Last year, many students and their families worked tirelessly to make ends meet. Sadly, I personally know three people who dropped out of school because they could no longer afford to attend.
This is a plight not shared by those at the top of public universities nationwide.
Eric Gorski of the Associated Press reported that 30 university presidents are receiving over a million dollars annually. In addition, 1 in 5 executives are being compensated over $600,000.
According to the article, the median compensation for an executive was $760,774 at massive research universities.
In 2002, ASU President Michael Crow delivered his inaugural speech about making the New American University (formerly Arizona State University) into a large research institution.
Intrigued, I decided to investigate further.
According to Business Week, during the 2007-2008 academic year, Crow’s annual compensation was at its highest, valued at $728,750.
In addition, faculty from different departments have shared with their classes how the Vice Provosts decided to rid the institution of its older professors by bribing them with a full year’s pay if they retire this year. The faculty did not agree on the package by collective bargaining — a dishonorable business move by ASU.
The New American University, a euphemism elites use to force old models of business into the education system, exploits its workers. Faculty and staff face a lack of job security and pitiful benefits.
Furthermore, the New American University exploits its students through continuous tuition and mandatory fee increases. The overall disparities between people at the University are increasing.
Thus, any logical entrepreneur in the United States would realize that the New American Dream is to be president of the New American University.
So, how does someone like Crow come to be the greatest neo-liberal exploiter in Arizona? Simply study Crow’s résumé to find out.
Crow’s first move was to receive his bachelor's degree from a public university in Iowa. His next step was to write his dissertation about the role of market forces in the public sector at Syracuse, a private university.
Third, he became the executive vice provost of Columbia University (also private). There, he practiced implementing overzealous expansionist policies while publishing articles about the topic.
Before leaving Columbia, Crow was the chair of venture capital for the Central Intelligence Agency’s In-Q-Tel, serving with colleagues from Columbia and other institutions.
Using In-Q-Tel as a public-private partnership model, Crow then got hired as president of ASU, where he is now pushing privatization — the New American Dream.
In order to be successful, however, Crow must team up with a business school that teaches a strict neo-liberal ideology rather than critical thinking. This feeds the masses sugarcoated dung through a massive propaganda campaign run by the University’s Foundation.
In pursuit of the New American Dream for exploitation, UA has been enacting similar policies. These include attempts to force professors to retire and talks of privatizing the Eller School of Business, according to The Daily Wildcat.
With the new American Dream growing larger every day, we must ask ourselves, what will be left? Massive student debt? Larger income disparities?
Better yet, how can we create a new dream in which everyone prospers together?
Reach Athena at asalman3@asu.edu
