Private universities – are they really better just because they are self-governing? The Liberals now propose In a first step that I suspect towards private universities, more universities should become foundations. The stated noble purpose is to secure the academic freedom of higher education institutions. There is a widespread belief that privatization automatically leads to higher quality and efficiency. But the reality is not so simple.
Semester fees do not exist in Sweden today, but the introduction of private universities could create a slippery slope towards a system where fees become the norm. This would risk excluding many who cannot afford to pay for education, and thereby creating an unwanted elitism in the Swedish education model.
Private universities and control
First, it is about power and control. Publicly funded universities are governed by political decisions and are directly accountable to citizens. Private universities, even with public funding, are often run by boards that may have interests other than protecting the public good. They may prioritize short-term profits, market adaptation, or specific ideological goals over the quality and breadth of education. The result? A narrower educational focus in which certain subjects, especially the humanities and social sciences, are given less space because they are not considered “profitable.”
Independent research in danger
Private universities also risk restricting research. Publicly funded universities have a clear mission to conduct independent research that benefits society as a whole. Private universities, on the other hand, may be tempted to prioritize research that attracts sponsors or corporate partners, rather than research that challenges power structures or solves long-term societal problems. The freedom and integrity of research risk becoming a commodity, when the financial incentive takes over.
Risk of insecurity and elitism
Private universities tend to create elitism and insecurity. They may introduce tuition fees, give greater priority to the most profitable programs, or create exclusive admissions processes that exclude low-income earners and minorities. In this way, they reinforce class differences, even in a system where education is formally accessible to all. Public universities also often have stronger rules to protect the rights of students and employees. Private universities, even those that are publicly funded, can more easily circumvent these rules to reduce costs or increase flexibility.
The need for democratically governed universities
Offentliga universitet är bättre för att de är demokratiskt styrda, tillgängliga för alla, och sätter kunskap och samhällsnytta framför vinst. Om Sverige väljer att införa privata universitet, kan vi riskera att skapa ett utbildningssystem som är mer otryggt och ekonomiskt styrt. Låt oss lära av andras misstag och inte gå i samma fälla.
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Among the world's best universities, the large ones in the United States rank high. They are foundations that were once founded with large government donations.
Then of course it's the research you look at. It costs a fortune to study there, only the children of rich people can afford it. Which, among other things, leads to the USA being the industrial country with the lowest social mobility.
So the question is how to guarantee
1. independent of state bureaucratic, or for that matter corporate, whims of the kind that, for example, Bo Rothstein, otherwise ideologically loyal to the socialist party, has reacted so strongly against, see e.g. http://rothstein.dinstudio.se/files/Universitet_ska_inte_styras_som_lokala_kennelklubben_-_DN.se.pdf
2. Decent financing.
3. Access for all students with aptitude and interest.
There is hardly any now, and the liberal proposal doesn't make it any better. Maybe we'll have to come up with something ourselves?
Now at least poor students can get into universities. So I still want to argue that without the Liberals' proposal we are significantly better off than if the Liberals' proposal goes through.
You're right, but it's not good now either.
Partly because schools are already corrupted by liberal cannibalism; universities have to organize high school courses because students cannot meet the requirements. Partly because they have already become dependent on money from companies. Partly because politicians, if Rothstein is to be believed, dictate what research should come up with, for political reasons. And then we have the subject of economics, which is its own disaster, see e.g. https://othercanon.org/organization/.
It's not enough to just say no, you have to campaign for what you want instead.
It's a bit like a parallel to all the campaign emails you get about how terrible things are with Trump. Yes, it is, but it was already terrible before with all the austerity, all the privatizations and other gifts to the billionaires since the 90s and onwards. Preserving the current situation is the last thing we should do.
PS. I'll clarify:
Democracy is not threatened, it is non-existent! The voters, the people, have never approved the neoliberal orthodoxy that has ruled for a generation, it is purely a billionaire invention.
For the US, for example, Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page have researched this and seen that every decision in Congress has been initiated by billionaire circles, if it comes from elsewhere it will not be decided, see https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B.
As far as I know, no research has been done on this in Europe, but Pablo Torija has stated that those who benefit most today from the policies pursued in OECD countries are the richest 0,2 percent. 40 years ago, left-wing parties benefited the poorest 33 percent the most, center parties benefited the middle 33 percent the most, and right-wing parties benefited the richest 33 percent the most. Everyone had someone who acted for them. But today, hardly anyone does. See https://gemensam.wordpress.com/2021/01/30/i-landernas-regeringar-gynnar-mest-den-rikaste-procenten/
So democracy is something we must conquer, proactively, not something we can defend defensively.
Yes, universities are worse than they used to be. But already in 1960, a university professor told a friend who was studying at the time that universities were better in the past. Yet universities collectively create greater and greater wonders in most sciences year after year. The individual can do less but the collective can do more. And ever since the ancient Greeks, the elderly have spoken of the decay of youth. In the early 1900th century, schools and universities taught more facts, but many of these facts were prejudices about different races. At the same time, neoliberals in politics managed to infiltrate the universities too much with Milton Friedman's view of the need for scarcity of money as important. That view is deeply dangerous and wrong. But I don't think we need to create so much new. We need to recreate the schools and universities as they were in the 1970s-1980s in Sweden, but adapt them at points where it is relevant to today's times. Then, as the Liberals say, we need to make the academies freer to follow science wherever it leads towards the common good. Clever politicians, but not businessmen, should be allowed to go to bed unless universities start to go completely out of control and become Nazis. But I don't see how privatization, even in the form of foundations, could achieve scientifically freer and stronger universities.
Then today's substandard universities are due to the fiscal policy framework of the 90s and the simultaneous attack on the good blue-collar and artisan professions. This was made acceptable to the people by the government through the idea of the Knowledge Lift for those who lost the good blue-collar professions. Then it led to an abundance of people becoming academics without the job opportunities for such increasing sufficiently. Then there was unemployment and proletarianized working conditions for both workers and academics. Then the decline in knowledge and the decline in democracy in most workplaces increases when desperate job seekers, workers, artisans and academics are increasingly pressured to say what the government wants to hear so that they themselves do not get the worst, most low-paid jobs at the bottom of society.
With liberal policies, erosion in schools continues, even privately run universities. The savings bank is disarming the public sector. We see how Swedish rail traffic is being designed. The US shows that fees became so high that only rich families can afford them.