Should we keep big companies away from the university?

“Law firms, consultancy firms and other businesses are exerting too much influence on the university,” write Douwe de Lange, a Master's student in Law at UU, and Alex Fleuren, a Master’s student in Mathematics and Philosophy, in an op-ed published by De Volkskrant newspaper in January (available in Dutch only, Ed.).

As a result, study programmes such as Law and Economics have been particularly "commercialized", they argue. “From the first year, students are bombarded with smooth recruiters, goodie bags, and fancy lunches.”

According to Douwe and Alex, that's why many students are striving to land well-paid “bullshit jobs” even though we desperately need solutions to the world's major problems. In sum, a waste of talent. 

The two students are thus in favour of no longer letting private companies approach programmes and students. Moreover, they argue that universities should offer more "liberal arts education" instead of forcing students to pick a profession right off the bat, with courses such as the ones they had access to when they were Bachelor's students at University College Utrecht.

Clever sheep
Elsevier Weekblad's columnist Liesbeth Wytzes considers the plea against so-called bullshit jobs “nonsense”. In her view, the two students, who have had access to an expensive and elitist education, are waging “a stupid smear campaign” against the private sector which will not move the world forward.

But, in their piece, the two UU students indicate that they are not alone in thinking that private companies are best kept away from universities. They refer, for example, to UU alumnus Rutger Bregman, who will soon publish a book about the lack of moral ambition among highly educated people.

They also mention author Roxane van Iperen, who wrote an essay about upper-middle-class people whose main concern is maintaining their privileged position. “Zuidas (a rapidly developing business district in Amsterdam, Ed.) is full of clever sheep”, she wrote in the Dutch newspaper Financieel Dagblad. She was referencing Excellent Sheep, a book about Yale students who know exactly how to move up the corporate ladder but lack critical thinking skills. 

In 2022, Law lecturer Tony Barshini sounded the same alarm on DUB. He too mentioned Zuidas in his piece. According to him, “Once they’re there, novice law students will be eating salmon sandwiches in no time”. 

We emailed the op-ed written by the two UU students to the members of our DUB panel, asking them whether or not they agree with the following statement: "The private sector should be banned from campus"

NO, says Sterre van Wierst, a Master’s student in Cancer, Stem Cells & Developmental Studies.
“I don’t think we should ban all businesses. Students will enter the job market after they graduate anyway. It would be better for the university to set an example by attracting companies that have a moral compass. In my discipline, I see a variety of companies, and none of them are big villains who only want to capitalise on people and society."

"I understand very well that some people desire to close the door to companies like Shell, as they do not seem sufficiently committed to the transition to green energy and they cause a lot of damage to the world. I agree that this type of company should not be welcome at universities when other companies are working on greenifying the world," she continues.

“But the sentence ‘students lack moral ambition’ gets an eye-roll from me. It seems very complicated to solve. Is it up to the university to inspire them or were they already ruined before they even started? Is it group behaviour and the programme's culture that are causing students to steer away from morality and focus on earning money? I don’t know. Even if we were to ban companies, students would still be able to set up their own associations/foundations/boards and those could be sponsored by such companies... Which is already happening."

YES, says Philosopher Floris van den Berg. “I believe that the university should be an intellectual sanctuary and the campus should be free from the influence of the private sector. At a university, there must be room for broad development and Bildung. Universities are not technical or vocational schools (except in the cases of Medicine and Pharmacy), so that is how we differentiate ourselves from universities of applied sciences.

“We should be given all the space we need to think about the ethics and sustainability of the current economic system", he continues. "The university should not anticipate the economic paradigm of the business world. Independence in research and education is of fundamental importance. I also consider businesses sponsoring study and student associations to be undesirable interference."

“If you allow me a slightly different interpretation of the statement, I would like to add that catering and cleaning should not be outsourced to the private sector either. Officially, cleaners are not our colleagues and they're not part of the university community. As a university that values inclusivity, UU is failing here. Economic thinking is not more important than decent working conditions, collegiality, sense of community, and quality of service."

NO, says educational scientist Casper Hulshof. “I think the preoccupation with building a nice CV is present in certain study programmes, but not that much among Social Sciences students. I’ve never noticed it, at least. Last week, we welcomed private sector employees, who spoke about their work as educationalists within their organisations. I attended a session with ASML, for example. Students could arrange an internship right there and then, which is fun and convenient for them.”

NO, says Innovation scientist Frank van Rijnsoever. “Many students end up working for the private sector, so it’s good for them to have an idea of what that entails. In addition, companies can enrich students with knowledge, insights and experiences that the university cannot offer." 

“The number of recruiters and the influence of large businesses are not that bad in our courses on Innovation and Sustainable Development. Students also like to orient themselves towards the job market, so I don’t have much of a problem with it. But this is quite specific to our department, where students consider social responsibility to be of paramount importance."

“As a university, we could perhaps be a bit more critical about what of organisations and what kind of jobs we want to highlight to our students. Working as a consultant is not necessarily wrong as consultants can contribute to improving decision-making in the public and private sectors. Besides, such a job offers recent graduates the opportunity to orient themselves even more towards what they want to do. Perhaps we should ask ourselves how we could limit the demand for external consultants. Maybe the demand for consultancy, especially from the public sector, is too high right now.”