Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialization of Higher Education

As state legislatures squeeze funding for higher education and private university endowments shrink, entrepreneurial leaders in higher education have found creative ways to fill budget gaps by attracting more students and partnering with private corporations. Bok has given us a series of cases in which these budget enhancement measures violate core values of higher education and harm universities. Central to his argument is that the entrepreneurial university ultimately cannot serve two masters; revenue enhancement strategies often compromise the central mission of the academy. Football programs that require players to spend excessive hours training and traveling make it very difficult for team members to obtain an education. Partnerships with corporations that require secrecy clauses in contracts interfere with academic norms of peer review and wide sharing of new findings. These norms support the progression of scientific knowledge and without them, the rate of discovery will inevitably slow. One of the more sobering sections of the book looks at the sad state of distance education, the fastest growing sector of higher education today. The lure of low-cost high-profit online courses has proved so irrestistible that many institutions are willing to forego quality to partake in the revenue bonanza that distance education has become. When students become customers whom teaching faculty must serve, what happens to academic values? If the customer is always right and students all want A's, untenured professors and adjuncts are in a difficult bind. This book has made me think more critically about my own university's foray into Divison I athletics and distance education. There is nothing inherently wrong with either but it is critical to retain the core values of the institution, even at the expense of winning games, contracts and tuition dollars.

Great book with real life examples about higer education, capitalism, and marketplace. Quick and easy read.

Former Harvard University President Derek Bok warns that making commercial ventures part of the fabric of U.S. higher education endangers universities' basic values and goals. However, he also gives compelling descriptions of why trustees and administrators are tempted to sign deals with corporations. He is realistic about the slim prospects for keeping such ventures away, especially since some - like sports teams - are already entrenched. Because Bok's analysis is so deeply rooted in his years of experience leading Harvard, his proposed guidelines for how and when to allow big business on campus are particularly helpful. His views are occasionally unwarrantedly sunny, such as when he avers that faculty members rarely guide students into work that promotes the teacher's financial gain. He also asserts that faculty must be wary of collaborating with pharmaceutical companies to get access to facilities and materials, even though funding unfettered research has become increasingly difficult. Furthermore, after asserting that doctors are alert to drug companies' promotions in sponsored continuing education courses, he acknowledges research showing that doctors who attend such courses are more likely to prescribe the companies' drugs. Despite such detours, we find this book extremely valuable for anyone who believes that academic freedom and integrity truly matter. Academic leaders should read Bok's important, thoughtful and useful ideas on ways that colleges can minimize the risks of commercialization.

Anyone who has been associated with higher education in this country in the last fifty years is aware of the massive changes that have been sweeping over private colleges and state university systems in the last twenty to thirty years, changes ranging from the unfortunate consequences of political correctness to those associated with a relaxation of more rigorous academic standards to make such education "more accessible" to the population at large to other changes associated with the increasing concentration on more practical "vocational" educational skills to the proliferation of shop-as-you-go graduate educational programs, diploma mills designed to deliver to consumers a plethora of MBA and other business-oriented degrees in service to their career progression. Those of us professionally associated with higher education have often bemoaned the sad changes visiting themselves upon what was once a proud institution, the marvel of the western world in terms of its level of rigor, accessibility, and relative merit in terms of educational product. In this recent tome by former Harvard University president Derek Bok, yet another form of change and devolution of all the academy once stood for is discussed with both intelligence and wit; the commercialization of institutions of higher education and the associated seduction and corruption of faculty, administrators and the university system itself. Bok takes a probing look at the many ways in which financial enticements have entered the ivory towers, and how such temptations are profoundly altering the business of the university system itself, often warping both the mission of the institution as well as the intellectual products flowing from the academic marketplace. Beginning with the advent of financial gain associated with college sport programs, the author wonders out loud at what point the transformation of what was once an ancillary concern for additional source of academic funding became a much more purposeful source of university profit, resulting in much more deliberate efforts on the university's part to use sport for financial gain. He similarly muses over the fashion in which independent medical research efforts within university setting have become captive to the driving force of pharmaceutical and other medical enterprises, such that the focus and progress of medical research becomes much more focused on particular kinds of patent-driven and/or profit-oriented enterprises, efforts that if successful can turn humble medical researchers into instant millionaire tycoons. Similarly, universities now find themselves competing over intellectual hot properties like cybernetic wiz-kids, with places like Harvard offering fringe benefits like free homes in Concord or Lexington MA in order to lure promising young computer superstars capable of drawing a lot of grant money and/or corporate sponsorship to the institution. Finally, he debates as to what the practice of beginning such internet-based

Derek Bok, former President of Harvard University, presents a clear and thoughtful examination of the risks of commercializing higher education, while recognizing that there are times when the benefits of such activities will outweigh the costs. The greatest risk that commercialization poses is the gradual erosion of the values that have served the university in its American form so well for nearly four hundred years. His book stands as a warning, albeit a balanced one, of what can be lost by excessive focus of creating university products for the market.As one might expect, Bok's discussion focuses on the research university, but at a time when so many universities and colleges are in financial distress, it is of relevance for all of higher education. There is a useful set of notes that indicate contemporary sources that relate to his theme, showing familiarity with a variety of interesting materials. Without a doubt a valuable work that makes the reader eager for more.