Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State, and Higher Education

By Sheila Slaughter and Gary Rhoades

Book Overview

As colleges and universities become more entrepreneurial in a post-industrial economy, they focus on knowledge less as a public good than as a commodity, to be capitalized on in profit-oriented activities. In Academic Capitalism and the New Economy, higher education scholars Sheila Slaughter and Gary Rhoades detail the aggressive engagement of U.S. higher education institutions in the knowledge-based economy and analyze the efforts of colleges and universities that develop, market, and sell research products, educational services, and consumption items in the private marketplace. social networks and circuits of knowledge creation and dissemination, as well as new organizational structures and expanded managerial capacity to link higher education institutions and markets. They depict an ascendant academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime expressed in faculty work, departmental activity, and administrative behavior. Clarifying the regime's internal contradictions, they note the shifting public subsidies embedded in new revenue streams and the emphasis less on serving than on leveraging resources from student customers. Defining the terms of academic capitalism in the new economy, this groundbreaking study offers essential insights into the trajectory of American higher education.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801879493
• ISBN13: 9780801879494
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.2" x 6.0"
• Age Range: 22 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher