Dear Commons Community,
My colleague Stuart Ewen at Hunter College, passed along the URL for an article written by Noam Chomsky that examines the forces that are waging an assault on public education. He considers a number of issues such as decreased state funding, higher tuition, applying a business/corporate model, etc. In his introduction, Chomsky states:
California is also a battleground. The Los Angeles Times reports on another chapter in the campaign to destroy what had been the greatest public higher education system in the world: “California State University officials announced plans to freeze enrollment next spring at most campuses and to wait-list all applicants the following fall pending the outcome of a proposed tax initiative on the November ballot.”
Similar defunding is under way nationwide. “In most states… it is now tuition payments, not state appropriations, that cover most of the budget,” so that “the era of affordable four-year public universities, heavily subsidized by the state, may be over.
Community colleges increasingly face similar prospects – and the shortfalls extend to grades K-12.”
Everything Chomsky says and observes is true.
Tony