of, and it costs more.