Review of AFTER THE IVORY TOWER FALLS
How the 60’s marked a turning point for the worse in higher education
Higher Ed is having a public relations problem, especially among Gen Z adults and rural America. Why? Because higher ed seems wildly inaccessible — and a risky prospect — amid unrelenting tuition increases and crushing debt for an uncertain pay off.
How did we get here? How did we go from the post-war boom and expansion to the elitist and disconnected ivory tower? As William Bunch explains in his excellent new, After the Ivory Tower Falls: How College Broke the American Dream and Blew Up Our Politics – and How To Fix It, a series of republican-driven policy decisions in the 1960s set the stage for the embedded problems we now face in higher ed.
In the post-war golden era of higher education fueled by the GI bill, the US witnessed a massive expansion and federal investment in higher education, bringing the modern American college system into its present form. In this era, higher education was seen as close to public good as we’ve ever been. The GI bill paid the way for a wave of returning veterans to indulge their intellectual curiosity. State university systems were radically affordable, with the University of California system boasting a free tuition promise. Adults flowed in and out of universities seamlessly relative to today.
Higher education was seen as a good investment into our citizenry. A way to keep the US on top. But as the 1960s era of campus protests erupted, conservative lawmakers began to shift their perspective on higher education. Rather than taxpayer funded colleges where students were protesting the very government paying for their liberal education, the view of college as a public good began to collapse.
When California Governor Regan notoriously stated in 1967 that “taxpayers shouldn’t subsidize intellectual curiosity” higher education officially shifted into a professionalization engine which continues to this day. Higher education now is seen only has a job training enterprise, rather than an institution to develop free and critical thinkers. Consequently, students should pay full costs rather than being funded as it was under the public good model. Institutions should compete for students as customers.
We officially shifted to the “meritocracy” model of higher ed, which we all know how that has played out. Costs have far outstripped inflation. Young adults put families and homes on hold while under the crushing weight of their student loan debt. Radically increased class inequality is fracturing our country. And the emergence of two political tribes continues to produce civil instability.
Bunch demonstrates how higher ed and politics have become inexorably intertwined since the post-war era, with education being the most robust dividing line between republicans and democrats now. Because liberals “sort” themselves into liberal communities anchored by colleges (i.e., large metropolitan areas), but conservatives remain in their hometowns and states, we’ve seen a political fracturing between rural and urban, the educated and the left behind.
What’s the solution to all of this? In my opinion, as close to the previous public good model as we can get. Slash the costs, radically increase federal funding, and bring back a focus on liberal education. Bunch, however, advocates for mandatory civic service for a year after high school. A plan unlikely to happen, but an interesting proposal to increase connections across the political spectrum and give Americans a point of common experience – both sorely lacking today.
After the Ivory Tower Falls is a stupendous book and the best diagnosis of what the hell has gone wrong in higher education and politics today. My review hardly penetrates the deep and thorough analysis presented by Bunch. I’d highly recommend everyone to read this book immediately.
Published: August 2022
Format: Hardcover
If you think this sounds interesting, bookmark these other great reads:
Breaking Ranks: How the Rankings Industry Rules Higher Education and What to Do about It by Colin Diver (2022)
Sustainable. Resilient. Free.: The Future of Public Higher Education by John Warner (2020)
A Perfect Mess: The Unlikely Ascendancy of American Higher Education by David Labaree (2018)
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