Jennifer Washburn

Most of us place enormous faith in our universities. We trust that they are autonomous, independent institutions committed to education, scholarship, academic freedom and the production of knowledge free from the influence of special interest groups. Right?

Wrong. In the last 25 years, the United States has given birth to a market-model university, one where professors increasingly work "for hire." Just last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that a major academic study -- which found that antidepressants were safe… more

The recent court ruling clearing the way for students who flunked California's high school exit exam to receive their diplomas anyway was frustrating to anyone who wants the state to reclaim its former glory as home to the nation's greatest public education system. The fact that 47,000 students lack a rudimentary proficiency in either eighth-grade math or 10th-grade English is appalling. More appalling is that the exam doesn't test 12th-grade proficiency.

The unpleasant truth is that decades of severe financial… more

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 30 years, and the effect this is having on research, quality education, disinterested inquiry, innovation, and… more

California's $3-billion stem cell program has encountered repeated setbacks since it was approved by voters 17 months ago. Now it faces an entirely new and potentially even more worrisome challenge arising from two powerful patents -- patents No. 5,843,780 and No. 6,200,806, to be exact -- which cover all human embryonic stem cells and the method by which they're made.

Patents are supposed to stimulate innovation. That's why they exist. But it appears that these two patents, held… more

When President Bush announced his support for an American Competitiveness Initiative in his State of the Union address in January -- including $136 billion over 10 years to boost research funding in the physical sciences and train 70,000 math and science teachers to improve the skills of American students -- many of California's scientists and teachers were stunned. Bush hasn't exactly shown much respect for science during his two terms as president.

Many Americans still deeply resent the… more

A trend toward privatization and a shift in spending priorities is putting California's public colleges and universities at risk of forsaking their mandate to deliver a quality public education to the state's growing ranks of would-be college students.

The eye-popping compensation packages paid by the University of California to its top administrators--even as Sacramento raised fees, cut services and increased class sizes--are the latest sign that the state's higher-education system is in trouble. Last year, according to recent reports, UC quietly… more

Earlier this month, Sheffield University in Britain offered $252,000 to one of its senior medical professors, Aubrey Blumsohn. According to a copy of a proposed settlement released by Blumsohn, the university promised to pay him if he would agree to leave his post and not make any detrimental or derogatory statements about Sheffield or its employees. For several years, Blumsohn had been complaining of scientific misconduct. His concerns primarily revolved around a $250,000 research contract between Sheffield and the Ohio-based… more

In the fall of 2001, the editors of 12 prominent medical journals collectively announced that they would refuse to publish research on new prescription drugs unless the authors provided assurances that they had had unimpeded access to the data and were fully responsible for the paper's conclusions. The announcement was an extraordinary admission of just how extensive industry control over medical research had become. The editors noted that more and more, the authors of scientific papers -- even authors based… more

During the past two decades, commercial forces have quietly transformed virtually every aspect of academic life. Corporate funding of university research is growing -- and the money increasingly comes with strings attached. Universities themselves are starting to behave like commercial entitities, while professors are behaving more like businessmen. The speakers will discuss the origins of this remarkable commercial transformation, and explore its impact on education, medicine, and U.S. innovation over the long term.

Selected reviews of University Inc. are featured below:

American universities are the envy of the world, but they may be on the brink of discarding the very values and practices that have made them so successful, argues journalist Washburn, as secretive connections between private industry and the academy have begun to "undermine the foundation of public trust on which… more