Privatization of Public Education: The Real Weapons of Mass Destruction

The cost of finding out that Saddam Hussein, as most of the world suspected, harbored no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction has cost us well over $100 billion in the past year. This sum is greater than the total amount budgeted for NIH, NSF, and the entire U.S. Department of Education, combined. This massive expenditure comes at a time when state-funded universities are facing dire economic conditions, with many of them forced to cut or eliminate academic programs. Unfortunately, this only represents the tip of the iceberg, because we have not begun to pay this huge and steadily growing war debt. In fact, employing a new version of voodoo economics, President Bush continues to propose further tax cuts, which will ultimately pass these costs on for several generations. With these spend-and-charge denial tactics, many states are already feeling the pressure of some lost revenues, and higher education has been taking big hits in several states across the country. My state, Michigan, is fairly typical of what is happening in many other states. Specifically, as state allocations for higher education decline, there is an increased pressure for public universities to hike their tuition. This has led to a privatization of public education, with more potentially destructive consequences than all of the defunct missiles buried in the sands of Iraq. The most obvious fallout is that fewer students will be able to afford a college education. The irony of this situation is that many state leaders acknowledge that having a college degree is as important for employment opportunities today as having a high school diploma was 30 years ago. In fact, the governor of Michigan has recently appointed a commission with the charge of finding a way to double the number of citizens in our state who earn a college degree in the next 10 years, because Michigan is well behind the national average in this category. Unfortunately, the state legislature has continuously decreased its allocations to higher education while submitting to public pressure by placing caps on tuition increases. This has led to the dependence of more of our state institutions on another potentially dangerous weapon: commercialization of the academy. Although commercialization is not inherently evil, it is a very dangerous path and many colleges and universities are now treading across this very slippery slope, often with the blessings, encouragement, and even unbridled enthusiasm of its board members. The dream …