Argument: Universities deserve to profit from their work

Universities are providing a service just like almost any other business. They provide a service in terms of educating students who are enrolled with them and secondly they conduct research on a wide range of subjects. In both of these cases the university deserves to make a profit out of their work.

When acting as an educator universities are in an educational free market, this is the case even when the cost is provided by the state. All universities are aiming to attract as many students as possible and earn as much as possible from fees. If the university is successful it will be able to charge more as it will attract students from further afield.

While Universities may make a profit on research or even teaching this profit is for the benefit of society as a whole as the profits are usually simply reinvested in the University’s education and infrastructure. [1]

[1] Anon. “What does the money get spent on?” The University of Sheffield, 2013. http://www.shef.ac.uk/finance/staff-information/howfinanceworks/higher_education/money_spent_on

Candidate 1: "The vast majority of people who go to University are not doing so simply because they are interested in a subject and want to find out more. Instead they are after the qualification and improved job prospects university provides. Even those few who are in large part studying out of curiosity and interest will likely be doing so at university because they like the student life and want the experience.

However having courses and materials out in the open can even help universities with recruitment. Providing open access boosts a university’s reputation abroad which helps it in the international student market. Open access to academic work also helps give potential students a much better idea with what they will be studying which is very useful for students who are unsure where to choose. The benefits are obvious as shown by 35% of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s students choose the university after looking at its OpenCourseWare. [1]

[1] Daniel, Sir John, and Killion, David, “Are open educational resources the key to global economic growth?”, Guardian Professional, 4 July 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/jul/04/open-educational-resources-and-economic-growth"
Candidate 2: "Academic work is not about profit. For most researchers the aim is to satisfy curiosity or to increase the sum of knowledge. Others are motivated by a desire to do good, or possibly for recognition. None of these things require there to be profit for the university.

Moreover we should remember that the profit is not going to the individual who did the research, there is therefore no moral justification that the person has put effort in and so deserves to profit from it. The university does not even take the risk, which is born by the taxpayer who pays the majority of the research budget. Much of the profit from publishing this knowledge does not even go to the university. Instead academic publishers make huge profits through rentier capitalism. They have profit margins of 36% despite not doing the research, or taking any risk that goes into funding the research. [1]

[1] Monbiot, George, “Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist”, The Guardian, 29 August 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist"
Candidate 3: "If business wants certain research to use for profit then it is free to do so. However it should entirely fund that research rather than relying on academic institutions to do the research and the government to come up with part of the funding. This would then allow the government to focus its funding on basic research, the kind of research that pushes forward the boundaries of knowledge which may have many applications but is not specifically designed with these in mind. This kind of curiosity driven research can be very important for example research into retroviruses gave the grounding that meant that antiretrovirals to control AIDS were available within a decade of the disease appearing. [1]

[1] Chakradhar, Shraddha, “The Case for Curiosity”, Harvard Medical School, 10 August 2012, http://hms.harvard.edu/news/case-curiosity-8-10-12"
Candidate 4: "This is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of those who fund the research in the first place; the taxpayer. The taxpayer (or in some cases private funder) pays for the research to be done and so is paying for the paper to be written. It then does not make sense that the taxpayer should pay again in order to access the research that they paid to have done in the first place. Yes there are small costs associated with checking and editing the articles but these could easily be added into research budgets especially as it would mean cutting out an extra cost that occurs due to the profit margins of the academic publishers. As Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, says “Taxpayers should not have to pay twice for scientific research”. [1]

[1] Kroes, Neelie, “Scientific data: open access to research results will boost Europe's innovation capacity”, Europa.eu, 17 July 2012. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-12-790_en.htm?locale=en"

Academic work is not about profit. For most researchers the aim is to satisfy curiosity or to increase the sum of knowledge. Others are motivated by a desire to do good, or possibly for recognition. None of these things require there to be profit for the university.

Moreover we should remember that the profit is not going to the individual who did the research, there is therefore no moral justification that the person has put effort in and so deserves to profit from it. The university does not even take the risk, which is born by the taxpayer who pays the majority of the research budget. Much of the profit from publishing this knowledge does not even go to the university. Instead academic publishers make huge profits through rentier capitalism. They have profit margins of 36% despite not doing the research, or taking any risk that goes into funding the research. [1]

[1] Monbiot, George, “Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist”, The Guardian, 29 August 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist
