Portside

In higher education, whether as affordable land-grant state colleges, tuition-free municipal universities, grants to children of the poor or need-blind admissions, access to learning was at least prized as a right, not a privilege. As tuition and administration costs soar, the number of low-paid adjuncts explodes and financial aid collapses, college funding shifts from the public purse to student debt. Wither democracy or plutocracy?