As we have repeatedly pointed out, when revenue seeking and cost cutting assume priority in the operation of the university, its core mission suffers. Here are a few steps in the ineluctable logic: (1) Students face increased fees and other costs of attendance, leading them to take on debt and/or to work more hours at part-time jobs. This makes it more difficult to keep up with classes, leading to lower 4-year graduation rates; (2) The university increases numbers of students to secure increasing revenue – thereby raising rents, leading to construction of new housing, putting the already debt-laden university further into the red; (3) The number of ladder faculty stagnates, with the shortfall made up by an expanding army of dedicated but overworked lecturers, unable to attend to the needs of their students; (4) The administration is transformed into an expanding, highly-paid managerial class focused on turning the university into a profit center, covering increasing costs with diminishing resources, and appropriating control from faculty, staff and students.
The logic is clear; each step follows from the previous one – so long, that is, as we accept the model of privatization. Within the model, every attempt to rescue the situation appears rational in the short run, but catastrophic in the longer run. Each Chancellor engages in stopgap measures, effectively declaring “après moi le déluge.” To counter this logic will require enormous collective strength, but it must begin with the selection of a President of the UC who not only acknowledges the importance of public education but makes it their mission to pursue public funding, by making UC not only accessible but also accountable to Californian publics. A lot hangs, therefore, on the ongoing search for a new President of UC in reversing the university’s downward spiral.
Michael Burawoy and Celeste Langan for the Berkeley Faculty Association