Money for Nothing

An interesting number came out of a discussion with a friend recently. In the last year Penn State University received 780 million dollars in research grants. $780 million. (This is not going where you think.) The number of private companies spun out of Penn State in the last year: One.

In a culture that has a fetish about small business and capital development this is a surprising number. And Lee Hood's experience with CalTech comes to mind. When he was developing his protein synthesizer at Caltech he approached the president of the university with the prospect of doing a joint venture. The president not only declined, he was miffed. He did not think it proper for the university to sully its hands in so plebeian a thing as a for-profit company.

So the university is an island of reflective purity in this bustling work-a-day world. Aside from the obvious silliness of this conceit, there may be some useful information here. Perhaps the university's distance from the community is doing a disservice to its students, its community and its culture. The students might benefit from a bit of reality when they transition from the student world to the workplace. The university might benefit from a little feedback. And the society should be able to take advantage of all that research money in some tangible way.

Otherwise the culture might start thinking of its educational institutions as separate. As a distinct and self contained entity that has only its own survival and comfort in mind. Like a parasite, for example.