What influences do corpratization and prestige hold on the function of higher education and what does that tell us about the institution of higher education as a whole?
What has caused the shift to corporatization?
Davidson, Cliff. "The University Corporatization Shift: A Longitudinal Analysis of University Admission Handbooks, 1988-2010". Canadian Journal of Higher Education. Volume 45. No. 2. September 1, 2015. Education Full Database. March 2, 2015.
Davidson's analysis shows a decrease emphasis on academics and an increase emphasis on student experience. Corporatization has been made more about selling the education experience and less about educating democratic citizens. Davidson states two reasons leading toward the corporatization of education: decline in public funds and inefficient use of funds that they already have. This source looks at the impact corporatization has had on recruitment and marketing strategies. Overall, universities move towards selling the university experience they can provide rather than the education students can receive. Consumerism is defined in this paper as the belief that individuals will obtain gratification and social standing primarily though their purchase of tangible products. Students look to see obvious benefits from their studies, like an inherently valued qualification, or as a route to a particular for of employment. Davidson states "education has always been able to be bought and sold by those with money." higher education is being modeled after corporations and structured to maximize profit, growth, and marketability. Corporatization has been associated with: student disengagement, mastication, administrative overload, branding of the university, vocationalism, increases in tuition and related costs. The increase in student populations (not only an elitist institution) has contributed to funding deficits. To help with the mass influx of student population, the university has to hirer more administrators, build more facilities and classrooms, and expand existing student services. Another issue comes in technology. Students not only expect technology to be available to use in higher education, they expect the best technology. Since technology is an ever changing field it is very hard for university to continue to pay for the updated product. The biggest influence of the shift to commodification is federal and provincial funding cuts. These cuts force schools to find there money elsewhere and selling education like a product. With tuition steadily increasing still, questions begin to be asked as to where the money is being spent. the Answers are often linked to increases in administrative, infrastructure, and technology costs.
Davidson offers insight into why exactly corporatization has become such a big deal in higher education. The fact of the matter is that cuts to higher education has influenced how colleges get their money. This is why tuition cost had to rise and why campuses had to expand in order to provide for more students and in order to get money from them in order to cover the insane cost of running a university. this article provides justification for corporatization in higher education as this necessity of something that you had to do in order to gain money that would have been provided by state funding.
The Fink and Mills article focuses on corporatization as a way to rise in rankings and to present education in a way just to gain status and prestige where as Davidson's article focus on corporatization as a way of adapting to the budget cuts. Due to these funding cuts, universities have had to find money elsewhere by recruiting more students to pay for it. In recruiting more students, you have to build more facilities and expand services to accommodate everyone. This causes tuition to rise. I believe that the corporatization of higher education should focus less on competitive adaptation and focus more on providing students with the college education they deserve. Instead of biting off more then they can chew, administrators should be focused on reforming higher education to provide the best education to the most amount of people. It shouldn't be about the status or biggest consumer group... it should be about giving the most people the best opportunity to be successful in the world. If you can't do that when you have hundreds of thousands of students to be aware of, don't make your school bigger.
This source brings me to ask the questions of has states increased funding back into schools? Because if they have then according to this source, corporatization should have slowly disappeared... which it hasn't. It just become bigger and more prominent.
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