Access to Higher Education:

How the Conservative Restoration is Closing the Door

Betty Hibler

The past 25 years were a period of democratization in higher education. Open admissions and affirmative action policies opened the door to previously excluded students. These policies are currently being reversed by the "conservative restoration" underway in our nation. This article examines trends in education associated with the conservative restoration and uses the City University of New York and State University of New York systems as a case study.

"Let us then examine anew the basic thesis of democracy. It does not really mean to say that all men are equal; but it does assert that every individual who is a part of the state must have his experience and his necessities regarded by that state if the state survive; that the best and only ultimate authority on an individual’s hurt and desire is that individual himself no matter how inarticulate his inner soul may be; that life, as any man has lived it, is part of that great national reservoir of knowledge without use of which no government can do justice."

W.E.B. DuBOIS, The Education of Black People, 1973.

As we approach the 21st century, the trend toward increased access to higher education is under attack. Critics of open admissions and affirmative action policies of the past quarter century are calling for an end to these policies in the name of higher standards. Critical theorists Michael Apple and Henry Giroux contend that this movement is part of a broader "conservative restoration" aimed at extending neo-liberal free market concepts to public education along with broad application of the neo-conservative social agenda.

At elementary and secondary levels of public education, the conservative restoration is evident in the charter school movement, the call for a national curriculum, and national standards and testing. In higher education, neo-liberals and neo-conservatives demand fiscal belt-tightening and accountability, a return to strictly merit-based admissions, and a core curriculum centered on the Western canon.

Over the past 25 years, there has been a dramatic increase in access to higher education. In City on a Hill, James Traub (1994) tells the story of City College, part of the City University of New York system. City College, a free but academically restrictive institution in the 1920s when many of its students were sons of working-class Jewish immigrants, adopted an open admissions policy in 1970 after Puerto Ricans and African Americans from the surrounding community shut down the campus, demanding vastly greater access and their own chance at the American Dream.

The current movement by the Boards of Trustees of the State University of New York (SUNY) and City University of New York (CUNY) to raise standards, restore a core curriculum, remove remedial education, and instigate other cost-cutting measures is reversing the open admissions policy of the past 25 years. The New York City and State systems provide a case study in the trend toward restricting access to higher education.

The Conservative Restoration

Michael Apple (1996) describes the conservative restoration as a merger of neo-liberals and neo-conservatives to form the New Right. Neo-liberal philosophy is based on the free enterprise system and emphasizes market values, competition, efficiency and productivity. The Clinton Administration’s neo-liberal economic policies shape its foreign policy, in its view of the world as a global marketplace. One example is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), removing trade barriers among Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The goal of neo-liberals is an economic system defined by a free market with few governmental restraints (Apple).

Neo-conservative attachment to traditional values has complemented the economic focus of neo-liberals. While conservatism is also grounded in free market principals and the idea that less government is good government, neo-conservatives demand governmental restraints in certain areas, specifically related to the "politics of the body and gender and race relations" (Apple, 1996, p. 29). Thus neo-conservatives support a legislative agenda that supports a patriarchal notion of family values that is opposed to abortion, gay and lesbian rights, sex education, affirmative action, and bilingual education.

Neo-liberal and neo-conservative interests have united to form the New Right and advocate "freeing individuals for economic purposes while controlling them for social purposes" (Roger Dale as quoted in Apple, 1996, p. 29). This philosophy is revealed in the New Right’s plans for education in the 21st century.

The New Right’s Education Agenda

Education at all levels is currently under attack for costing too much and accomplishing too little. Test scores of American children do not compare well with those of European and Asian children. Schools have become the scapegoat of both neo-conservatives and neo-liberals. Because both see a strong free market economy as central to American democracy, the primary mission of schools is to provide workers who will keep that economy running smoothly (Apple, 1996). If there are glitches in the economy, then the schools must somehow be to blame. Because the New Right gives no serious consideration to alternatives to the free enterprise system, it places increasing pressure on schools to produce a better product.

