Selling Students Short (Richard Hil, A&U)

As a long-time university student, this book struck a chord with me; not only is it a critique of Australia’s higher education business model, but it also offers a perspective of what university could and should be, and of the social aspect that has gone missing from the experience. Richard Hil’s study of university issues around work, money, mental health and the gap between marketing hype and reality draws on interviews with 150 students from around Australia. It is an informative and thought-provoking critique of the perils of institutions in which people are treated as economic units. Hil writes of PhD candidates being bullied by supervisors who profit from their completion, without regard for their mental health. His final chapter is a rousing call to reclaim higher education from tick-box learning and consumer-model thinking and recreate universities as places where people meet, create communities and are provided with opportunities to think critically. This is an engaging and relatable book that will appeal to the general public, as well as students and policy-makers. 

Kate Sunners is a former Brisbane bookseller