How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation By Marc Bousquet, Cary Nelson
304 Pages | NYU Press (January 1, 2008) | ISBN: 0814799752 | PDF | 10 MB | HF+FSN

As much as we think we know about the modern university, very little has been said about what its like to work there. Instead of the high wage, high profit world of knowledge work, most campus employees including the vast majority of faculty really work in the low wage, low profit sphere of the service economy. Tenure track positions are at an all time low, with adjuncts and graduate students teaching the majority of courses.
This super exploited corps of disposable workers commonly earn fewer than 16,000 annually, without benefits, teaching as many as eight classes per year. Even undergraduates are being exploited as a low cost, disposable workforce.
Marc Bousquet, a major figure in the academic labor movement, exposes the seamy underbelly of higher education a world where faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates work long hours for fast food wages. Assessing the costs of higher educations corporatization on faculty and students at every level, How the University Works is urgent reading for anyone interested in the fate of the university.