Chomsky: Public Education Under Massive Corporate Assault — What's Next?

Converting schools and universities into facilities that produce commodities for the job market, privatizing them, slashing their budgets — do we really want this future?

August 5, 2011

The following is a partial transcript of a recent speech delivered by Noam Chomsky at the University of Toronto at Scarborough on the rapid privatization process of public higher education in the United States.

A couple of months ago, I went to Mexico to give talks at the National University in Mexico, UNAM. It's quite an impressive university — hundreds of thousands of students, high-quality and engaged students, excellent faculty. It's free. And the city — Mexico City — actually, the government ten years ago did try to add a little tuition, but there was a national student strike, and the government backed off. And, in fact, there's still an administrative building on campus that is still occupied by students and used as a center for activism throughout the city. There's also, in the city itself, another university, which is not only free but has open admissions. It has compensatory options for those who need them. I was there, too; it's also quite an impressive level, students, faculty, and so on. That's Mexico, a poor country.
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Gee, and here you are a citizen of the richest nation on earth!
Have you been to college and earned your degree? Have you repaid
your student loan debt? Perhaps, instead of staying here and
struggling, ranting about immigrants etc., you should have
traveled to Mexico or elsewhere, and gotten your education for FREE!
Imagine how you'd feel now, without all that debt? Even if your
education wasn't quite so "spiffy" as in "Ivy League", you could still
polish it up a wee bit by going back to school. But this time as
a matter of choice, eh? What was it that Bohnner was saying about
debt? How do these "backwards", "third rank" countries, manage
to give their citizens free education, while American students must
struggle, and we have far fewer of them, at a time when productive
prowess is spreading off shore?

Oh yesh, we're going to pay off those trillions of dollars in debt,
washing dishes and mopping floors! Give the teapotties a high five
for me will ya? (NOT)