‘NYU profits from and accelerates the process of gentrification in the East Village and LES’

With the complete package (tuition, health care, and living expenses) nearly every single school at NYU adds up to over 71 k in fees. The amount of money paid to attend NYU is often backed by the argument that the school holds a prestigious name. But where does the money go? Does NYU actually care about their students?

Why don’t I just leave NYU if I’m so against it? I believe in freedom of expression. I have the right to critique this school regardless of the fact that I attend it. NYU itself encourages students to speak up so why should I be quiet?

All around America, college activists have released guides called “the disorientation guide” to “decolonize your mind.” NYU’s disorientation guide is written by various student activists. The guide discusses the correlation between displacement and corporate education.

Every corporate college has a Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees makes every final decision. Students, faculty, and alumni all have no say in who serves on the Board of Trustees. The Board itself functions to the whim of individual members. The Board has around seventy people; it’s more like the governing body of a major corporation rather than university. It features members from various backgrounds such as Wall street.

The Board is completely disconnected from students and their needs. But NYU’s Student Labor Action Movement is running a campaign this year to change that. Hopefully by the end of the year we’ll have a student representative on the Board.

NYU often claims to hold a valued position in the city of New York. But NYU hasn’t had a completely positive impact in all of its 200 years. NYU’s continued expansion has displaced long-time working class residents of New York; New York’s housing crisis has resulted in a decrease in affordable housing around the city – this crisis is often known as gentrification.

NYU profits from and accelerates the process of gentrification especially in the East Village and the Lower East Side. Although gentrification is often believed to only be applicable to the amount of upper class white college graduates moving into areas like Brooklyn and the Bronx, it also accelerates as NYU takes up more and more space in Manhattan.

On top of this, the continued expansion of NYU beyond the states is problematic as well. NYU Abu Dhabi was built under disturbing conditions. Slave labor was used in the process. Workers were essentially put into a form of indentured servitude as NYU failed to reimburse workers and forced them into 12-hour work days with inhumane employers.  NYU argues that it’s a progressive school yet it has unethical labor practices like every other major corporation out there. Is NYU really a university or just a major corporation?

One of the major issues with NYU that strikes out with most people is the unreasonably high tuition and frustrating amount of student debt. Although this is a national problem, NYU’s size and popularity makes it a major player in the student debt crisis. A 2015 ProPublica investigation showed that although NYU had a 91 percent increase in revenue from tuition and fees, student debt is more or less the same as it was 10 years ago.  Student debt is not shrinking as the administration claims! The money that NYU receives from students should be used to alleviate this issue yet it all keeps going towards expansion.

These are merely a few of the major issues with the corporate college. As more and more students enroll into higher education every year, more issues arise. Colleges have become monopolies rather than actual institutions focused on education.