politics

im not from the us but where i study and work its increasingly obvious that there has been a deliberate plan to rob these places from any of the revolutionary or emancipatory potential they once had. at some point the capitalists realized that when you put a whole bunch of young kids together and let them learn and live their lives with relative freedom from the economic realities, they'll just always turn communist, so they had to put an end to that.

its such a shitshow with endless budget cuts, no money for infrastructure or teaching at all, no money for research so all research has to be funded through corporate grants (meaning the staff that has the best connections to those companies rise to the top, no matter the quality of the actual research), students live in terrible and way too expensive housing, the university itself is such an unwelcoming and uncomfortable place that you'd never want to spend any time there, the food is expensive and bad, everything that is not teaching gets outsourced, etc. etc.

if that wasn't enough, it is clear to all the students that none of the stuff they learn will ever be relevant to what they actually end up doing, which is either boring ass bullshit office jobs or marketing, with basically nothing inbetween and that the value of a liberal arts education (or any education under capitalism for that matter) doesn't actually amount to anything (as is clearly evident from the world around us). like the idea that educating people in all sorts of things would lead to better outcomes when these people take positions of power is nice, but it is clear that under capitalism that is just simply not true.

This is spot on. I left academia at the end of 2023 and glad I got out when I did. Things are not getting any better it seems. In CA, our "public" universities are totally beholden to capital interests and will do nothing that improves quality of education, quality of lives for their workers, instead spending time "fighting antisemitisim".

It is pretty depressing, because this vital institution is just rotten to the core and needs to be completely rebuilt I fear

Doesn't help when liberals constantly resort to backing up their arguments with a single academic paper that they do not have the credentials to interpret. Just go look on r/science on stormfront.

Academic papers are not holy divinations of God's will representing a steadfast unequivocal truth. They are written in the context of their particular economic and social system that incontrovertibly influences their hypotheses, methods, samples, findings, interpretations, etc. I have read papers that twist themselves in knots to provide milquetoast answers that avoid reckoning with capitalism and poverty, especially in healthcare and public health. However, they go along the rails of liberal ideology so they are not sufficiently questioned.

I think even Marxists and other leftists could benefit from improved scientific literacy in that way. We could be much better equipped to talk about and fight against how the system reproduces and enforces itself through academia.

Very interesting, seems those problems really are a US thing.

wonder if it would be possible to organize some kind of community made socialist colleges

Anyone who thinks that US universities are hotbeds of communism has never set foot in an econ department (or poli-sci).

I have a friend who used to be a family court lawyer and started teaching law at a nearby university. She said it really broke her brain to go into an environment where the stakes were, “if you don’t stay late tonight, you may be seen as lazy in the long run which could hurt your chances of tenure,” when the stakes before were, “if this paperwork isn’t filed by 3, this kid may end up back with their abusive parent”.

And also the university continuously misgendered her for no fucking reason on a bunch of her official school accounts.

I wish universities in north America even had one single bed of socialism/communism considering it's nothing but "fuck yeah capitalism" or "capitalism has issues but muh communism is worse" in almost all faculties in the case of the university I attended.

Make school free, fire all board members, nationalize all schools

america doesn't have universities anymore, just hedge funds with lecture halls attached

Criticizing the concept of academia is a right-wing position.

Criticizing the industrial nature of it and the absurd tutition prices for universities is a left-wing position.

I feel like the rise of AI is going to rapidly exacerbate any and all existing issues with education on all levels tbh

Arguably it already is

Universities have developed a lot of the same issues as businesses: managerial bloat, the MBA-ification of measuring progress and outcomes, and erosion of job security, work-life balance, and sense of advancement among the people doing the actual work.

I don't pretend to know the intricacies of higher education in the states, but getting capitalist money out of things like science journals would be hugely beneficially everywhere.

You might say the institution could use some Discipline and Punishment

The system has been eroded by the right for a reason. The "left" are too busy pandering to a voter base that doesn't like them, so they let it happen.

An uneducated population gives the right two things, more voters due to lack of critical thinking skills and unskilled/underpaid labor. The less the voter understands the more bullshit you can feed them. Destroying education, demonizing established institutions and damning any form of knowledge is a key strategy of the right. And look, it fuckin worked. Younger kids pivoted right. The "left" keeps making excuses as to why, but it's glaringly obvious that it's their broken education. 21% of Americans are illiterate. Let that sink in.