Four Effects of the New Normative Order of Reason on Public Higher Education

In the preface of "Undoing the Demos," Wendy Brown identifies four effects of the new normative order of reason on public higher education: 1. The financialization of higher education, where universities have become more focused on generating revenue through commercializing research, increasing tuition fees, and relying on philanthropy rather than public funding. 2. The corporatization of higher education, where universities have adopted management practices from the private sector, such as prioritizing efficiency, accountability, metrics, and competition, which may undermine academic freedom, democracy, and diversity. 3. The marketization of higher education, where universities have begun to treat students as customers and education as a commodity, which may lead to a narrow instrumentalization of learning, a decline in intellectual curiosity, and a reinforcement of social inequalities. 4. The moral transformation of higher education, where universities have adopted a neoliberal ideology, emphasizing entrepreneurialism, individualism, self-regulation, and consumer choice, which may crowd out other values, such as civic engagement, social justice, public goods, and common goods.