"University, Inc." explores the commercial transformation of American higher education over the last 30 years. The opinion pieces noted throughout the book provide the reader with specific cases where this union has had serious ramifications on research, quality education, innovation, and the free flow of public knowledge. More specifically, Jennifer Washburn explains how the union between the two worlds of academia and business puts America's universities at risk, and tells how she feels this union will affect us all.
It is noted that since the early 1980’s, Corporate funding of universities has been growing and the money, often times comes with strings attached. In return for this funding, universities and professors are seemingly more like for-profit patent factories: university funds are shifting from the humanities and the less profitable science departments into research labs, and the skill of teaching is often valued less and less. Throughout the book, many individual’s see our universities abandoning their traditional role as disinterested sources of education, alternative perspectives, and wisdom. This growing influence of corporations over universities affects more than just today's college students. It touches, whether good or bad, the future of all those whose careers depend on a university education, and all those who will be employed, governed, or taught by the products of American universities. Over the last several decades Federal and State governments have gradually withdrawn support from public and private colleges and universities. As a result, institutions of higher learning have had to turn increasingly to corporate and philanthropic 'gifts' and industry contracts in order to survive and attract students and faculty. Instead of giving primary focus to training, education, scholarship and research, our colleges and universities have had to