Universities in the Marketplace, The Commercialization of Higher Education by Derek Bok

Derek Bok has a writing style that is concise, professional, and gets to the point.

This work manages to avoid sounding like a preachy opinion piece; there is balance. It does not come across as a scathing attack on the American third-level education system, rather it calmly explains why administrators act the way they do. He seems to subscribe to the idea that behind every action there lies a positive intention, and it is here that he spells out what those intentions are along with the unfortunate consequences.

The main areas of concern can be broken down into two categories, namely Division 1 NCAA sports, and research.

American universities spend lavish sums on their sports programs, resulting in opulent stadiums on campuses that would put European professional soccer clubs to shame. It also results in athletes being admitted to schools on sports scholarships, and on flimsy academic grounds where they study content of questionable value and as an afterthought to the main priority of their athletic training commitments. Some subjects being studied are thought to be designed specifically to cater for sports scholarship students in that the academic rigor is removed so as not to require too big a distraction from training.

The common justification for the lavish expenditure on college sports that it brings in income to the school which can then be invested in true academic resources. Yet Bok presents the figures in black and white that show that very few colleges manage to break even on their Division 1 sports programs, the vast majority make a loss.

So why do administrators carry on with such a program? It is the market forces, the influence of the NCAA, and the fact that the culture of sporting competitiveness is so interwoven into college life and affects enough faculty members that it is very difficult for university presidents to escape from the drive to win.

Research has also been infected by the encroachment of commercial interests. Academic and scientific progress relies on an open exchange of ideas that allow scientists in universities to be inspired by each other and build on each others' achievements. Commercial interests, in the form of Non Disclosure Agreements to protect trade secrets that might emerge as a result of commercially-funded research, erects barriers inside academia that stem the flow of knowledge. This coincides with the private interests of individual companies, but is in conflict with the higher ideals of universities. Turning down research contracts on principle is an almost impossible choice to make given the lucrative nature of such research, since rival universities would simply snap up the research.

Teaching has also been infected by commercialism. Bok starts off by painting a worst case scenario where a corporation manages to get its logo included on the University's signs and billboards advertising its products inside classrooms. Of course nobody has gone this far just yet, and most administrators would be a bit horrified at the prospect of doing so. Yet moves are being made in that direction. In one shocking side note concerning secondary education, Bok mentions that some high school children are learning chemistry by proving that Prego pasta sauce is indeed thicker than the competition.

The book doesn't simply list the problems, it does propose specific suggestions for addressing the issues. Many of the solutions are structural, involving establishing committees with real powers of oversight over many of the areas. There is certainly no single magic wand solution. The problems are deep, complex, and endemic. So are the solutions put forward by Bok. For that reason, they may just work if they were implemented.