In this assignment, I will be analyzing the use of rhetoric in both Christopher Newfield and the Edu-Factory Collective's "The Corporate university and the Financial Crisis: What is Going on (Newfield piece)", and Lazzarato's "Governing Debt". Both pieces convey the same idea that student debt have strong negative implications on the society though the writing style adopted by the authors is different. The first piece is written in the form of an while the second piece is an excerpt of a chapter providing information about the impact of student debt on the society.
The Corporate university and the Financial Crisis: What is Going on? An Interview with Christopher Newfield (Newfield). Christopher Newfield argument bases on financial and political crisis implications on public universities. According to him, student loans only benefit businesses while posing adverse effects to students and universities. Even though considerable cuts had been made on loan amounts, he argues that it was only implemented to students in public institutions while those in private were left unaffected. Newfield claims that the financial crisis in universities is not as a result of downturns in the economy but due to campaigns by the conservatives to terminate education's democratizing effects on US society. Using extensive research analysis into the public university archives, Newfield cautiously describes the manner in which such campaigns operated. He begins his story enveloped in an expansive vision of a creative and equitable America that arose from the war boom in college access, tracing the steady development of the anti-egalitarian corporate university practices ranging from research budgeting to racial policies. Newfield study discovers that culture wars functions as a form of neutron bomb, which pulverizes the culture and social claims of university graduates whereas their expertise is left untouched. Hence, budget wars led to financing of universities, though both the private and public universities are affected differently. Newfield takes a nose-dive into graduates' fate when they finish universities. He contends that newly-minted graduates with huge debts, poorer skills, and minimal exposure to citizen-building areas cannot take democratic control of their societies.
Lazzarato's Governing Debt (Lazzarato)
Lazzarato argues that students are often required to take out hefty loans to attend universities. He compares the aggregate of debt incurred by students to that of public debt incurred by France, Italy, to showcase that the amount of debt students incur is too large and will have negative effects once they access such loans. Lazzarato states that "For comparable or lower sums, recession, austerity measures, personal sacrifice, unemployment, and poverty are imposed on the millions of citizens of indebted countries". This indicates that countries that have debts are still struggling to fix their economic and political issues. He applies a clear rhetoric approach to back up his claim on how debts are crippling students' efforts resulting to overwhelming economic issues. Lazzaratos claims that there is an inherent belief that taking up and repaying debts is a normal process, which ultimately results to shame and guilt on students. Additionally, the risks of incurring student debts are primarily imposed on the students and not the banks as these loans are issued with collateral. These investors and institutions do not take responsibility of debts as they do not want responsibility over the debts. Often they achieve this by subdividing debts, making themselves anonymous and by transferring such debts to other economic players or students. The ultimate result of this is that students are exposed to looming interest rates on the loans extended to them, which frustrates their efforts to grow economically.
Review of the two pieces
Both Newfield's and Lazzarato's texts seem to convey the same message even though in a different way. For instance, Newfield style is engraved in an interview setting, where we expect to have an interviewee (Edu-Factory) while Lazzarato's ideas are in a book. Nevertheless, both authors argue that student loans are barriers to their involvement in economic development of a country. Newfield states that student loans places students in a position where they cannot take a democratic control of their societies, but relies on political and economic conditions. On the other hand, Lazzarato asserts that student debt is the cause of their slow growth and increasing levels of unemployment. Even though both have a different perspective, they seem to dissent the idea of financing universities as they seem to place students in a deep mess they cannot easily get out. On Lazzarato's analysis on capitalism, debt is not fundamentally a question of economic concerns and budgets, but rather a political association of enslavement and subjection. This seems to be in agreement with Newfield when he states that capitalism cannot save universities from financialization but it has to first take them through a financial crisis, which to me seems enslavement and subjection too. Both authors show their concerns to students even though the information targets the general audience. Lazzarato and Newfield portray a didactic tone to get their point across. However, with the Newfield piece being an interview, Newfield communicates his claims with figures to give the reader an idea of the amount of debts students incur and the potential implications of this debt.
Conclusion
Both pieces are similar in that students are exploited by how loans systems work. However, Newfield's interview covers more general information ranging from historical context and its impact on the flawed system today. He even mentions solutions to how the system of students attending college can change for the best, with an egalitarian point of view. For Lazzarato, there is no clear solution with the problems proposed as he looks at the system in a more practical way reluctant on change. Nevertheless, he confronts a broad spectrum of thinkers such as Michael Foucault, Felix Guarrati, Carl Schmitt, and David Graeber. Whereas we are caught in a financial system that is politicized and not student-focused, it becomes difficult to forgo the loans given many needs one may need to fulfill when in university.
References
Lazzarato, Maurizio. Governing by Debt . Washington, DC.: Business & Economics, 2015.
Newfield, Christopher. The corporate university and the financial crisis, what is going on? An interview with Christopher Newfield Edu Factory. March 2008.
