When examining
issues surrounding education, more often than not our minds drift towards
primary and secondary schools. However, as consumers of the products that
universities offer – a tertiary education – it is in our interests to be aware
of the context in which it operates and the factors that influence the future
of any student wanting to take a degree. In Australia, current reforms across
the industry driven by the Bradley Review
and implemented by the Higher Education
Support Amendment Bill (No. 1) (2011) have the power to change the face of
tertiary education in Australia for generations to come.
Key changes
such as the change to the structure of funding which sees it driven by student
demand and increase the number of students attending university to meet the
government’s goal of having 40% of the Australian population attain a degree
(Bradley Review, 2011). With such a large student influx into universities, one
may question whether the value of obtaining a degree decreases as the knowledge
economy reaches capacity in populist areas of study, such as law and commerce.
This leads to enrolment areas of national need such as mathematics decreasing,
while classical areas of study such as philosophy and obscure languages decrease
offerings due to low demand, with some subjects disappearing from the
university landscape altogether.
This is
evident in the recent funding cuts to the school of computer science and
engineering (CSE) at UNSW, where a staff cuts to the department led to anger by
students in engineering and a substantial increase in workload for academics
(Tharunka, 2012). While new degrees and enrolments flood in other, more popular
faculties, the CSE continues its shrinkage. Education officer, in a protest
against the cuts, affirmed that ‘the cuts
wouldn’t stop there…there have already been cuts to the School of History and Philosophy
of Science’. (Tharunka, 2012). In their
response, chancellery officials state that the university was only interested
in lowering costs and pronounced “It’s absurd to
think that we’re trying to make a bigger profit. We’re a public institution. We have no shareholders,” as well as
highlighting the increasing size of the school of mechanical engineering
(Tharunka, 2012).
While
the university indeed has no shareholders (yet), it seems to behave as the
majority of tertiary institutions which are increasingly moving towards an
industry model where direct advertising is used to attract the best candidates,
impression management is regularly exercised and the ‘degree factories’ (ABC,
2005) that universities have evolved into promote their university as best
choice as the optimal return for investment through various mechanisms (Kenway
and Bullen, 2001).
This
includes listing graduate outcomes, salaries and university rankings on various
mediums and distributed literature (UNSW official website, 2012). This gives rise to students themselves
working towards generating the product through their consumption (Kenway and
Bullen, 2001) as they focus more on how their degrees will assist them in their
careers rather than exercising their critical faculties and learn for its own
enjoyment (Hurt, 2012).
This decline in the cultivation of critical
thinking and exploration into academia in favor of consumption changes
universities into a place where education is sold to the highest bidder; the
consumer, in shopping for the best value product, will choose the one that
affords them the greatest return in dollar value after they graduate. Is this
the death of the philosopher? It is at UNSW. It is in the school of computer
science and engineering. The continued movement of tertiary education from the
cultivation of liberal thought to the commodification of education has shaped
political discourse and shifted it into the decentralized economic interplay of
demand and supply. Keeping all this in mind, one must consider whether the cost
of our university education is too high a price to pay.
References
Degree Factories, accessed at http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/s1399343.html
Hurt, H (2012) The marketization of higher education, College
Literature, 39 (2) 1210132
Kenway, J. & Bullen (2001) Consuming children:
Education-Entertainment-Advertising. Buckingham: Open university press. Chapter
5: Designer schools, packaged students
Loussikian, K (2012) ‘Cuts announced to school of computer
science engineering’ http://tharunka.arc.unsw.edu.ay/cuts-to-school-of-computer-science-engineering/
accessed at Tharunka
UNSW Website (2012) ‘Reputation’ http://www.unsw.edu.au/about-us/university/reputation
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