Critical theorists Apple (1996) and Giroux (1997) analyze a number of solutions proposed by the New Right. They conclude that the call for a national curriculum, national standards and testing, and choice in primary and secondary schools are all attempts to apply free market principles to education and restore traditional values.

Behind the idea of a national curriculum is the assumption that there is an "official knowledge" that all Americans should share. Critical theorists propose that there is "always a politics of official knowledge, a politics that embodies conflict over what some regard as simply neutral descriptions of the world and what others regard as elite conceptions that empower some groups while disempowering others" (Apple, 1996, p. 23). The current debate in some states over the adoption of public school textbooks foreshadows the issues that will be involved in choosing a national curriculum. The metaphor of a national curriculum that would "reunite" America is a powerful one to those fearful of the loss of traditional values and the splintering of a common culture that the New Right believes once existed (Schlesinger, 1991).

The demand for national standards and national testing both result from the concern that the United States has fallen behind other countries in math and science education. The New Right contends that national standards and testing will "raise standards," clearly called for by current test scores indicating an erosion of the academic excellence previously evident in our schools (Apple, 1996). National standards and testing are viewed as an efficient means of improving the educational product.

Another means of improving the product is to offer more choice. Parents want a good education for their children and many public schools are currently not educating children adequately. Newly organized charter schools, permitted by state legislation to access public funds, offer poor parents what wealthy parents have always had: school choice. The New Right believes that if public schools are subject to market forces, the good ones will continue to succeed and the inferior ones will fail (Giroux, 1997).

In order to succeed in a future of national testing, a school will have to ensure that its students achieve acceptable test scores. School curricula will be designed to teach to the test and individual teachers will become less important. Critics describe this process as the "de-skilling" (Giroux, 1997, p. 88) of teachers who will no longer be allowed to craft their own lesson plans. This process is already occurring in some for-profit charter schools (see Micheal Winerip, School choice: A new beginning for public education or the beginning of the end? The New York Times Magazine, June 14, 1998).

Apple (1996) and Giroux (1997) caution that the promises for better schools found in the glossy advertisements of charter schools and in the speeches of politicians may not in fact benefit that portion of our nation’s children already disadvantaged by what Jonathan Kozol calls the "savage inequalities" of our educational system. Whatever the purported benefits of the New Right’s educational agenda, Apple (1996) warns that:

It also puts into motion a system in which children themselves will be ranked and ordered as never before. One of its primary roles will be to act as "a mechanism for differentiating children more rigidly against fixed norms, the social meanings and derivations of which are not available for scrutiny." (p. 32)

In addition to the New Right’s agenda for a national curriculum and standardized testing for primary and secondary schools, it also has an agenda for higher education that includes raising standards, returning to a core curriculum, and cutting operational costs (Healy & Schmidt, 1998). All of these initiatives will increasingly restrict access to higher education and reverse the trend toward more open access of the past 25 years.

Higher Education under the Conservative Restoration

Higher education in the United States began as a very elite institution. Modeled on the English system, small residential colleges prepared the sons of the educated and/or upper classes for three professions: the clergy, law, and medicine. The curricula consisted of Latin, Greek, Logic, Hebrew and Rhetoric (Rudolph, 1990). While the curricula gradually expanded and new research institutions developed based on the German model, in 1870 the total number of college students aged 18 to 21 represented only 1.7 percent of that age group. A century later in 1970, the percentage had increased to 50, demonstrating an amazing transformation in higher education between 1870 and 1970 (Rudolph, p. 486).

A number of developments contributed to the democratization of higher education. Among them were the Morrill Federal Land Grant Act of 1862, increased state and federal government support of education, the GI Bill, and the admission of women and minorities to colleges and universities. In 1948 the New York State University system was expanded to 42 campuses, each one carrying the motto: "Let Each Become All He [sic] is Capable is Being" (Rudolph, 1990, p. 487).

The 1960s were an especially fertile period for opening access to higher education. The Civil Rights and anti-war movements empowered students to change institutions. As they examined their colleges and universities, students found them restrictive in access and irrelevant in their curricula. Students occupied administration buildings until their demands for a voice in admission policies and course offerings were heard. City College is just one example of student and community activists demanding that an institution of higher learning open its doors to its own community members and eliminate restrictive admissions policies (Traub, 1994). At the same time, demands were made for ethnic studies and women’s studies courses as well as ethnic student centers and housing. Affirmative action and open admissions policies over the past 25 years combined to change the make-up of the student population, particularly in urban areas.

The New Right takes a negative view of many of these changes. Its call for belt-tightening and accountability is combined with a desire to restore the traditional values of merit-based admissions and the Western canon in the curriculum (Apple, 1996; Healy & Schmidt, 1998). The conservative restoration has shifted the debate away from equality of opportunity to access based strictly on merit and a curriculum defined by what constitutes official knowledge.

Critical theorists ask us to consider who defines merit and official knowledge, and who benefits from the way these definitions are framed. Current changes within the CUNY and SUNY systems under the administrations of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Governor George E. Pataki provide a case study of the future in higher education under the conservative restoration.

The "Standards Revolution" at CUNY and SUNY

Who can be against academic excellence? One of the trademarks of the New Right is its ability to use language to manipulate public opinion (Apple, 1996). Proposition 209 in California, ending affirmative action, was called the "Civil Rights Initiative." Affirmative action has been renamed reverse discrimination and white, middle-class students are now the victims (Katzenbach & Marshall, 1998). In a similar manipulation of language, the current changes in the CUNY and SUNY systems are described by supporters as a "standards revolution;" there are critics who suggest it might also be "the gutting of public colleges" (Healy & Schmidt, 1998, p. A21).

It has taken Giuliani and Pataki, both Republicans replacing Democratic predecessors, a number of years to effect change, because they inherited Boards of Trustees appointed by previous administrations. Democrats continue to hold a majority in the state legislature. However, as Giuliani and Pataki have had opportunities to appoint new trustees, both Boards have taken on a much more conservative tone. In May, the CUNY Board of Trustees voted to end remedial classes at its 11 four-year institutions. Herman Badillo, Vice-Chairman of the Board, said, "We’re moving back to having academic standards that preserve the value of a CUNY diploma" (Healy & Schmidt, 1998, p. A21). Critics describe this and other actions taken by both Boards of Trustees as hard-edged policies and scorched-earth rhetoric to steer two of the nation’s largest public university systems, with a combined 700,000 students, away from a long-time commitment to maximum access. The new priorities: free-market principles of competition, efficiency, and the promise of what the Trustees call a "quality" product (Healy & Schmidt, 1998, p. A21).

Preserving the "value" of a CUNY diploma and producing a "quality" product are additional examples of the use of language to manipulate public opinion. The word "value" has several layers of meaning in our society. The first two definitions according to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary are "a fair return in money, goods, services, etc., for something exchanged" and "the monetary worth of a thing: marketable price." These meanings of the word seem to be what Badillo has in mind when he talks of preserving the "value" of a CUNY diploma.

However, two additional common uses of the word are in "traditional values" and "family values." Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary has no definition for this plural use of the term and none of the many definitions of the singular form of the word really capture what is meant by "values." These uses are more similar to the definition found under "valued": "highly regarded; esteemed," which correlates more closely to the current use of "values" to mean beliefs and traditions that are highly regarded and esteemed.

But the other meaning of "value" as "monetary worth" affects our understanding as well. When excellence in education is "valued," is that just because of the monetary advantages of an excellent education? The "value" of a college diploma in the early part of our nation’s history was hardly measured in monetary terms. Clergy, doctors, and lawyers were not the wealthiest members of society. There was a separate "value" that education had, distinct from monetary value. The Catholic theologian John Henry Newman’s (1980) nineteenth century belief in the intrinsic value of education as an end in itself appears foreign to the New Right’s definition of the value of education.

