Blue-Collar Teaching in a White-Collar University

Abstract

Blue-collar students and faculty are a decreasing population in American higher education. Drawing upon my working-class roots and experiences as a first-generation college student and faculty member, this article explains how class biases and the creation of a market-driven corporate university are increasingly closing out all but the most privileged. If the goal of education is to offer diverse perspectives as essential to the pursuit of knowledge and truth, and to provide training to promote social mobility and advancement, this class bias compromises the basic goals of what higher education should offer.

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Notes on contributors

David Schultz

David Schultz is professor of public administration and former director of the DPA program at Hamline University and a senior fellow at the Institute on Law and Politics at the University of Minnesota School of Law. He is author/editor of more than 25 books and 80 articles on law, politics, ethics, and public administration. Currently he is editor in chief of JPAE.