The McDonaldization of Higher Education

Where not so long ago professors "owned" the tools of scholarship, controlled the labor process, and certified the quality of our product, the process of McDonaldization has torn this relation asunder. Rapidly increasing student faculty ratios, mass classes, and the use of low-wage teaching assistants and adjunct faculty have changed the job of professor (p. 64 ff.). Faculty are pressured to recruit and retain students seen as "customers" (p. 67) and to compete with private for-profit [End Page 368] universities (p. 71-72). With declining government aid for higher education, students increasingly see education as a form of consumption and demand control, choice, and "edutainment" (p. 64 and elsewhere). This is seen most obviously in "course evaluations" which some of the authors refer to as "customer satisfaction surveys" (p. 36, 132, 147). At the same time, faculty are relentlessly pushed to publish, engage in funded research, and develop new technological competencies. Control over product is threatened as universities make demands on ownership of intellectual property including patents and licenses, publications and courseware (p. 79-81). From the perspective of faculty, McDonaldization represents a dramatic loss of pedagogical authority. Simultaneously, the state, which still pays for much of the cost of education as a "public good," is increasing demands for accountability and standards. This takes the form of schemes for standardizing promotion and tenure, quantifying and measuring the product being delivered, and attempting to assure quality.