McGettigan’s new book is specifically about the situation in the United Kingdom, but I think it offers critiques that would elucidate aspects of the American system as well.
McGettigan’s argument is that this market talk drives a wider discourse of university privatisation, and in the third section, he explains what this means for the UK HE context where universities are already ‘private’ organisations, albeit previously heavily dependent on state funding. This sets up arguably the most compelling section, where he rails against outsourcing, joint ventures and various private partnership practices which came to characterise modern university managerial practice. His point is that the market discourse has imperceptibly shifted university managers’ responsibilities to their traditional communities (students, staff and society), to ensuring nothing more than the university’s creditworthiness.