Trends in higher education : selling out?

Abstract

Although changes to the Higher Education system are inevitable and, indeed, welcome, the steady drift towards assuming corporate identities and corporate practices is a lamentable and destructive feature of the changing educational landscape. Making a profit - the commodification of knowledge - necessarily becomes the driving force of an institution, instead of the production of knowledge for its own sake. The consequence is that higher educational institutions are now in the service of industry and business, undertaking projects and research on behalf of external "funders, " and doing so with misplaced pride. Certainly, academics should not be cloistered in their ivory towers; equally, though, they should avoid becoming cost centers themselves.