How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation (Cultural Front)

As much as we think we know about the modern university, very little has been said about what it's like to work there. Instead of the high-wage, high-profit world of knowledge work, most campus employees—including the vast majority of faculty—really work in the low-wage, low-profit sphere of the service economy. Tenure-track positions are at an all-time low, with adjuncts and graduate students teaching the majority of courses. This super-exploited corps of disposable workers commonly earn fewer than $16,000 annually, without benefits, teaching as many as eight classes per year. Even undergraduates are being exploited as a low-cost, disposable workforce. Marc Bousquet, a major figure in the academic labor movement, exposes the seamy underbelly of higher education—a world where faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates work long hours for fast-food wages. Assessing the costs of higher education’s corporatization on faculty and students at every level, How the University Works is urgent reading for anyone interested in the fate of the university.

Business & Money

Marc Bousquet

Business Culture

NYU Press

Uncovers the labor exploitation occurring in universities across the country As much as we think we know about the modern university, very little has been said about what it's like to work there. Instead of the high-wage, high-profit world of knowledge work, most campus employees―including the vast majority of faculty―really work in the low-wage, low-profit sphere of the service economy. Tenure-track positions are at an all-time low, with adjuncts and graduate students teaching the majority of courses. This super-exploited corps of disposable workers commonly earn fewer than $16,000 annually, without benefits, teaching as many as eight classes per year. Even undergraduates are being exploited as a low-cost, disposable workforce. Marc Bousquet, a major figure in the academic labor movement, exposes the seamy underbelly of higher education―a world where faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates work long hours for fast-food wages. Assessing the costs of higher education's corporatization on faculty and students at every level, How the University Works is urgent reading for anyone interested in the fate of the university.

Contents: Introduction -- Luka Arsenjuk and Michelle Koerner Creating Commons: Struggles Against Enclosure in the University -- Isaac Kamola and Eli Meyerhoff Surplus Knowledge; or, Can We Teach Today? -- Juliet Flower MacCannell Destinies of the University -- Alessandro Russo Risky Business: Why Public Is Losing to Private in American Research -- Christopher Newfield The Financialization of Student Life: Five Propositions on Student Debt -- Morgan Adamson Axiomatic Equality: Jacques Rancière and the Politics of Contemporary Education -- Nina Power An Elephant at School and Other Texts -- Colectivo Situaciones Reflections on Popular Education -- Universidad Trashumante On Study: A Roundtable Discussion With Marc Bousquet, Stefano Harney, and Fred Moten Universities in France: Forty Years After May 68 -- Renaud Becot The Gated Campus -- Gokce Gunel

Polygraph 21: Study, Students, Universities

Alessandro Russo

Juliet Flower MacCannell

Christopher Newfield

Nina Power

Colectivo Situaciones

Universidad Trashumante

Fred Moten

Stefano Harney

Isaac Kamola

Eli Meyerhoff

Morgan Adamson

Renaud Becot

Gokce Gunel

Polygraph: An International Journal of Culture and Politics

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Books by Marc Bousquet