In the midst of barbaric war in the Caucus region, a rising China showcasing its power through the magnificence of the Olympics, and the continual election of left-leaning, populistic leaders in Latin America, we are witnessing the development of a uniquely 21st century paradox: the re-emergence of nationalism within an internationalistic framework.

Read more below. 

So, I was going to wait until the end of the day to put up another blog about the Leadership Academy retreat in Connecticut. But this conversation is too interesting to me not to document and post right away: Fellows are debating Young People For's place on the ideology spectrum. The spectrum, most simplistically interpreted, is plotted this way (Left to Right): Radical, Systemic, Liberal, Neo Liberal, Conservative, Far Right.

"I think higher education is going in the wrong direction," says David Nifoussi, college-hater and Class of 2007, "it is becoming too expensive, only for rich people or those in debt". People these days seem to think that something is changing in higher ed, though that doesn't necessarily mean it is becoming less important, indeed according to Kabir Sethi (Class of 2009) "higher education is becoming more and more important". How is higher education changing? In today's article we will consider the few key trends in higher education.  

In his recent work on the subject, The University in Ruins, Bill Readings argues that functionally, higher education no longer promotes nation-states via the creation of a national culture, but instead has become just another administrative unit in the transnational corporate machine. As a consequence Reading sees colleges losing their privileged place as a model for society and social change, and are therefore, "in ruins". For Reading, this change is taking place via the supposedly neutral doctrine of "excellence", which has no intellectual ground but is instead an expansion of corporate accounting. In Reading's view, we no longer graduate as citizens of a country but as techno-bureaucrats of a trans-national commercial empire, or more ironically, "global citizens".

Some Mac students' see things on similar lines. Julia Stanfield feels that "everyone has to go to college these days" while Alex Park noted that "higher education is more and more polarized, if you're not in the upper class in the US you're in the lower class". Tommy Kim expands this argument by seeing it as an international trend: "higher ed is increasingly competitive but accessible to more and more elites around the world". It seems then that we are witnessing a worldwide stratification, where not nationality, but class, has taken center-stage.

More after the fold