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Tag Archives: privatization


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How to Fight for Higher Ed as a Public Good

As states divest from public higher education, our colleges and universities face unprecedented threats from undue donor influence and corporations seeking to privatize our public institutions. Here is some information about resources that you may find helpful as we work nationwide to ensure that higher education continues to serve the public good, and not the interests of a wealthy few.

Fight Undue Donor Influence

As a faculty member and president of the AAUP chapter at George Mason University, I’ve been involved in the fight against undue donor influence. Together, faculty, students, public-education allies, and concerned citizens have been working to expose what the Koch brothers and other members of their dark-money network have gotten from over $100 million in restricted gifts to GMU. Turns out—it’s a lot! We’ve exposed donor influence over faculty hiring and retention, research and scholarship, and affiliated centers and institutes.

Now, UnKoch My Campus, with the help of grant funding from the AAUP Foundation, has developed a report with model donor policies that you can download here. The report provides a roadmap for protecting your institution from undue donor influence and includes  templates for faculty senate motions, gift acceptance procedures, and approval processes for donor-sponsored centers.

Fight Privatization and the Primacy of Profit

As we work to end undue donor influence at GMU, we are also confronting the privatization of our public university through expanding online initiatives—and the potential for a fully online university under the Mason brand modeled after Purdue Global. Like many other institutions, GMU is contracting with a for-profit company to do much of the technical work and some of the core academic work to expand online education offerings. It is also considering the creation of a public-private online university that would further privatize higher education in Virginia. Such public-private contracts often benefit shareholders of the private companies rather than students and faculty.

To shape the quality of online education at your institution, check out the AAUP’s Education Not Privatization toolkit here.

No doubt, there is much work to do. Let’s dig in. Check out the tools on offer from AAUP and UnKoch My Campus. Together we can protect academic freedom and higher education as a public good!

In Solidarity,
Bethany Letiecq
Associate Professor, Human Development and Family Science, GMU


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Privatization in Online Ed

Privatization of online higher education is on the rise. For-profit online education corporations like Academic Partnerships, Kaplan, Wiley, Pearson, and Blackboard contract with public and private nonprofit institutions to provide digital platforms for educational content, recruit students, manage enrollment, facilitate the development of course materials, and more. While the use of digital platforms and online teaching tools can enrich education, elements of the contracts that institutions make with for-profit online education corporations can present problems in areas of interest to faculty, particularly academic freedom and shared governance.

Your AAUP chapter can meaningfully shape the quality of online education at your institution. Check out our Education Not Privatization toolkit here.

To find out more about how online education is operating at different institutions, the AAUP launched an informal privatization survey this fall.

So far more than four hundred respondents have spoken up about online education contracts at their institutions, and this is what they have to say:

  • Shared governance takes a backseat. 57 percent disagreed with the statement “faculty exercised oversight of the education components of the contract.”
  • Quality is not a focus.  66 percent disagreed with the statement “educational quality has improved as a result of the contract.”
  • Reputation may be at risk. 74 percent disagreed with the statement “the reputation of our institution will be improved because of the contract.”

The emerging themes are clear. Shared governance is not playing a robust role in the development of online education contracts, and as a result quality and reputation may not meet the highest standards. There is a solution: faculty can develop their own proposals for these contracts and demand a seat at the table.

Your AAUP chapter has the power to shape online offerings at your institution and change the course of privatization in higher education. Check out the toolkit here.

Monica Owens
Political Organizer, AAUP

P.S. Join us on Wednesday, October 24, at 1pm ET for a live discussion with David Hughes of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT chapter to hear about the chapter’s anti-privatization efforts and get tips for your own chapter campaign (RSVP here).


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Reclaim Online Education from Corporate Control

Faculty across the country are experiencing a major trend toward privatization of higher education. For-profit online education corporations like Academic Partnerships, Kaplan, Wiley, and Pearson contract with institutions to provide digital platforms for educational content, recruit students, manage enrollment, facilitate the development of course materials, and more. According to a Century Foundation report, the vast majority of US public colleges and universities that offer online education programs or courses now rely on external companies.

While the use of digital platforms and online teaching tools can enrich higher education, the for-profit nature of these contracts can compromise educational quality, student privacy, the reputation of the institution, and faculty governance.

AAUP chapters across the country are building a movement to challenge corporate control of online education. Will you help by answering a few brief questions about for-profit online education contracts on your campus?

AAUP faculty have been successfully building power against for-profit online education for years. In 2013, the Rutgers AAUP/AFT chapter successfully challenged the institution’s partnership with Pearson and organized colleagues to opt-out of Pearson-run courses that compromised educational quality and academic freedom.

Now faculty at Purdue University, Eastern Michigan University, and others are taking on for-profit online education deals that compromise educational quality, faculty governance, and the reputation of the institution. Just last week Purdue faculty and the Indiana AAUP scored a huge victory in the campaign to bring an end to required nondisclosure agreements at Purdue University Global, the new Kaplan-run online branch of Purdue University.

AAUP faculty are joining together to reclaim online higher education from corporate control, and we need your help. Answer a few brief questions about for-profit online education contracts on your campus here.

Together we can reclaim faculty power and online education from corporate control.

Monica Owens
Political Organizer, AAUP