“But what if MOOCs actually turned out to be part of a right-wing plot? After some reflection, it’s become clear to me that there is a crucial difference in how the Internet’s remaking of higher education is qualitatively different than what we’ve seen with recorded music and newspapers. There’s a political context to the transformation. Higher education is in crisis because costs are rising at the same time that public funding support is falling. That decline in public support is no accident. Conservatives don’t like big government and they don’t like taxes, and increasingly, they don’t even like the entire way that the humanities are taught in the United States.It’s absolutely no accident that in Texas, Florida and Wisconsin, three of the most conservative governors in the country are leading the push to incorporate MOOCs in university curricula. And it seems well worth asking whether the apostles of disruption who have been warning academics that everything is about to change have paid enough attention to how the intersection of politics and MOOCs is affecting the speed and intensity of that change. Imagine if Napster had had the backing of the Heritage Foundation and House Republicans? It’s hard enough to survive chaotic disruption when it is a pure consequence of technological change. But when technological change suits the purposes of enemies looking to put a knife in your back, it’s almost impossible. […] If neither MOOCs nor state legislatures support the classic model of a humanities education, what happens to the anthropology and history students of the future? The scenario is ugly: University systems faced with declining public funding support are increasingly forced to turn to MOOCs, to the benefit of hard sciences and vocational training. Meanwhile, the humanities sector gets hung out to dry, unable to take advantage of new technology to the fullest extent while forced to make do with less funding. And that, of course, is exactly what many conservatives want. For many conservatives, the humanities departments of public universities are bastions of the “tenured left” busily brainwashing the young people of America into godless socialist postmodernism. They’d much rather for-profit corporations were in charge of the educational agenda than the current academic elite.”—
Conservatives declare war on college – Salon.com
Not crazy about the tone of this, but the substantive points are worth thinking through.
As of three weeks ago, I have a vested interest in this, but working at the lab doesn’t narrow my interests to defending traditional academic models.
Rather, my interest in this comes more from witnessing the end of Cooper Union, knowing that it’s the canary in the academic coalmine. Higher education — like lots of other industries — is failing quicker than we want to admit. Far more than the music and newspaper industries, the cui bono around the decline of higher education is an urgent and important question to ask.
But any article that uses the word “plot” loses my interest quickly. Far more damage has been done in negligence than in conspiracy.
I have lived and studied and taught in Texas, and can bear witness that there it has been a plot, compounded by disbelieving complacency that regression was impossible.