Higher Education - Crisis or Change?
Thinking Allowed
BBC
4.4 • 997 Ratings
🗓️ 28 September 2016
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Higher education - crisis or change? A special programme exploring the role, meaning and future of a university education in a globalised world. It was once assumed that university graduates, particularly those from working class backgrounds, had a route to social mobility via a degree. Sara Goldrick-Rab, Professor of Higher Education Policy and Sociology at Temple University, tells Laurie Taylor why her new study suggests the end of the American dream of self improvement. Half the students, in her sample of 3,000 disadvantaged young adults, dropped out of college due to a lack of financial resources. Lorenza Antonucci, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Teeside University, compared the lives of students in England, Italy and Sweden and found that, contrary to what is assumed by HE policies, participating in university education now exacerbates inequality. Thomas Docherty, Professor of English and of Comparative Literature at the University of Warwick, joins the discussion, placing these developments in the context of an increasing marketisation of education which, he argues, has turned the university into the servant of the economy.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a Thinking Aloud Podcast from the BBC and for more details in our terms of use and much, |
| 0:06.2 | much more about thinking aloud. Go to our website at BBC.co.uk. |
| 0:12.1 | Hello. Now even though I can't remember the name of a single film, I've got a strong sense that during my life I've sat through |
| 0:19.6 | well at least a dozen American movies in which groups of glamorous suntanned youths have been |
| 0:24.7 | shown happily dividing their time between studying on Arcadian college campuses and earning |
| 0:30.4 | extra money in the evening as a soda jerk in the local drugstore. |
| 0:34.5 | It's what Americans do. |
| 0:36.5 | Work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, |
| 0:40.3 | work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work. |
| 0:43.4 | We're working our way through college to get a lot of knowledge |
| 0:47.0 | that we'll probably never ever use again. |
| 0:50.7 | It helps a lot to know you've got a nice good mama, but will they pay the mortgage on the home sweet home |
| 0:57.2 | up? |
| 0:58.2 | We're getting an education. |
| 0:59.2 | Now I might still be in hock to this sunlit technical picture of American higher education if I hadn't read a new book |
| 1:04.8 | with the intriguing title Paying the Price, College Costs, Financial Aid and The Betrayal of the |
| 1:10.6 | American Dream. Its author is Sarah Goldrick Rub, who is professor of higher education |
| 1:15.5 | policy and sociology at Temple University Philadelphia and Sarah now joins me on the line from New York. |
| 1:21.9 | As I've said there, Sarah, your book subtitle refers to on the line from New York. |
| 1:22.6 | As I've said there, your book subtitle refers to the betrayal of the American dream, |
| 1:27.4 | and I think we're all familiar with that aspect of the dream that says anyone can become the |
| 1:30.4 | president, but as I was also intimating, part of that dream has always been the idea |
... |
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