"In most debates over its future, the university is represented - by both its critics and its champions - as a secular temple for learning, a sacred space freed from the mundane concerns that trouble other institutions. But lately this lofty image looks increasingly earthbound, especially with regard to public research universities. There, a new class of administrative professionals has been working to make colleges as much like businesses as possible. In this expose of the modern university, Gaye Tuchman paints a candid portrait of these wannabe corporate managers and the new regime of revenue streams, mission statements, and five-year plans they've ushered in." "Based on years of observation at a state school, Wannabe U tracks the dispiriting consequences of trading in traditional educational values for loyalty to the market. Much like their corporate counterparts, today's university administrators jump from job to job and perceive students as future workers in need of training. Obsessed with measurable successes, they stress auditing and accountability, which lead, Tuchman reveals, to policies of surveillance and control dubiously cloaked in the guise of scientific administration. Following the big money to be made from the discoveries of Wannabe U's researchers, Tuchman probes the cozy relationships that the administration forms with industry and the government."--BOOK JACKET.