How Can Marxist Higher Education Research Help Us Regain the Future in the Age of Uncertainty?

Krystian Szadkowski

doi:10.55993/hegp.1941544

How Can Marxist Higher Education Research Help Us Regain the Future in the Age of Uncertainty?

Abstract

This article asks how Marxist higher education research can help reclaim the future in an age of uncertainty. It begins from the claim that the contemporary university increasingly operates within the closed temporality of capitalism’s eternal present: a future imagined only as intensified competition, expanded measurement, higher productivity, and deeper integration into circuits of capital. Against this horizon, the article revisits the Communist University of the Toilers of the East and the poetry of Nazım Hikmet as historical figures of an institution capable of materially organising a relation to a future beyond capitalism. It then argues that mainstream higher education research cannot adequately confront the capitalist transformation of the sector, because it remains constrained by borrowed conceptual frameworks, liberal public/private dichotomies, and an insufficient account of capital, struggle, and alternative institutionality. In response, the article develops the methodological proposal of integral Marxist critique, organised around three moments: “in,” “against,” and “beyond.” The moment “in” offers a critique of the political economy of higher education, examining how capital subsumes academic labour, study time, prestige, knowledge, measurement, publishing infrastructures, and relations of dependency. The moment “against” turns to student and academics struggles, especially through co-research, as sites where capitalist contradictions become visible and counter-subjectivities are produced. The moment “beyond” identifies the common as the material basis of non-capitalist academic relations already present within universities. The article concludes that Marxist higher education research should not merely interpret the university in crisis, but participate in movements that carry this crisis beyond its capitalist limits.

Keywords

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Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

Higher Education Studies (Other)

Journal Section

Research Article

Authors

Krystian Szadkowski ^*
0000-0002-7260-0457
Poland

Publication Date

September 11, 2026

Submission Date

May 1, 2026

Acceptance Date

June 23, 2026

Published in Issue

Year 2026 Volume: 7 Number: 1

DOI

https://doi.org/10.55993/hegp.1941544

IZ

https://izlik.org/JA36YH79HG

Cite

RIS / Bibtex

APA

Szadkowski, K. (2026). How Can Marxist Higher Education Research Help Us Regain the Future in the Age of Uncertainty? Higher Education Governance and Policy, 7(1), 106-123. https://doi.org/10.55993/hegp.1941544

AMA

1.Szadkowski K. How Can Marxist Higher Education Research Help Us Regain the Future in the Age of Uncertainty? HEGP. 2026;7(1):106-123. doi:10.55993/hegp.1941544

Chicago

Szadkowski, Krystian. 2026. “How Can Marxist Higher Education Research Help Us Regain the Future in the Age of Uncertainty?”. Higher Education Governance and Policy 7 (1): 106-23. https://doi.org/10.55993/hegp.1941544.

EndNote

Szadkowski K (September 1, 2026) How Can Marxist Higher Education Research Help Us Regain the Future in the Age of Uncertainty? Higher Education Governance and Policy 7 1 106–123.

IEEE

[1]K. Szadkowski, “How Can Marxist Higher Education Research Help Us Regain the Future in the Age of Uncertainty?”, HEGP, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 106–123, Sept. 2026, doi: 10.55993/hegp.1941544.

ISNAD

Szadkowski, Krystian. “How Can Marxist Higher Education Research Help Us Regain the Future in the Age of Uncertainty?”. Higher Education Governance and Policy 7/1 (September 1, 2026): 106-123. https://doi.org/10.55993/hegp.1941544.

JAMA

1.Szadkowski K. How Can Marxist Higher Education Research Help Us Regain the Future in the Age of Uncertainty? HEGP. 2026;7:106–123.

MLA

Szadkowski, Krystian. “How Can Marxist Higher Education Research Help Us Regain the Future in the Age of Uncertainty?”. Higher Education Governance and Policy, vol. 7, no. 1, Sept. 2026, pp. 106-23, doi:10.55993/hegp.1941544.

Vancouver

1.Krystian Szadkowski. How Can Marxist Higher Education Research Help Us Regain the Future in the Age of Uncertainty? HEGP. 2026 Sep. 1;7(1):106-23. doi:10.55993/hegp.1941544

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Education Management, Education Planning, Leadership in Education, Higher Education Policies, Higher Education Systems, Higher Education Management, Internationalization in Higher Education

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Education, Education Management, Education Planning, Leadership in Education, Higher Education Studies, Higher Education Policies, Higher Education Systems, Higher Education Management, Internationalization in Higher Education

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Education, Curriculum and Instration , Program Development and Qualifications in Higher Education, Internationalization in Higher Education

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Education Management, Higher Education Policies, Higher Education Management, Internationalization in Higher Education, Education Policy, Educational Sociology