Brain drain to the corporates comes as no surprise

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jun/04/brain-drain-to-corporates-no-surprise

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George Monbiot’s piece (How a corporate cult captures and then destroys our best graduates, 3 June) will strike a chord with many; but there is a curious naivety in the questions he claims to have put, with John Sheil, to the eight “blue chip” universities they chose to consult on the matter. Graduates of any of these eight (I confess to having been one myself) will know that, with the progressive shrivelling of public funding, their most likely subsequent message from their alma mater is a request for financial contributions or, better still, endowments. Vice-chancellors, if not their careers advisers, have learned the bitter, sad reality of which side the ideal alumnus’s bread is likely to be buttered. Universities themselves, though thankfully not their more enlightened, dedicated academics, are under threat of being “incorporated” into the market system where the City’s is an irresistible siren voice.

Equally strange is the omission of the greater influence of the “business school” system (the London Business School is casually mentioned but without comment). This system is now more than 100 years old, global and still expanding and, where associated with a university, often seen as a necessary “cash cow”. Its history, and its influence on the prevailing corporate and market ideologies, are the subject of a study I will be publishing later in the year. Cumulatively, they have become the more significant seminaries of the corporate faith.Ralph WindleArts Social Action

• Another concern related to the brain drain of bright graduates to the City highlighted by George Monbiot is that while schools focus increasingly on Stem subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths) and universities spend years training young people to be engineers or scientists, a disturbingly high proportion ditch all that learning and knowledge, succumbing to the lure of the lucre. Consequently, we become ever more dependent on financial services, exacerbating all the vulnerabilities that come from lack of diversification.

Related: How a corporate cult captures and destroys our best graduates | George Monbiot

If the graduate loan system is here to stay, maybe it should be reconfigured so that the interest payable is in proportion to a formula based on the earnings of the graduate and the social utility of their job. That way, would-be engineers may still choose a future in finance, or humanities graduates in commercial law, rather than say teaching or the civil service, but it will be a decision very different to the “no brainer” many currently face. And many more will hopefully feel encouraged to follow careers that combine reasonable financial reward with the satisfaction of making a positive contribution to society.Dave HunterBristol

• Why is George Monbiot surprised at the failure of what he calls the leading universities to counter the lavish recruitment drives of the richest employers? Universities want these companies to woo their students. It’s another reason to market themselves as “leading”. It also validates instrumentalist thinking in and around education: how much will you earn with a degree in X from university Y?Dr Alex May Manchester