Jennifer Washburn

Jennifer Washburn is the author of University, Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education (Basic Books, 2005), which has received critical acclaim both inside and outside academia. Her book explores the commercial transformation of American higher education over the last 25 years, and the effect this is having on disinterested research, education, and the free flow of public knowledge. Her articles and opinion pieces have appeared in a range of publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Times, Mother Jones, and the Journal of Commerce. In 2001, Ms. Washburn was the recipient of the National Association of Science Writers’ Science-in-Society Journalism Award. Before joining New America, Ms. Washburn was a freelance journalist and a Fellow at the Open Society Institute.

As a California-based Fellow at the New America Foundation, Ms. Washburn continues to write and lecture on the relationship between universities and private industry. She will also focus on K-12 public education. In particular, she will examine the impact that immigration flows and the bilingual battles of the late-1980s have had on California’s public education system. Her articles and opinion pieces address the question of why teaching English (and other academic subjects) to the children of immigrants remains a formidable challenge, not only in California but nationally as well.

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