Bret Devereaux

We can say that the system has full research independence (good!) but how do we lock that in institutionally, given that 'he who pays the piper, calls the tune'? Currently, the answer has tended to be a recognition that universities without research independence...

...will fail to measure up to those with it. But that assumes competition with universities outside of any system of central funding.

I understand that a lot of higher education on the continent is fully public and state run and works reasonably well, but at the same time I am also aware that if the conversion of the US system to something like the French or German system were done, it might well mean...

...shifting the US system to a comparable scale of investment with those systems, on a per capita basis, which would entail pretty vast institutional destruction as the very large US system downscales to per capita research parity with the EU.

It might also entail a reduction in teaching capacity too. Going by the OECD data, tertiary educational attainment in the USA is 44%; cf. 32% in France and 27% in Germany. The UK is 42%. The marketized systems have problems for sure! but they also appear to have wider reach.

Not saying that means the idea is bad, but it brings me back to the need for a pretty massive public relations campaign to build popular support for *much* larger public expenditures in education if the US system is to be nationalized without a massive contraction in size.

Of course it needs massive increase in expenditure. And the continental systems are here not the ultimate goal: they might not be as perverse as the US System, but they need urgent reform as well. Downsizing? If you look at the OECD data you will also notice how much of the US...

...expenditure goes into the ancillary costs. Yes, they are included in the magical per student figure, but in reality are the running costs of marketization: auxiliary spending to uphold the position on a commodified market and not teaching or research. (Remember that map...