An important concept of the conservative restoration is that ever-increasing efficiency will reduce costs while at the same time improving the product. The SUNY Board is restructuring the budget process to give financial rewards to campuses that attract growing numbers of students (Healy & Schmidt, 1998, p. A22). This free market approach pits campuses against each other as they vie for consumers of their products. Governor Pataki emphasizes the principle of accountability in his statement, "I want to be sure that our colleges and universities perform as effectively as they possibly can, and that they be fully accountable in fulfilling their missions" (Healy & Schmidt, 1998, p. A22). The vote to end remedial classes at the four-year CUNY colleges is both a cost-cutting measure and an access decision.

In addition to restricting access and cutting costs, the Boards of Trustees are eager to improve the curriculum and have turned to a number of conservative policy analysts for help. The transfer of decision-making from CUNY and SUNY administrators and faculty to the governor, mayor, trustees, and policy analysts is another example of the de-skilling of education professionals. Healy and Schmidt (1998) state:

SUNY Trustees have asserted much greater control over the selection and performance reviews of campus presidents [and] a distrust of CUNY administrators led the Republican-appointed board leaders to expand their own administrative staff, to handle policy research and some legal matters, and to elbow out the chancellor, W. Ann Reynolds, whose advocacy for students on welfare, among other things, angered Mr. Giuliani and some trustees. (p. A22)

The replacement of educational administrators with policy experts distances those who set policy from those affected by the policies—in this case students, professors, and staff. Concerns about prepackaged curriculum materials apply here as well. "Control in this case is removed from face-to-face contact and is now situated in the impersonal processes and logic of highly rationalized managerial relations" (Giroux, 1997, p. 88).

What the Trustees hope to accomplish is a return to a core curriculum. Key Republican Trustees of both systems are calling for "stronger" education requirements that would most likely include specific courses emphasizing Western civilization and a traditionalist canon, "as opposed to what some trustees see as the current trend toward ‘multicultural’ classes" (Healy & Schmidt, 1998, p. A23). They are also discussing standardizing requirements throughout the system.

All of the proposed changes discussed above are advocated in the name of improving the quality of higher education. However, the faculty senates, unions, and student associations within the CUNY and SUNY systems generally oppose the Boards’ actions and proposed actions (Healy & Schmidt, 1998, p. A21). Critical theorists ask the essential question: Who benefits?

Who Benefits?

All three goals of the conservative restoration for higher education-raising standards, returning to a core curriculum, and cutting operational costs-will restrict access. Underrepresented groups will find it more difficult to go to college, reversing the trend of the past 25 years.

Meritocracy is a core American value. The belief that individuals get ahead because they deserve to, because anyone who works hard enough can do it, is commonly held. But is this belief consistent with reality? Critical theorist Antonia Darder (1991) suggests that there may also be a political component to meritocracy. She describes it as:

a practice whereby the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement. The talented, for the most part, are members of the dominant culture whose values comprise the very foundations that inform the knowledge and skills a student must possess or achieve to be designated as an individual who merits reward. (p. 11)

Raising standards will benefit those whom society decides merit reward. In most cases, those will be the already privileged members of society along with a few others who rise to the top by achieving high scores on national standardized tests.

Giroux (1997) argues that in a democracy, other values such as equality and social justice must also guide our policies. He warns against getting caught up in the frenzy over academic excellence: "The language of excellence and individualism when abstracted from considerations of equality and social justice serves to restrict rather than animate the possibilities of democratic public life" (p. 243). Likewise, Apple (1996) worries that in the call for higher standards, "the same pattern of benefits that has characterized nearly all areas of social policy—in which the top 20% of the population reap 80% of the benefits—will be reproduced here" (p. 25).

