Thread by @DrLisaCorrigan

1.) The WVU story is also about THE DESTRUCTION of the rural US before, and certainly since, the COVID-19 pandemic begin. But the worst is yet to come. It will just be VERY uneven.

Let's talk about the ENROLLMENT CLIFF as the justification divest from public education.

1.) WVU's scandal-plagued President, Gordon Gee, blamed the enrollment cliff for the massive gutting of campus in his March 2023 State of the University Address. Perplexingly, it's about INVESTING in higher ed.

You can read it here: presidentgee.wvu.edu/speeches/inves…

2.) The enrollment cliff appeared as a bogeyman in 2015 as consultants began predicting a decline in university enrollment by the mid-2020s, blaming the Bush recession for declining birth rates of kids who would be college-aged at mid-decade.

3.) The enrollment cliff entered the lexicon as a term in 2015 to account for Bush recession-produced declining birth rates as the reason for a possibly 15% drop in enrollment by the mid-2020s.

Uni admin went to their conferences & began discussing this phenomenon.

4.) Consultants, quick to capitalize, began offering solutions. Here's one from 2015. It proposes:
1. Move away from consensus decision-making. (crush democratic governance in the unis)
2. Reduce the reliance on committees. (see above)

3. Have a plan & the discipline to carry it out (it's okay to slash and burn programs)
4. Think like an entrepreneur (cash grabs will be rewarded)
5. Think like an entrepreneur (it's okay to move away from liberal arts.

Link here: evolllution.com/opinions/indiv…

5.) This thinking created the rationale for cuts across the country. Smaller colleges and unis were most vulnerable as the slash-and-burn began.

Did your college or uni budget get slashed because of this extractive capitalism? Drop your campus name in the comments.

6.) As the COVID-19 pandemic began, the enrollment cliff panic had already produced the warrant for "campus management software" (Workday is the worst) and "streamlining" as centralization replaced consensus-building and the new campus oligarchs hustled private donors.

7.) Metrics for success were privatized, campus governance collapsed, the enrollment cliff produced college-as-spring-break experience, and faculty were doing more and more with less and less.

8.) But K-12 students stopped going to school in the pandemic. Homeschooling rose and the drop-out rate rose DRAMATICALLY. Rural broadband was never completed, so rural schools in rural states suffered greatly.

9.) Brick and mortar schools refused to purchase air filters to clean the air and the students, teachers, and staff got sick. Just as the privatization/voucher scheme took off under Betsy DeVos/Trump, funneling state money into bs homeschooling schemes.

10.) The enrollment cliff was PRODUCED by shitty federal fiscal policy (and two international wars). It was a PREDICTABLE PRODUCT of a MASSIVE wealth transfer from public tax money to defense contractors. WHO ARE NOW THE CONSULTANTS TO DISMANTLE PUBLIC HIGHER ED.

11.) There are TONS of schools from MD/DC/WV/PA in the client list for rpkGROUP (who is dismantling WVU), because all of the defense money poured into defense contracting and higher ed around DC because of BUSH.

12.) Now, with rural schools screwed because of divestment/COVID/vouchers, child labor laws being revised to lower the age of employment, and college degrees no longer being required for civil service jobs, THE FIX IS IN on higher ed.

13.) The consultants are an extension of the military-industrial complex. They want to replace libraries with prisons (see TX). And the next phase of higher ed will be public uni AS GATEKEEPER to inclusive critical thinking and both liberal arts and STEM.

14.) WVU matters. The implementation of ENGINEERED AUSTERITY in higher ed, esp in rural states, targets the the global education that rural students deserve and need. As students are forced out of K-12 b/c of austerity, the enrollment cliff becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

15.) The kids who are left behind by the shift in K-12/higher ed, mostly Black and Brown and poor, will be forced (in higher numbers) into the prison system. Where they won't be paid, won't received state benefits, and won't have access to social and political power.

16.) One need only look at the debates over the ACA/Medicaid expansion to see how deeply the elites detest the poor and prefer to engineer social suffering. Higher ed CANNOT be complicit in this shit. Unionize. Push for more federal funding.

17.) And BE HONEST about Biden's success on student loan debt. THIS IS THE MOST PROGRESSIVE WEALTH TRANSFER IN MODERN HISTORY. It's ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE IN SAVING HIGHER ED SINCE A TRUCKLOAD OF FACULTY HAD OUR LOANS FORGIVEN.

18.) If you're late to the party, but brought the Zima, more here:

thenation.com/article/societ…