Blue-collar students and faculty are a decreasing population in American higher education. Drawing upon my working-class roots and experiences as a first-generation college student and faculty member, this article explains how class biases and the creation of a market-driven corporate university are increasingly closing out all but the most privileged. If the goal of education is to offer diverse perspectives as essential to the pursuit of knowledge and truth, and to provide training to promote social mobility and advancement, this class bias compromises the basic goals of what higher education should offer.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AlvezJ. D. S.TimneyM. (2008). Human rights theory as a means for incorporating social equity into the public administration curriculum. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 14(1), 51–66.
2.
BaileyM. L. (2005). Cultural competency and the practice of public administration. In RiceM. F., Diversity and public administration: Theory, issues, and perspectives (pp. 177–196). Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
3.
BenavidesA. D.HernandezJ. C. T. (2007). Serving diverse communities: Cultural competency. Public Management, 89(6), 14–18.
4.
BlochE. (1977). Nonsynchronism and the obligation to its dialectics. New German Critique, 11, 22–38.
5.
BokD. (2003). Universities in the marketplace: The commercialization of higher education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
6.
BowenW. G.BokD.LouryG. C. (2010). The shape of the river. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
7.
BrintnallM. (2008). Preparing the public service for working in the multiethnic democracies: An assessment and ideas for action. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 14(1), 39–50.
8.
CarrizalesT. (2010). Exploring cultural competence within the public affairs curriculum. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 16(4), 593–606.
9.
ChungD. (2011, April 27). Top high schools find admissions success. The Brown Daily Herald (Providence, RI). Retrieved from www.browndailyherald.com/top-high-schools-find-admissions-success-1.2553620
10.
Congressional Budget Office. (2010). Effective Federal Tax Rates: 1979–2007. Retrieved from www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/collections.cfm?collect=13
11.
DeNavas-WaltC.ProctorB. D.SmithJ. C. (2011). U. S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports (P60-239), Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States: 2010. Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office.
12.
DillonS. (2005, October 16). At public universities, warnings of privatization. New York Times, p. A12.
13.
DouthatR. G. (2005). Privilege: Harvard and the education of the ruling class. New York: Hyperion.
14.
Economist. (2004, December 29). Meritocracy in America: Ever higher society, ever harder to ascend. Special report, 22–24.
15.
Economist. (2010, April 25). Upper bound. Retrieved from www.economist.com/node/15908469
16.
FinkelNorman J. (2001). Not fair! The typology of commonsense unfairness. Chicago: American Psychological Association.
17.
FitzgeraldF. S. (1989). The rich boy. In BruccoliMatthew J., The short stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald (pp. 317–349). New York: Scribner.
18.
FoucaultM. (1973). The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences. New York: Vintage.
19.
FredericksonH. G. (2005, Winter). The state of social equity in American public administration. National Civic Review, 31–38. Retrieved from Academic Search Premiere database.
20.
FredericksonH. G. (2010). Social equity and public administration: Origins, developments and applications. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
21.
FukuyamaF. (2006). The end of history and the last man. New York: Free Press.
22.
GadamerH.-G. (1986). Truth and method. New York: Crossroad Publishing.
23.
GamermanE. (2007, November 30). How to get into Harvard. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119638146482608732.html
24.
GeigerR. L. (2004). Knowledge & money: Research universities and the paradox of the marketplace. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
25.
GilliganC. (1993). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
26.
GladieuxL.PernaL. (2005). Borrowers who drop out: A neglected aspect of the college student loan trend. San Jose, CA: National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
27.
GoldenD. (2003, January 15). Admissions preferences given to alumni children draws fire. Wall Street Journal, p. A1.
28.
GonnermanJ. (1998, December 2). Prisons vs. schools: A new study blasts state spending priorities. Village Voice, p. 12.
29.
GoodenS.MyersS. L. (2004). Social equity in public affairs. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 10(2), 91–97.
30.
GoodenS. T.WooldridgeB. (2007). Integrating social equity into core human resource management course. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 13(1), 59–77.
31.
GreenK. C.JaschikS.LedermanD. (2011). The 2011 Inside Higher Ed Survey of college and university admissions directors. Retrieved from www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/admissions2011
32.
