Higher Education and the Capitalist Turn: Research and Reflections

As universities have increasingly adopted corporate management models, the landscape of higher education has undergone a fundamental transformation. In this article, Eric Margolis and Michael Soldatenko examine how the “capitalist turn” in academia has reshaped research priorities, labor conditions, and the very purpose of the university.

Drawing on their own decades of experience within the academy, the authors reflect on how market logic has penetrated teaching, tenure, and institutional governance — turning students into consumers, faculty into contingent workers, and knowledge into a commodity. The article combines personal narrative with structural analysis to chart these changes and their consequences for academic freedom and intellectual life.