The post Higher education for sale appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>One of the most interesting revelations of Charles Ferguson’s movie Inside Job was his exposure of the ways in which academic economists contributed to the economic meltdown. Ferguson examines how Ivy League business schools neglected to challenge dangerous trends. Glenn Hubbard, Dean of Columbia University Business School (pictured above), was one of the academics who benefited from aiding and abetting Wall Street in its reckless activities. He also contributed to, and benefited from, the deregulation of the financial industry.
We are used to politicians being unduly swayed by corporate campaign contributions and the promise of high paying lobbying jobs after they leave office. We have watched them over the past decades shape legislation to benefit corporate and banking interests rather than the average American. But who knew that academics are cashing in as well, giving their corporate clients the biased research and reports they wanted, while their institutions, including prestigious ones like Harvard and Columbia University, look the other way.
American universities used to be the envy of the world, but there are signs that corporate money is having a growing, and pernicious influence on academia, threatening the values that once made them great institutions. The once admired liberal arts education is no longer the focus of the new revenue-centered university, and the results are fast becoming socially disastrous. The concept of the independent academic professor engaged in the pursuit of “truth’” is becoming as quaint as the idea of “Mr. Smith” going to Washington and actually making a difference. Likewise, the ideal of a well-rounded liberal arts education seems old fashioned and naive.
A slew of books in recent years have commented on this troubling trend of the encroachment of corporate money and influence on the academic world.
These are but a few of the growing chorus of voices alarmed at the disturbing cooptation of our institutions of higher education by moneyed interests, be they corporations or foundations with an agenda. Like the corporate takeover of our political institutions, this is a dangerous development that is threatening our democracy and quality of life.
So what can we do? If nothing else, monitor developments at your local and state funded institutions of higher education. When changes happen at your state university or your community college, such as the introduction of corporate funded curriculum, or the dropping of humanities classes, or the raising of tuition beyond what working and middle class families can afford, or that professors are selling their research to the highest bidder or aiding and abetting the destructive activities of corporations, write your congressman or senator or, better yet, write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Education is a public good that must be protected and professors must be held to a higher standard than they are currently keeping.
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