Monopolistic Universities and Colleges Violate Rights

Within the higher education institutional (HEI) model of universities and colleges, labor rights and anti-trust issues conspire to hinder mitigation of the problems that plague higher education (HE). Under the HEI model some problems are obvious like rising student tuition and falling faculty compensation, while others are more subtle like the vocationalization of HE purpose and limitation of faculty mobility. We need to remove these hinderances and introduce a better model for the provision of HE.

One way to do this is to facilitate academics as independent practitioners who enjoy professional selection and support comparable to that of lawyers, doctors, dentists, psychiatrists, and other valued service providers – all of whom are principally educated and credentialed by academics. Were physicians and lawyers treated as academics are under the HEI model, access to their valued services would be limited by the circumscribed employment offered in a handful of hospitals and firms scattered across designated geographical areas. Thankfully, this is not the case and professions are free to provide services as they see fit, from within or without fixed institutional employment. In contrast, as employees of HEIs, academics are perhaps free to choose union representation on a collective basis, but they cannot exercise comparable professional control over their work and choose independent academic practice on an individual basis. To improve the condition of HE, this must change with the introduction of the long-established professional service model.

To deny this presents an unjustifiable discrimination that violates the (un)enumerated right of individuals to earn a living as they see fit, offering expertise derived from complex investment in career and community. It is unjustified because sequestering HE within HEIs is neither necessary nor recommended. The original universitas formed among academics and students demonstrates that modern universities and colleges are not necessary, while it serves as an analog of the professional service model that boasts: at least a 50% reduction in the total expense of the HEI model; tuition-free HE; better quality assurance; at least a doubling of the average faculty income; improved HE access and equity; along with much more.

Nor is there a successful defense of this discriminatory violation in the claim that academics are free to reject HEI employment, open an independent practice and sell their services on the open HE market. The HE market is not open to individuals in the same way that legal or medical service markets are open to licensed professionals. HE is effectively closed to all those individuals who want for the wealth and weight necessary to found a capital-intensive HEI and who cannot legally issue accredited degrees or offer government student aid on par with established institutions. As such, this describes a de facto case for anti-trust measures, if not against HEIs, then against the legislatures that with prejudice single out these institutions for exclusive degree-granting and student aid qualification status. 

In the words of the Federal Trade Commission, “[For] over 100 years, the antitrust laws have had the same basic objective: to protect the process of competition for the benefit of consumers, making sure there are strong incentives for businesses to operate efficiently, keep prices down, and keep quality up.” Tracing a trajectory rooted in the 13^th century, universities and colleges now operate as corporations that minimize academic labor costs so as to optimize capital derived from a captive consumer base; and they do so with inefficiency, increasing price, and decreasing quality – thanks to the legislated exclusion of any viable competitive models.

The Professional Society of Academics (PSA) model I develop offers a legitimate means of decoupling from the endemic labor and trust abuses of the HEI service model, while it better optimizes efficiency, price and quality. In a similar vein, groups such as HASTAC and Mozilla have developed alternative means of offering education credentials. At best, their efforts remain mere add-ons to the mainstream institutional HE system. One significant reason for this is they lack the recognition that HEIs have secured through centuries of wrestling for status and statute. In contrast, PSA is not peripheral because it directly relies on the recognition wrung from both the principal authority of academic labor and the proven professional facilitation of expert work – each with their related history of shouldering public missions and trusts.

The bitter irony in these circumstances is two-fold: Along with educating and credentialing the established professions – though they are not themselves a formal profession – academics also accredit the established universities and colleges that employ and exploit them. Academics are the experts who decide what constitutes HE, along with who meets the grade for its provision and possession. Everything else is an instrument. This has always been and will always remain true. PSA merely suggests that the logical extension of this truth is introduction of the professional service model to HE.

Whether it is the replacement or recombination of universities and colleges with professional society and licensed practice, the PSA model champions the primacy of individuals over institutions in the quest to improve HE. As always, I welcome discussion and collaboration.