E85: Former Berkeley Chancellor Nick Dirks on the Rising Costs and Uses & Abuses of Universities

Former UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks joins the podcast to discuss the cost crisis, politics, and purpose of American universities.

Guest Bio: Nicholas Dirks is a historian and former chancellor of UC Berkeley. He currently serves as President and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences. Previously, he held senior academic positions at Columbia University and is the author of City of Intellect: The Uses and Abuses of the University.

Discussed Topics:

• What a university chancellor actually does
• Shared governance, faculty resistance to change, and budget politics
• The collapse of public funding for universities (UC funding dropped from 75% to 12%)
• Skyrocketing tuition and the unsustainable student debt crisis
• The contradictions of big-time college sports
• Tenure, adjunctification, and faculty accountability
• Why most students no longer fit the “traditional” college mold
• How AI could help nontraditional learners and support academic success
• Mismatch between degrees and job readiness in a shifting economy
• What universities must do to rebuild public trust

Top Quote:

“Tenured faculty are in an enormously privileged position... but the way you balance the budget, if they don’t get involved, is you hire more adjuncts—and then they complain about that too.”

📺Watch full episode on YouTube:👉 https://youtu.be/sonoJJaLIOg

🎙 The Pod is hosted by Jesse Wright
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