HackerA. (1971). The end of the American era. New York: MacMillan.
33.
HarringtonM. (1997). The other America: Poverty in the United States. New York: Scribner. (Original work published 1962)
34.
Hewins-MaroneyB.WilliamsE. (2007). Teaching diversity in public administration: A missing component?Journal of Public Affairs Education, 13(1), 29–40.
35.
HusserlE. (1962). Ideas: General introduction to pure phenomenology. New York: Collier Books.
36.
HusserlE. (1977). Cartesian meditations: An introduction to phenomenology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
37.
JohnsonR. G.RiveraM. A. (2007). Refocusing graduate public affairs education: A need for diversity competencies in human resource management. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 13(1), 15–27.
38.
KellarE. (2005). Wanted: Language and cultural competence. Public Management, 87(1), 6–9.
39.
KennedyS.SchultzD. (2011). American public service: Constitutional and ethical foundations. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett.
40.
KniffinK. M. (2007). Accessibility to the PhD and professorate for first-generation college graduates: Review and implications for students, faculty, and campus policies. American Academic, 3, 39–79.
41.
KosutM. (2006). Professorial capital: Blue-collar reflections on class, culture, and the academy. Critical Studies—Critical Methodologies, 6(2), 245–262.
42.
LipsetS. M.LaddE. C.Jr. (1979). The changing social origins of American academics. In MertonR. K.ColemanJ. S.RossiP. H., Qualitative and quantitative social research (pp. 319–338). New York: Free Press.
43.
New York State Public Higher Education Conference Board. (2004). Public higher education in New York State: A system out of balance and in distress. Retrieved from http://nysut.org/research/bulletins/200412whitepaper.pdf
44.
NewmanK. S. (1993). Declining fortunes: The withering of the American dream. New York: Basic Books.
45.
OldfieldK. (2010). Socioeconomic origins of deans at America’s elite medical schools: Should these leading programs weigh deans’ social class background information as a diversity criterion?Academic Medicine, 85(12), 1850–1854.
46.
Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (2010). A family affair: Intergenerational social mobility across OECD countries. Retrieved from www.oecd.org/dataoecd/2/7/45002641.pdf
47.
RampellC. (2009, August 27). SAT scores and family income. New York Times. Retrieved from http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/sat-scores-and-family-income/
48.
RamseyK.PealeC. (2010, March 29). First-generation college students stay the course. USA Today. Retrieved from www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-03-30-FirstGenDorm30_ST_N.htm
49.
RiceM. F. (2007). Promoting cultural competency in public administration and public service delivery: Utilizing self-assessment tools and performance measures. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 13(1), 41–57.
50.
RiceM. F. (2008). A primer for developing a public agency service ethos of cultural competency in public services programming and public services delivery. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 14(1), 21–38.
51.
RousseauJ. J. (1979). Reveries of the Solitary Walker. New York: Penguin.
52.
SchultzD. (2005). The corporate university in American society. Logos. Retrieved from www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.4/schultz.htm
53.
StiversC. (2002a). Bureau men, settlement women: Constructing public administration in the progressive era. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
54.
StiversC. (2002b). Gender images in public administration: Legitimacy and the administrative state. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
55.
SvaraJ. H.BrunetJ. R. (2004). Filling the skeletal pillar: Addressing social equity in introductory courses in public administration. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 10(2), 99–109.
56.
WashburnJ. (2005). University, Inc.: The corporate corruption of higher education. New York: Basic Books.
57.
WhiteH. L.RiceM. F. (2005). The multiple dimensions of diversity and culture. In RiceM. F., Diversity and public administration: Theory, issues, and perspectives (pp. 3–21). Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
58.
WorlandJ. C. (2011, May 11). Legacy admit rate at 30 percent. The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved from www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/5/11/admissions-fitzsimmons-legacy-legacies/
59.
Wyatt-NicholH.Antwi-BoasiakoK. B. (2008). Diversity across the curriculum: Perceptions and practices. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 14(1), 79–90.
60.
YenH. (2011, September 28). Census finds record gap between rich and poor. Salon. Retrieved from www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/09/28/us_census_recession_s_impact_1
