Corporate Culture - It’s About The Marketisation of Higher Education
Corporate culture is by and large at LSE, there is no two ways about it. George Monbiot’s recent remarks highlight our university as being one of the key culprits for this, with 28 per cent of our graduates joining corporates. No disagreement there. But is this a bad thing? I would argue not, as long as there are enough opportunities and alternatives for those who do not want to engage in corporate careers.
To write an article completely slamming them is patronising towards students who do genuinely want to work in that sector, ignorant of the benefits that there could be attached to this, and fails to engage with the issues surrounding the marketization of education and how it has had an impact on postgraduate education, peoples financial wellbeing, and general attitude towards what they perceive education to be for. Without engaging in these broader issues, we are left with an article that smacks of the liberal bourgeois sneering at students, thinking they are not capable of thinking independently about what careers they want to pursue.
To start, it appears incredibly condescending to say that bright students get captured by a 'corporate cult'. I used to think that my peers were brainwashed by the cult, having come to LSE to be bombarded with words like 'networking' and 'careers fairs' and realising that if you didn't set up a LinkedIn account, you were totally radical.
However, having actually spoken and engaged with peers, what is clear is that some students develop skills that make them absolutely brilliant and ideal for careers in the corporate sector. Actually, that is where their aspirations have been for a long time before coming to university. Just because it is corporate, does not necessarily make it a bad thing.
While he disputes Oxford’s remarks about the benefits of having critically engaged minds working in such areas, there is actually quite a lot of merit in that.
I know lots of students who have been involved in activism at university, and have then gone on to work in Deloitte, or Goldman Sachs, or Credit Suisse, to name but a few. They have been championing environmentalism, liberation campaigns, human rights, and more. To Monbiot’s surprise, they have even protested!
If you think that anyone committed to social progress should be rejecting corporate cultures, then you are leaving people who are against such things to run our banks and consultancies. You might think that morally that is the right thing to do, but if I had a choice between right wing, anti welfare states, profiteering individuals dominating the City, or having some who share similar values, I’d opt for the latter.
But the lack of nuance extends beyond that. The issue I, and many others at university faced, was a lack of opportunities outside of that. We do leave university with considerable debt that is not in the form of student loans, but overdrafts too. These have to be paid off. Then, add living in London, because that is where jobs are based or our friendship networks, which we all know is impossibly expensive, and the reality of being a graduate is a lot less attractive than it might have been a few years ago.
Importantly, international students who have had their post study work visa taken away, have to find a job that will sponsor them or leave the country. For many at LSE, they have been forced to seek corporate jobs because they have the money to be able to sponsor. “Following your dreams” is not a frivolity international student have at their disposal, when it is simply a case of finding somewhere that will secure their right to remain in the country.
Back to debt. With all this debt, where do we go? Masters degrees are not an option unless you get a scholarship or funding, or are lucky enough to have parents who are able to fund you. There is an absolute crisis in social mobility when it comes to postgraduate study, which is often a prerequisite for careers in alternatives to corporates.
Lots of students from LSE go onto work in non-governmental organisations (NGOs), but this is usually on the basis of having obtained a Master’s degree. Sadly, this means that the socio economic demographics are skewed in favour of the affluent, rather than the lower middle and working classes. So for many, NGO work is ruled out.
The point is, is that Monbiot’s proposals for us to follow our dreams might be better supported with a realistic articulation of how exactly to do that. Rather than saying avoid the corporate culture, where is the positive spin message about everything else that is out there? Or encouraging more organisations outside of the corporate world to develop more graduate schemes that will take graduates, with little experience, and give them both financial security and the opportunity to develop and work their way up a company.
Moreover, the ultimate blame should not be laid at corporates or at students. This all stems back to the way in which education has been marketized and sold to students. We are under increasing pressure to ‘get our money’s worth’ out of our £9,000 fees and make sure the financial sacrifice has been worth it. While I am not saying that pursuing corporate careers is the only way ensure that the financial pain has paid off, reality is that that is how students increasingly think of their education and how it serves as a mean to an end. Furthermore, that is how the government narrative frames it.
We should be challenging the narrative around education and most importantly fighting against a system that is based on the market value of education, not the intrinsic value that an education delivers. That is where the issue stems from, and that is where our energy needs to be channelled.
