Corporatization in higher education: Negative effects of corporatization in colleges and universities - Research Paper Example

Satish Tandon (2005), in his article Globalization: Impact on Education, explained the size or depth of corporatization and the profits earned by the corporate companies from the academic world in America.
One of the major consequences of the globalization of education has been commodification and the corporatization of institutions of higher learning. It is said that the for-profit education market in the United States is worth more than $500 billion in revenue for the involved corporates. More than one thousand state schools have been handed over to corporations to be run as businesses (Tandon)
Before the entry of globalization, education was considered as a sacred act because of the immense benefits it provides to a person in his life. Educators or teachers were respected highly in the society because of the services they were giving to the society for making better future generation. However, the whole concept of education has been changed a lot over the last few decades, especially after the introduction of globalization. Today, like most of the other segments of human life, commercialization has entered the educational sector also. All the schools and colleges are currently focusing more on maximizing their profits rather than providing quality education to the students. Corporatization is not a myth, but a fact at present in educational sector. Former Harvard University President Derek Bok and many others defined corporatization of higher education as a process in which “today's educational institutions are busily striving to profit from teaching, research and all the other activities on campus—offering corporations the right to endow professorships, sponsor courses, bring the university's scientific discoveries to market, even advertise in campus bathrooms”(Clay). Corporatization is the process of introduction of management structure in an institution. It is a kind of privatization. Corporatization in higher education means giving permission to private business people to exploit the business opportunities in higher education sector for profit making. In other words corporatization of higher education makes education as a commodity rather than a service. Jason G Caudill, Assistant Professor of Business Administration Carson-Newman College, has explained various dimensions of corporatization of higher education in his article, A Commentary on the Corporatization of Higher Education. In his opinion, “In recent years there has been considerable discussion in the field of higher education about applying corporate management models to the operation of colleges and universities”(Caudill). Even though, corporatization brings certain benefits to the higher education sector, educators and prominent scholars are of the view that it may destroy the higher educational sector. It is impossible for the corporate world to sustain the sanctity of education when they visualize education just as another means for making profits. All the unhealthy competition and malicious activities prevailing in the corporate world may intrude into the educational sector as a result of the corporatization of higher education. Even though some people visualize corporatization of higher education as a tool to improve the quality of education, I strongly believe that corporatization of higher education may ultimately destroy higher education because of the excessive negative effects it ... Read More