Koch foundation proposal to college: Teach our curriculum, get millions

[n2doc]

In 2007, when the Charles Koch Foundation considered giving millions of dollars to Florida State University’s economics department, the offer came with strings attached.

First, the curriculum it funded must align with the libertarian, deregulatory economic philosophy of Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist and Republican political bankroller.

Second, the Charles Koch Foundation would at least partially control which faculty members Florida State University hired.

And third, Bruce Benson, a prominent libertarian economic theorist and Florida State University economics department chairman, must stay on another three years as department chairman — even though he told his wife he’d step down in 2009 after one three-year term.

The Charles Koch Foundation expressed a willingness to give Florida State an extra $105,000 to keep Benson — a self-described “libertarian anarchist” who asserts that every government function he’s studied “can be, has been, or is being produced better by the private sector” — in place.

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http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/12/15495/koch-foundation-proposal-college-teach-our-curriculum-get-millions

[Jefferson23]

1. More bribes, just what we need..ugh. n/t

[JustAnotherGen]

2. And guess what?

They've also infiltrated the United Negro College Fund.

Wake up and smell the dystopia I say!

[Turbineguy]

3. They need a

buffer class.

[greatlaurel]

4. This has been going on very quietly since the Reagan era.

When state institutions of higher learning were targeted for defunding by the right wing, the corporate raiders came in and waved money at college presidents and boards of trustees. As long as the universities toed the corporate line, the money flows. A lot of research as been squelched very quietly so as to not offend the corporations and the wealthy donors.

The reason college students are in such terrible debt for college loans is the massive cutting of state support for higher education. It also makes for a more compliant work force, if the college educated are in massive, nondischargeable debt then they have to keep jobs. The desperate need to pay the debts, drives down wages.

It is maddening.