Speaking of Universities

A devastating analysis of what is happening to our universities

Does “marketization” threaten to destroy what we most value about education?

Will this new era of “accountability” distort what it purports to measure?

What do we mean by a “public” system of higher education and how should we defend it?

Globalization has transformed the economic horizon. At the same time governments have systematically imposed new regulations for funding, governance, and assessment. Increasingly, universities behave more like business enterprises in a commercial marketplace than centers of learning. In recent decades there has been an immense global surge in the number of universities and the size of the student population. Technology has created new ways of learning and teaching.

In Speaking of Universities, historian and critic Stefan Collini analyses these changes and challenges the assumptions of policymakers and commentators. This is an urgent call to “focus on what is actually happening and the clichés behind which it hides; an incitement to think again, think more clearly, and then to press for something better.”