Education for Sale

At least seventeen colleges and universities have accepted grants -- that we know of -- from the BB&T Charitable Foundation that stipulate that Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged must be required reading in at least one course on campus according to The Charlotte Observer.  There could be more as some private universities might keep such acceptances quiet.

Skeptics have said that such provisions give too much leverage over the curriculum to a major donor. The Observer quotes Richard Cohen, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, as saying, “It’s going to make us look like a rinky-dink university.” The Charlotte campus received a $1-million gift from BB&T in 2005, but the Atlas Shrugged requirement only became widely known there earlier this month, according to the Observer.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported in 2007 on the efforts of Rand’s wack-a-noodle followers to promote the study of her ideas by funding research, classes, and universities in general. Dozens of Rand-related grants have been made by the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship, a small California-based "charity", and by the BB&T foundation, an arm of a large North Carolina financial corporation whose head is an admirer of Rand.

So, education's for sale... just remember to ask who is doing the buying and what they want for their "investment?!"