I haven’t gone on an edu rant for a while, so let’s do, shall we? Key parts of US higher ed have become inefficient bundlers of services offered by profit-seeking third parties that don’t care about precious ideas. For decades, it’s limped along by (1) putting younger people into indentured servitude and (2) rent-seeking from a parade of international students — a parade that will shortly come to an end. None of this can be fixed until academics (basically, people who have synonyms of “teacher” in their title) assert their collective authority. I mean real authority that’s grounded in essential activities like teaching, not “shared governance” or other euphemisms. But asserting that authority will require that academics take real risks — for example, challenging administrations (basically, people who don’t have synonyms of “teacher” in their title) over fundamental issues of who (“equity”) can use edu resources (“access”), how those policies are defined and maintained (“transparency”), and what happens when things go well or poorly (“accountability”). There are many paths toward that end, but one of the most effective will be to target “executive compensation consultants,” whose business it is to reward misguided priorities. Demand and win total transparency around that subject — limpid, pellucid, crystalline transparency — and you’ll gain a lot of power very quickly. And act soon, because history will move much more quickly than your CV.
(NYT)