Wednesday, September 25 - Why Public Higher Ed

Wednesday night at 8 PM on KPFK 90.7 FM in Southern California:  ROBERT SAMUELS.  It's a special public education education night with an expert, who's also in the trenches.  Well, no, there aren't any actual trenches but the warfare metaphor - however tired - certainly makes itself useful when you consider - as has my guest, Robert Samuels - the assault on public higher education.  In Why Public Higher Education Should Be Free, he explains where the money goes, who profits, the ways in which higher ed has been purposefully underfunded, and how to fix the problems, and help students and promote labor justice, too. In his short, well-argued explanation and critique, the head of my own labor union, University Council - American Federation of Teachers, offers a radical proposal that's only as radical as a re-imagining, to start, of the potential for our higher ed system, one of the best things about our democracy.  If you think this is pie in the sky, check out the promise of his subtitle: How to Decrease Cost and Increase Quality at American Universities, and then go right to the chapter titled "Where the Money Goes at Research Universities, and Why Students Don't Complain." Or, yes, read his proposal in Chapter 9, "Making All Public Higher Education Free."  Bob Samuels is president of UC-AFT, representing over 3,000 Lecturers and Librarians at the University of California. He's taught at both UCLA and UCSB, and is the author of the blog Changing Universities, as well as a contributor to the Huffington Post. His other books include New Media, Cultural Studies and Critical Theory after Postmodernity and Writing Prejudices:  The Psychoanalysis and Pedagogy of Discrimination from Shakespeare to Toni Morrison.  Thanks for listening, on the radio or online, or as a free download from the station archives.