What's Really New about the Neoliberal University? The Business of American Education Has Always Been Business

Journalists, academics, and ordinary Americans wrongly bemoan the student debt and college financing crises as two separate unhappy endings to a mythical story of unprecedented postwar federal and state support for higher education. Rarely have they considered that either catastrophe has anything to do with the labor question. Yet the thousands of Americans in debt and the many colleges facing bankruptcy (even before the pandemic) are intertwined disasters, which reveal that Americans never had genuine economic security or basic social welfare, a basic truth that has historically hurt and still overwhelmingly harms residents of color, particularly women, who disproportionately hold the most debt. Colleges and universities have always had to rely on tuition and business support because they never received adequate sustained funding from lawmakers, who had far more interest in offering young people and their families ways to creatively finance tuition in order to get the credentials needed to just compete for well-paying work. Business needs and demands did a lot to shape postsecondary schools before the emergency of the neoliberal university, supposedly a late twentieth-century phenomenon. As such, seemingly radical solutions, like forgiving debts and unionizing adjuncts, are not enough to transform universities into the progressive strongholds that they never really were. Lawmakers, taxpayers, and faculty would have to embrace a complete overhaul of how higher education is funded as well as how students are assisted in studying.

Expanding the Theoretical Framework in Student Debt Research by Connecting Public Policy Theories to the Student Debt Literature

Current changes in the economic atmosphere have severely impacted the higher education sector worldwide. Policymakers worldwide are facing the challenge of adjusting tuition and financial aid programs in response to these changing economic times. The shift from federal grants to loans has caused student loans to be a popular means of funding higher education for most low and medium-income families. A result of this, is the increase in student loan default as most college students graduate with unmanageable debts, thus, a rising concern for policymakers. The purpose of this paper is to link four public policy theories (Social Contract Theory, Utilitarian Theory, Theory of Neoliberalism, and Three-Policy Stream Theory) to student loan literature. This is to expand the limited database of public policy theories in student loan debt literature. This theoretical linkage points out the role of policymakers in (1) ensuring the security of lives and the preservation of the property of those who voted them into power (Social Contract Theory); (2) establishing educational policies that ensure the ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’ (Utilitarian Theory); (3) upholding social welfare or a ‘welfare state’ through fiscal and monetary policies to ensure high employment rates for graduates, low inflation and the provision of public goods (Theory of Neoliberalism), and (4) the risk of undermining the growing power of an informal interest group that is made up of millennials saddled with student loan debt (Three-Policy Stream). These theories reiterate the principal role of policymakers in enhancing human capital through affordable education.

A Pathway to Racial Equity: Student Debt Cancellation Policy Designs

Student debt in the United States has had a disproportionate negative impact on black and Latinx borrowers. We argue that analyses of plans proposing student debt cancellation should therefore foreground their potential impact on racial equity. To do so, we use data from the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances and model the impact of debt cancellation on four key policy outcomes (reach, impact on the most vulnerable borrowers, borrower wealth gains, and impact on racial wealth gaps). We examine universal policy designs as well as designs that incorporate an income eligibility threshold as a means of targeting benefits toward less affluent borrowers. We find that cancellation amounts ranging from $50,000 to $75,000 yield the most desirable outcomes, especially when paired with a relatively low household income eligibility cutoff at between $100,000 and $150,000. Such policies would cancel roughly half of all outstanding student debt without substantially expanding the racial wealth gap, while still reaching a large majority of borrowers and leading to substantial wealth gains, especially for black households.

Why Do Foreign PhD Students Return Home?

Amid concerns about a “brain drain” from less-developed to developed economies, one issue that arises is the role of doctoral students from these countries enrolling in universities in developed economies and then staying (as opposed to returning and bringing their enhanced human capital home). Developed economies may also be concerned with their young scholars remaining abroad post-PhD. Examining confidential micro-data from the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Earned Doctorates from 2001-2016, this paper explores the determinants of the return decision, based on a sample of more than 100,000. There is clear support for the view that new PhDs with large amounts of graduate student debt and limited family resources are more likely to return home. Financial considerations seem especially important in the return decision facing students from developing countries not graduating from the most elite US institutions.

The Lived Experience of the Audiologist: Connections Between Past, Present, and Future

Purpose The purpose of the study was to use qualitative research methods to explore connections between audiologists' lived experiences and perceptions of the future and change. Method This research was based on a constructivist grounded theory approach. A semistructured interview guide inspired 30 audiologists to share their stories via virtual interview. A theoretical framework evolved from grounded theory analysis techniques. Results The majority of audiologists interviewed in this study entered audiology via the undergraduate-stumble pathway, usually after leaving speech-language pathology. This pathway was associated with poorer perceptions of the future compared with early-purposeful and later-purposeful pathways. Generation differences, value juxtaposition, professional identity, and student debt also influenced perspectives of the future. Participants described high value-of-self relative to patient care and joy stories associated with meaningful relationships with patients. Most participants reported responding actively to changes in the marketplace at the individual work setting level; however, change response was complex and difficult to quantify when broader issues impacting the profession were considered. Participants expressed concern about the future, including the need to address high student debt, perceived lack of unity across the profession, and value-by-others. Conclusion Grounded theory exploration of the lived experience of 30 audiologists supported a theoretical framework that connects perceptions of the future with origin story, generation perspectives, value juxtaposition, professional identity, and student debt.

Recruitment of scarce competences to rural regions: Policy perspectives

This paper studies the perceived difficulty of recruiting scarce competencies to rural regions. Furthermore, the role of policy in facilitating and enhancing recruitment to and better skills matching in rural regions is discussed. Based on a survey targeted to the business sections of Swedish municipalities, the results show that recruitment is perceived to be difficult in both rural and nonrural regions and that the difficulty of recruiting for the right skills results in a lack of skills matching and constitutes an obstacle to growth. Rural regions located close to urban areas can to some extent mitigate these recruitment problems, and their locations pose less of a barrier in recruitment processes compared to those of remotely located rural regions.Which policies can help remedy recruitment problems faced in rural regions? In both rural and nonrural regions, incentives for writing off student debt and relocation support for accompanying persons and tandem recruitment are perceived to be the most promising policies. Rural regions are more receptive to the implementation of such policies. Finally, the need for flexibility and policies that can be adapted to the regional demand for labour are stressed.

Rising nonmarital first childbearing among college-educated women: Evidence from three national studies

Levels of nonmarital first childbearing are assessed using recent administrations of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 Cohort; the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health; and the National Survey of Family Growth. Results confirm that the higher a woman’s educational attainment, the less likely she is to be unmarried at the time of her first birth. A comparison over time shows increases in nonmarital first childbearing at every educational level, with the largest percentage increase occurring among women with college degrees at the BA or BS level or higher. This article projects that 18 to 27% of college-educated women now in their thirties who have a first birth will be unmarried at the time. In addition, among all women who are unmarried at first birth, women with college degrees are more likely to be married at the time of their second birth, and, in a majority of cases, the other parent of the two children was the same person. A growing proportion of well-educated women, and their partners, may therefore be pursuing a family formation strategy that proceeds directly to a first birth, and then proceeds, at a later point, to marriage, followed by a second birth. Possible reasons for the increase in nonmarital first births among the college-educated include the stagnation of the college wage premium; the rise in student debt; decreasing selectivity; and the growing acceptability of childbearing within cohabiting unions, which have become a common setting for nonmarital childbearing, and among single parents.