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12 Rev. Eur. Stud. 22 (2020)
Challenges and Drawbacks in the Marketisation of Higher Education within Neoliberalism

handle is hein.journals/rveurost12 and id is 22 raw text is: Review of European Studies; Vol. 12, No. 1; 2020 ISSN 1918-7173 E-ISSN 1918-7181 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education Challenges and Drawbacks in the Marketisation of Higher Education Within Neoliberalism Gerardo del Cerro Santamarfa Correspondence: Gerardo del Cerro Santamarfa, Ph.D., Dr. Soc. Sci., United States Fulbright Award Recipient; Expert Committee Member, European Union. E-mail: gdelcerro@gmail.com Received: December 14, 2019 Accepted: January 3, 2020 Online Published: January 7, 2020 doi:10.5539/res.v12n1p22 URL: https://doi.org/10.5539/res.v12n1p22 Abstract This paper addresses some of the challenges and drawbacks associated to the ongoing worldwide process of marketization (neoliberalization) in higher education. Neoliberalism-the prevailing model of capitalist thinking based on the Washington Consensus-has conveyed the idea that a new educational and university model must emerge in order to meet the demands of a global productive system that is radically different from that of just a few decades ago. The overall argument put forward is that the requirements, particularly the managerial and labor force needs of a new economy-already developing within the parameters of globalization and the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs)-cannot be adequately satisfied under the approaches and methods used by a traditional university. Neoliberalism affects the telos of higher education by redefining the very meaning of higher education. It dislocates education by commodifying its intrinsic value and emphasizing directly transferable skills and competencies. Nonmonetary values are marginalized and, with them, the nonmonetary ethos that is essential in sustaining a healthy democratic society. In this paper I will address (1) some of the problems and shortcomings in the triple-helix model of university-industry-government collaborations, (2) the transformation of students into customers and faculty into entrepreneurial workers, highlighting the many drawbacks of such strategies, (3) the hegemony of rankings as procedures of surveillance and control, (4) the many criticisms posed against neoliberalization in higher education and the possible alternatives looking to the future. Keywords: marketisation, neoliberalism, entrepreneurial universities, triple helix model, customers, entrepreneurial workers, de-professionalization, rankings, challenges and drawbacks, alternatives to neoliberalism 1. Introduction Neoliberalism represents a full-fledged attack on the conception and workings of institutions of higher education as they were conceived centuries ago. Neoliberalism is an umbrella concept that encompasses the ideologies favoring the extension of market relationships and values throughout society and not just in the economic realm. As a political strategy initiated by the administrations of U.S. President Reagan and U.K. Prime Minister Thatcher in the 1980s, neoliberalism represents an attempt to shift the power balance between capital and labor by advancing entrepreneurialism as a social value, accountability as a control tool, and new managerialism as a regime of hegemony and domination in institutions, organizations, and the labor market. Resistance to neoliberalism in academia is more widespread and entrenched than it seems (Lucas, 2014). The resistance is far from surprising because within higher education neoliberalism represents a combination of elements along two routes to authoritarian political control anticipated many decades ago by Aldous Huxley (in Brave New World) and George Orwell (in 1984). Orwell pointed out that tyranny would come through repression, instigating and pushing people to obedience. On the other hand, Huxley believed that tyranny would impose itself by means of suggestion and seduction, thus making it possible for people to love our own submission. In the context of increasing pressure for changes in the university, the antagonism between academic and administrative cultures within higher education institutions has increased, and therefore it does not seem that universities' likely or desirable future is clearer now than it was when this issue was raised a few decades ago. The reason for the impasse is, in part, due to the shortage of convincing ideas about what direction a university should take in a rapidly changing world that is undergoing a deep transition without a clearly discernible direction. As the philosopher of higher education, Ronald Barnett (2000, p. 23), observed, The ideas of the university in the public domain are irremediably impoverished. For Barnett, they are impoverished because they are unduly 22

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