Afterword: rates of exchange: neoliberalism and the value of higher education

Abstract

Neoliberal discourse, having deeply pervaded contemporary political and economic practices, has moved increasingly into education in determining the value of knowledge, information, and the pursuit and production of them. The modern university has long served as the space where questions of value are debated and critiqued, but increasingly neoliberalism's encroachment into educational policy and practice has established market fundamentalism as the dominant and often governing logic by which the value of knowledge is determined. This conclusion to a special two-volume issue focusing on neoliberalism as the new common sense in higher education examines this encroachment as well as the spaces of resistance left within education to determine value outside of market-based logic.

Keywords:

• neoliberalism
• higher education
• sociology of knowledge