Richard D. Wolff

Dr. Wolff...Thank you for your enlightening economic perspectives! I am a follower of education policy as part of what I do as a professor of product design in the university system over here in Korea. I regularly study and compare policy initiatives related to the business of education between both the US and Korea. I recently have been following closely what is going on in the non-profit sector of US higher education, and cannot help to see how it is being over run by capitalist models of greed that parallels my observations of it over here in Seoul. The following link is to the ECMC umbrella of organizations which is just one example of business executive top heavy groups that organize student loan programs, grant foundations, collection agencies and other related associated legal entities that are aimed at 'improving adult education' and 'job skill upgrading'. http://www.ecmcgroup.org/about-us.html There are a growing number of organizations similar to ECMC both in the USA as well as South Korea. I myself am exposed to the very competitive higher education market over here in Seoul and see similar efforts to evolve education into a competitive business with an endless source of unending profits for the board of directors of the private college I work with. (there are executives sitting in jail currently as a result) I am observing the increasing challenges that the market is placing on educating those students who pay increasingly outrageous tuition (though federal loan guarantee programs) for credentials that are continually being compromised, cut, shrunk, under funded and overly measured with new (very time consuming and very expensive!) IT software programs from university and government administrations that have nothing to do with increasing the value of education. Where do you see education going under this current capitalist model that increasingly insulates the board of directors members and pits students against their teachers, instructors and professors??? How is all of this data about student performance, satisfaction rates, professor competency rates, job placement and a host of other metrics good for the future of education? Cheers from Seoul...