Nearly all public universities now accept the conventional wisdom that the era of public funding is over and they must commercialize, marketize, financialize, and economize. But in reality, private sector “reforms” are the problem, not the cure, for the rise in college costs.

Christopher Newfield, professor of literature and American studies at the University of California-Santa Barbara, will explain how privatizing public colleges has made them more expensive for students while lowering their educational value. Newfield is the author of Unmaking the Public University: The Forty Year Assault on the Middle Class and Ivy and Industry: Business and the Making of the American University. He blogs on higher education funding and policy at Remaking the University.

Location: Perry–Castañeda Library, UFCU Room (PCL 2.500), University of Texas, Austin