Commercialization of universities

The commercialization of university research, and the financial and political encouragement accorded to research that can presented as bearing immediate and calculable relevance to desired economic goals, have worked to alter significantly the working models of intellectual enquiry. There is every indication that this period of restructuring and reorienting in higher education and research is only part way through; it is hard to imagine it ever being fully reversed.

1. Higher education is no longer about imparting high aesthetic and moral values, tutors no longer develop minds. Rather, universities have become large, bureaucratic, disciplinary machines that process human subjects as units of consumption or utility; lecturer have become technicians who programme students with a number of 'transferable skills' available for purchase and employment on the job market.

1. Unfair competition
2. Economic rationalism driving education
3. Commercialization of knowledge
4. Commercial exploitation of education

1. Commercialization of research

1. Unbridled academic competition
2. Sporadic consultant services
3. Exploitative use of consultants
4. Devaluation of honorary degrees
5. Collusion between academics and government authorities

1. Decline in government expenditure on education

1. Gap between industry and the universities

1. Unsatisfactory client/consultant relationship
2. Inadequate university education
3. Diversion of education to qualification earning
4. Commercialization of medical practice

1. Resisting commercialization
2. Commercializing

1. Competition [D]
2. Competition [C]
3. Commercialization