学生、知识和大学的商品化：20世纪70年代以来美国的高等教育资助

Commodifying Students,Knowledge,and the University Itself:Funding American Higher Education since the 1970s

本文考察了20世纪后期美国努力提供"普及"大学入学机会的高昂成本,作者带着美国如何为"大众"高等教育买单的问题,追溯了大学从公共资助向私人资金的转变。当20世纪70年代公共资助减少时,许多大学开始提高学费并寻求与公司订立研究合同。这两种策略得到联邦政府的支持(以学费补贴贷款和企业研究专利保护等形式),但最终都促进了大学持续的"商业化"。在20世纪60年代,学生批判所谓的军-工复合体,起初他们要求一种更多为个人或私人目的服务的大学。然而随着时间的推移,公共资金的减少使他们承担了巨额债务以弥补高等教育的成本。到了20世纪90年代,大多数大学把学生当作"消费者",把追求知识等同于追求"文凭"。同时,随着研究事业开始被利润所驱动——越来越多地关注保密性和市场需求,结果是对学术、科学以及大学为公共利益服务理念与日俱增的不信任。

This article examines the high costs of the United States' effort to provide"universal" college access in the late twentieth century. Asking "how did the United States expect to pay for 'mass' higher education",it traces a shift from public to private support for universities. When public aid fell in the 1970s,many universities began to raise tuition and pursue corporate research contracts. Both strategies were supported by the federal government(in the form of subsidized loans for tuition,patent protections for corporate research,etc.),but ultimately both fostered a steady "commercialization" of the university. Students, having criticized the so-called military-industrial complex during the 1960s, at first demanded a university that served more personal,or private,ends. Over time,however,the decline of public aid left them with huge debts to cover the cost of higher education. By the 1990s,most universities cast students as "consumers" and the pursuit of knowledge as the pursuit of "credentials." Meanwhile,as the research enterprise came to be driven by a profit motive—with an increasing focus on secrecy and market demand—the result was a growing mistrust of scholarship, of science,and ultimately of the idea that universities serve the public good.