Hostile Takeover of Public Higher Education

From Joe Berry's Cocal Updates: article reprinted from Occupy Education email list post on how business views higher education. Education activist and researcher Danny Weil, comments on and analyzes Moody's Report,

What follows below is from Moodys.  The title has nothing to do with what is in the report. It is just more rhetoric used to sell the hostile takeover of public education post secondary.  The last thing these thugs want is heightened public scrutiny ortransparency -- God forbid!  The public might know what they are really up to and they would not be happy!

U.S. Higher Education Outlook Mixed in 2012: Revenue Pressure and Heightened Public Scrutiny Force Colleges and Universities to Demonstrate Better Operating Efficiency and Transparency

Here is just one part of the report you can find above, but these are the recommendations. The bolding is mine.  As you can see, it is all about privatization, killing unions, wiping out tenure, using intellectual migrant labor or adjuncts tor educe costs, getting rid of health care or force more payments and concessions from workers and of course centralize decision making into the hands of an elite coordinating class.  This is where the 'savings' from hiring adjuncts will go to high paid administrators, mergers and acquisitions and to technological displacement of teachers.

Take a look.  Here they are talking of not for profit universities and colleges this is not about for-profit colleges.  It is in line with Lumina.

Is the Higher Education Model Broken or Just in Need of Some Fixing?
http://media.clemson.edu/administration/cfo/comptroller/sacubo/2-2012-outlook.pdf

Moody’s view is that the traditional higher education business model is generally sound and long-lasting. However, pressure on core revenue streams will require management and governance teams to be thoughtful, creative, and tougher in adapting their institutions and re-conceptualizing the sources and uses of available funds. Some innovative examples for change are likely to include:

» Evolution of more collaborative higher education partnerships and affiliations including clear cross-enrollment articulation agreements with other colleges and increased revenue and cost sharing across organizations.

» Movement away from a decentralized operating model, with a focus on centralization of processes and elimination of redundancies, even as more incentive-based budgeting processes are installed to grow revenue.

» Reassessing core university functions that are mission-centric and consideration of outsourcing certain administrative or auxiliary functions.

» Improved and more efficient use of facilities, including winter, summer, and weekend course offerings.

» Enrollment growth to reach a critical mass through multi-site operations, increased use of online course delivery, and outreach to non-traditional age students, including continuing education and degree completion programs.

» Reduced number of tenured faculty and increased use of adjunct faculty.

» Increased cost-sharing with employees for existing retirement and health benefits.

» Innovation in growth of research-related revenue streams, including technology commercialization.

» Increased number of mergers and acquisitions to create larger institutions with greater economies of scale.