It&#x27;s funny how the most essential work in society is under constant pressure of debasement. Feeding people is considered an ignominious job. Teaching people too is constantly debased. Now it&#x27;s affecting higher education. The neoliberal transformation of capitalism decouples the value of goods and services from their value to humanity and instead pegs them against markets. Markets no longer merely transmit information about value. They are the <i>definition</i> of value. This is the ideological difference between liberal free market capitalism and neoliberalism; at least the former paid lip service to the idea that truth and value are ours to define. Not so. Capital determines value.<p>Universities are capitalist entities. They are trying to compete and appreciate in value for their shareholders. The market has replaced whatever value systems justified universities in the past.