The Academy in Crisis: The Political Economy of Higher Education

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Assembling a methodical examination of government's pervasive involvement in higher education and academic research, The Academy in Crisis vividly shows that the real beneficiaries are middle- and upper-income students and the educational establishment itself, who exploit the rest of society, especially the poor. In a stimulating and innovative analysis, the book further traces the symptoms of academic decay to the perverse incentives facing those within the modern bureaucracies of higher education. The trashing of American higher education has become a growth sector in the intellectual marketplace. However, The Academy in Crisis shows that the problems run deeper than nostalgia for "the good old days." With government determining the contours of higher education, meaningful reform will never be successful until battle is waged with the resulting government-university complex.