A new film explores the influence of think tanks and lobbyists on America’s public colleges and universities.

Emily Deruy

Are American colleges supposed to prepare future citizens for civically engaged adulthood? Or is their job to provide student consumers a market-driven good so they’re capable of becoming productive participants in the economy?

That’s the framing of a debate about the future of higher education in the new film Starving the Beast, which explores both the view—generally proffered by liberals and schools that rely on taxpayer support—that higher education in the U.S. is a public good to be supported by society, and the counter narrative—backed by conservative think tanks and policy wonks—that it is a cost to be shouldered primarily by individual degree-earners and private entities (who will presumably benefit in the long run).