College for Dollars?

Abstract

  There are signs of these times at non-profits, too: Clarkson University has established scholarships for freshmen entrepreneurs--free tuition, but Clarkson gets a percentage of any profits the start-up companies may later achieve. Washington State has created an Opportunity Scholarship Program, funded partly by the State and partly by corporate donors; Boeing and Microsoft kick-started it with $25million each. Since Reagan's time, federal support for funding of K-12 schools has been ritually linked to the premise that it is good for (a) individual economic success, (b) the competitiveness of U.S. corporations, and (c) an ever-rising GDP. [...] When I did the college tour with my granddaughter two years ago, only one of the expensive and hard-to-get-into schools on her itinerary included in its admissions office pitch any reason for going to X other than, basically, "you can get anything you want, here"--an upscale version of education as a commodity, omitting scary references to the tough world in which good jobs are hard to find, maybe impossible even with a degree from X. One college said it was for peace and justice.