A seasoned journalist exposes the emerging union between the academic and business worlds, and shows how this will affect us all. During the past two decades, commercial forces have quietly transformed virtually every aspect of academic life. Corporate funding of universities is up - and the money comes with strings attached. Jennifer Washburn, a scholar and journalist whose work in this area has already garnered much attention, addresses several distinct - though related - sets of questions and concerns, such as: the development of the "Academic-Industrial Complex"; corporate money in the modern research lab; the university as patent factory; the rise of private controlled knowledge; the erosion of the scientific commons; and the shift of university funds away from the humanities and the less profitable science departments. This growing influence of corporations over universities affects more than just today's university students (and their parents); it compromises all those who will be employed, governed or taught by the products of American universities. Drawing on her extensive interviews and on-the-ground research, Washburn provides anecdotes and personal narratives from the students, professors, administrators and businesspeople involved, as well as providing a deep and rigorous analysis of the deteriorating state of America's higher education system today.