Jennifer Washburn Condemns Corporate Sponsored Education on WABC-TV

Communications — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 20:23:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Westchester - WABC, October 26, 2006) -- A new trend in being seen in higher education: Big business spending big bucks to influence what's taught in college classes. Eyewitness News education reporter Art McFarland has the story.

Matt Ganis is teaching computer programming at Pace University in Pleasantville. But he's not paid by the university. He's an IBM employee, brought in to give this lecture as part of a worldwide, $100 million IBM program to shape college curricula in information technology...

IBM has invested more than a quarter of a million dollars at Pace, for hardware, software, faculty training and student field trips to IBM research labs. But critics say businesses should not have such influence.

New America Foundation's Jennifer Washburn writes on the subject.

"We really depend on our institutions of higher education to be independent institutions that train students to be very versatile and creative in their thinking," Washburn said. "We don't turn our institutions into corporate training grounds..."

For the complete article, please visit the WABC-TV website.