Purchase this Book

Selected reviews of University Inc. are featured below:

Publishers Weekly

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 all universities depend." Washburn has a muckraker's keen eye for scandals and coverups; her examples of academic research suppressed in the name of corporate profits will startle readers. Not content with merely drawing back the curtains on the sordid world of the increasingly revenue-centered university, Washburn argues that the recent partnerships between schools and businesses rarely generate the financial windfall that they promise, leaving educational institutions and state legislatures with strapped resources and hollow rhetoric about creating the next Silicon Valley.

While this focus on job creation (or the lack thereof) is the least sensational element of the book, it is the most timely and important, and Washburn's coup de grace is to show that even private industrial leaders and economic pragmatists like Alan Greenspan have begun to criticize the decline of traditional liberal arts education and the rise of the corporate university as economically and socially disastrous. Washburn offers a few modest and thoughtful prescriptions for saving higher education, but this book is more likely to be read for the illnesses it lucidly diagnoses.

More Praise for University Inc.

"Jennifer Washburn's meticulous reporting and insightful analysis reveals how corporate intrusion is undermining academic freedom —and the foundations of scientific inquiry—within our nation's most prestigious institutions of higher learning. Every American needs to understand this threat to independent thought. Only public outrage can reverse these encroachments on our democracy."
William Greider, Journalist and Author, The Soul of Capitalism

"Reminiscent of Ida Tarbell and Ralph Nader, Washburn has produced an important exposé of, basically, the selling of the modern university. Hers is a hard-hitting book that should provoke controversy, upset rank-and-file citizens, ignite the concern of faculty and alumni, and lead to a scholarly outpouring of studies of the connections between the modern American university and business in recent decades. Her book raises fundamental questions: Who owns and controls university-produced knowledge? Who should own it, and benefit from it?"
Barton J. Bernstein, Professor of History, Stanford University

"If you think higher education is about the free exchange of knowledge, this book will disabuse you of that quaint notion. Today, according to Washburn, it's about secrecy and patent monopolies and thickets of exclusive licenses, and we are all the worse for it. Washburn has done a splendid job of marshalling the evidence for this disturbing indictment."
Marcia Angell, Former Editor-in-Chief, New England Journal of Medicince, and Author, The Truth About the Drug Companies

"Jennifer Washburn has written a provocative, timely, deeply researched book about the ongoing corporate take-over of the universities. For some time, many of us involved in education have had a sense that corporate money is doing too much to determine the direction of university research. But with Jennifer Washburn's impressively detailed account, we can now see exactly how this disturbing process has been unfolding. University, Inc. is a most important contribution to the debate on where education will go in the coming decades."
Mark Edmundson, Author, Teachers and Why Read?