Since this episode first aired on What’s Left? back in October 2022, we have some good news to report: Lura Forcum left Clemson University to become the Director of Marketing Communications at the State Policy Network. Unlike yours truly, she will still be spared the ravages of the true private sector.
Marketing professor (and Oliver's high school classmate) Lura Forcum returns to the show to discuss some of the challenges facing academia.
Suggested reading
This is a well-covered topic, including by Oliver, so the reading list accompanying this episode is extensive.
Articles by Oliver
"Why I'm Walking Away" in https://www.vox.com/2015/9/8/9261531/professor-quitting-job and reprinted in Leaving the Grove: A Quit Lit Reader
"The For-Profit Law School That Crumbled," https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/01/the-for-profit-law-school-that-crumbled/514355/
"Why the 'Safe-Space' Debate Is a Problem for Adjuncts," https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/10/a-power-struggle-inside-safe-spaces/502859/
"Confessions of a Grade-Inflating Professor," https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-grade-inflation/373251/
"Stop Grading and Testing," https://www.splicetoday.com/on-campus/stop-grading-and-testing
"What My Mother Taught Me About Teaching," https://www.splicetoday.com/writing/what-my-mother-taught-me-about-teaching
"Down with the SAT," https://psmag.com/education/down-with-the-sat
"Don't Regulate Professors' Tweets," http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/5/kansas-social-mediapolicyuniversityprofessors.html
Other Articles
On the topic of whether too much loan money leads to increased institutional spending on student experience, inflating the cost of education: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr733.pdf;
Another study said that there is no such link, except for private, for-profit colleges and universities: https://www.npr.org/2018/12/13/672952507/does-more-federal-aid-raise-tuition-costs-not-for-most-students-research-says)
On the amenities arms race, per McKinsey: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/education/our-insights/reimagining-higher-education-in-the-united-states (growth in spending on student services such as entertainment, gourmet food, and wellness is 4x growth in spending on instruction)
Gender bias in evaluations is well known: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/14/study-says-students-rate-men-more-highly-women-even-when-theyre-teaching-identical
In 2014, University of Phoenix accounted for $35B in student loan debt. These private universities have abysmal graduation rates, many of their students never complete their degrees, and said students can never have this debt discharged through bankruptcy: https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/funding-down-tuition-up
Books
David Graeber argues in Debt for allowing student loans to be discharged through bankruptcy. Download a copy here.
Bryan Caplan's The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money is an interesting examination of the signaling value of a degree as well as the low ROI of the system overall, both to individuals and society.
The Work of Academia