Critical theorists question what is really behind the movement to end open admissions. The current economic system requires more than a high school education to get ahead. Yet an ever larger service sector depends on unskilled labor. More stringent immigration quotas keep out foreign workers who historically have filled these and other unskilled positions. It is in the interest of those in power to maintain the inequality of the status quo (Apple, 1996).

The movement to return to a core curriculum emphasizing the eurocentric canon also serves to maintain the status quo. Women’s studies, cultural studies, and ethnic studies programs have de-centered official knowledge and resulted in the emergence of ideas now disuniting America, according to New Right spokespersons Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (1991) and Dinesh D’Souza (1991). As the curriculum once again becomes less relevant to marginalized groups, they may be further discouraged from academic study. The CUNY Board’s decision to place remedial education in the two-year colleges distances those most in need from the more valued four-year institutions. The proposed plan to place remedial education in the private sphere in the future may make it totally inaccessible.

Finally, cost-cutting measures will also further restrict access to higher education. State and city budget cuts under the Giuliani and Pataki administrations have already increased tuition at CUNY and SUNY campuses. Other student support services may be reduced or eliminated as additional cost-cutting measures are implemented. Student financial aid nation-wide has shifted from grants to loans, representing another barrier to low income students seeking access to a college degree. Restrictions in recent welfare reform legislation make it more difficult for welfare recipients to access education.

So who will benefit? The conservative restoration will ensure that power remains in the hands of those who currently hold it. The long trend of democratization in higher education is now in reverse. As Giroux (1997) points out, "advanced industrial societies such as the United States inequitously distribute not only economic goods and services but also certain forms of cultural capital" (p. 6). Education is an important form of cultural capital that the conservative restoration will increasingly keep from the poor.

Conclusion

As this case study of public higher education in New York City and New York State illustrates, access to higher education is narrowing under the conservative restoration, reversing the truly democratic trend of the previous century and especially of the last 25 years. As the gains made during the period of affirmative action and open admissions are reversed, our nation will suffer from future generations of college students who lack a truly diverse college experience, from the lost contributions of those who are excluded, and from fewer opportunities for all citizens to cross borders of race, ethnicity, class, and ability. DuBois (1980) had the wisdom to understand that "every individual who is a part of the state must have his experience and his necessities regarded by that state if the state survive" (p. 119). A democratic society must keep the doors to higher education wide open.

References

Apple, M. W. (1996). Cultural politics and education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Darder, A. (1991). Culture and power in the classroom. New York: Bergin & Garvey.

D’Souza, D. (1991). Illiberal education: The politics of race and sex on campus. New York: Free Press.

DuBois, W. E. B. (1973). The education of black people: Ten critiques, 1906-1960. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Giroux, H.A. (1997). Pedagogy and the politics of hope: Theory, culture, and schooling. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Healy, P. & Schmidt, P. (July 10, 1998). In New York, a "Standards Revolution" or the gutting of public colleges? The Chronicle of Higher Education, A21-23.

Katzenbach, N., & B. Marshall. (February 22, 1998). Not color blind: Just blind. The New York Times Magazine, 42-45.

Mish, F. C. (Ed.). (1983). Webster’s ninth new collegiate dictionary. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., Publishers.

Newman, J. H. (1982). The idea of a university. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

Rudolph, F. (1990). The American college & university: A history. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Schlesinger, A., Jr. (1991). The disuniting of America: Reflections on a multicultural society. Knoxville, TN: Whittle Direct Books.

Traub, J. (1994). City on a hill: Testing the American dream at City College. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Winerip, M. (June 14, 1998). School choice: A new beginning for public education or the beginning of the end? The New York Times Magazine, 42-49.

Betty Hibler has a bachelor's degree in Secondary Education form the University of Missouri and a master's degree in American History from the University of Cincinatti. Betty is a second-year student in the HESA program and serves as Graduate Assistant to the Executive Officer for Cultural Pluralism and Racial Equality, Provost's Office.