Are Our Universities Being Bought?

“Just how far have industrial sponsors actually gone in seeking to use higher-education institutions and professors for their own commercial ends? How willing have universities been to accept money at the cost of compromising values central to the academic enterprise? Now more than ever, they [universities] have become the principal source of the three most important ingredients of progress in a modern, industrial society: expert knowledge, highly educated people, and scientific discoveries. At the same time – in a depressed economy, with the federal budget heavily in deficit and state governments cutting investments in higher education – campus officials are confronting a chronic shortage of money to satisfy the demands of students, faculty members, and other constituencies.”