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Apr 12, 2005

WTO.edu?


by Cliopatria


The most recent Tomorrow's Professor mailing was an excerpt from this book on, well, the title says it all: The Future of Higher Education: Rhetoric, Reality, and the Risks of the Market. Here's the best excerpt from the excerpt [emphasis added]:

American academics tend to believe the globalization of higher education presents only opportunity, not risk. To date, the total enrollment in global academic programs is still small. Far more programs are under discussion than under way. What is important to recognize is that the barriers to global higher education enterprises are falling, and the trend is up. Beyond this, the conditions favoring more intense competition from the universities of other countries are growing.

In an important but generally overlooked development, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is now proposing to regulate higher education as part of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), as it would any other form of trade--by removing barriers to its traffic. The goal of GATS is gradual liberalization of the trade in services, which is likely to have a broad and troubling impact on the nature of higher education by affecting such issues as subsidization of higher education, quality assurance, financial aid for certain students, and the ability to gear teaching and research to local culture and needs (GATS-Fact and Fiction, 2002). The U.S. delegation [That's our own government, folks!] has already proposed inclusion of for-profit higher education and all testing materials and services, and it has announced that it expects soon to propose inclusion of all of higher education, despite the fact that there has been almost no debate within the academy about the impact of this on higher education. This form of rapid and potentially harmful globalization is an example of how higher education is drifting into a market-oriented system without adequate debate and planning-here and abroad.

The rest of the posting (which will be available here in a few weeks) talks about some European integration examples, but doesn't really tackle the doomsday scenario which this excerpt brings up. For that, I guess, we need to look at the whole book. One reviewer saw the book as pretty balanced between crisis and opportunity, though reading the excerpt above made me want to run down the street shouting"the sky is falling!" You can read a bigger excerpt at the publisher's site, but it's chapter one, and mostly just sets the stage. The authors of the book seem to be the active members of the Futures Project, and they are putting out a fair bit of writing on the subject.

I am deeply disturbed by the Bush Administration's willingness, even eagerness, to throw higher education into the same category as customer call centers, publishing, janitorial services, and all the other"services" which are already pretty globalized. It's consistent with both their economic ideology and their educational ideology, and so I should not be at all surprised, but I am still disturbed. Perhaps mostly by the almost complete lack of coverage of the issue by either the general or educational press, and the lack of consultation and planning that would allow educational institutions to proactively adjust rather than collapsing in panic or paralysis.

My second reaction was that this is going to be a slow process, if it's anything like other trade negotiations, because public institutions at several levels of government are involved as well as pretty strong public feelings about higher education (mostly positive, in spite of the best efforts of some). Agricultural subsidies come to mind as an example of public policy which has repeatedly been ruled in violation of capital-friendly (aka"free") trade guidelines but which drags on just about everywhere. It means that we could lose the war and still win battles for a long time, but at great cost.

My third reaction (I've been thinking about this for a few days; very unbloggerly of me, I know) is that the relative financial indepence of state institutions (very few get more than about a quarter of their revenues from the state) and the increasingly profit-oriented private institutions (mostly the big ones, but intellectual property and patent rights are being increasingly milked for profit at smaller ones as well) means that our"ivory towers" are actually deeply engaged with national and international markets already."Corporatization" is clearly on the march, and part and parcel of that has to be greater attention from those who regulate (and deregulate) markets. We are, whether we like to admit it or not, part of the service economy (though when I'm teaching I separate out intellectual property production -- education, entertainment, research, writing -- from personal service as separate sectors, because it makes more sense to me that way) as well as part of a grand and glorious tradition of discovery and human development.

Carnival: As Ralph noted below, I'm hosting the next History Carnival here on Friday (though my Friday extends into Saturday in most of the world, so don't be surprised if it comes out a bit late Eastern Time), so send me your nominations (self or other) at dresnerAThawaiiDOTedu and I'll have something for you to relax with after your taxes are done.

Comic Relief: We joke about"tenured grad students" and"perpetual students" but rarely do they go to this extreme [via IHE]. The guy's got almost two full BA's worth of credit hours, and is finally planning to graduate next year: I wonder if he's got a major picked out yet? I wonder if he's applying to grad schools?


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More Comments:

Jonathan Dresner - 4/13/2005

You're right that Clinton was a free-trader as well, though the Bush administration rhetoric on the subject is far less restrained and, as evidenced by this case, more comprehensive. Taking privatization to this extreme could entirely delegitimize the concept of public education as we understand it.... I know, it's a slippery slope argument, but it's worth having some idea of what the downsides could be as we evaluate our progress.

Accreditation could be -- again, eventually -- entirely obviated by distance learning and incorporation under foreign flags. As Jeff Vanke points out in his comment, an American BA is still valued on the world market, but given how devalued it's becoming in this country, that might not be true for very much longer unless we act on quality issues soon.

Jeff Vanke - 4/13/2005

The effects of transnational higher ed on U.S. higher ed institutions will hinge on two determinants:

(1) The relative value of U.S. degrees on international markets. After 9-11, the U.K. and others are filling a gap from our visa restrictions, and we'll probably never again see pre-9-11 international dominance of the U.S. bachelor's degree.

(2) Much more important to us, the transferability of foreign degrees into U.S. markets. In the end, employers decide how to value degrees. But a lot of professions insist on U.S.-accredited diplomas for individual licensing, or for admission to professional school. No matter what the WTO does, then, it will probably have negligible impact on U.S. employer perspectives, and it won't take away any of our domestic market unless our domestic institutions officially recognize foreign credentials.

Frankly, American undergrad academia could use some competition, much like Detroit of the 1960s-70s. But market entry will be most difficult.

Konrad M Lawson - 4/12/2005

Doh! I should have sent a letter or something to my local Bellingham, WA newspaper.

I graduated from undergrad at Western Washington University in 1998 with around 320 credits if I remember correctly (180 credits needed to graduate at that time and 60 credits to complete a BA major, the rest of the credits usually being taken up with electives and requirements - they use a quarter system so more credits than most semester-based universities).

Took me 5.5 years to finish, but managed to squeeze out 4 majors.

Oscar Chamberlain - 4/12/2005

I dislike being WTO'd as well, but this is no change from Clinton. From the beginning, one of the primary purposes of WTO negotiations has been to break down the distinction between private and public services except in areas where national security is involved.

What will be interesting, and key, here will be how questions of quality and acreditation are handled.