A Corporate Education: 10 Universities Coming to You From Your Favorite Corporations

Move over Harvard. Here come the corporations.

When it was reported a few days ago that Disney has opened an English-language school in Shanghai, China, using Disney characters and songs as mnemonics, it got me thinking about the future of education, generally. With the news of the Disney school, it seems that civilization has taken the first step toward manifesting the world of Mike Judge’s film “Idiocracy.”

What if other corporations were to make entries into the education industry? Oh, it’s not so very strange at all. There ismoney to be made in the field. There are also precious little minds onto which they must imprint corporate logos and philosophies, guaranteeing brand-loyal drones.

Here is a list of 10 corporations that are also planning everything from their own corporate elementary schools and graduate programs to online universities and technical colleges.

BP Centre for Environmental Design & Resource Development
BP is already, to an extent, engaged in the educational system by attempting to educate the public about how microscopic oceanic organisms are cleansing the BP Oil Spill. They’ve already teamed up with universities and professors to advance this convenient theory—why not simply open up a college instead? The BP Centre for Environmental Design & Resource Development will be built on an artificial island (just as BP did off the coast of Alaska for oil drilling).

This picturesque location will serve a dual purpose: 1) It will be out of any nation’s jurisdiction, and 2) The clean, oil-free coastlines will keep the student population calm and servile. “Go to school on an island.” This will be a public relations coup and an excellent way to cultivate a fleet of BP scientists at the ready to talk scientific nonsense to Fox News.

Goldman Sachs School of Finance
Why go to a prestigious business school like Harvard when you can forego tuition fees and whore yourself straight away at Goldman Sachs School of Finance? Once there you will be on a fast track to nefarious financial dealings. Admission will be very selective—more selective, in fact, than any Ivy League university.

The Goldman Sachs School of Finance will run a recruiting program that rivals most athletics programs, by scouring the country for the most unethical children and teenagers, enrolling them (after high school graduation) in a four-year trainee program and transitioning them into full employee upon graduation. The Goldman Sachs School of Finance will be for the Gordon Gekko type of child.  Recognize a huckster or potential financial scam artist in your child? Call a Goldman Sachs rep to pay a visit to your home and assess the kid’s potential. The school’s motto is “You can never find an investment banker too soon.”

Virgin Academic
The Virgin Group aims to expand its brand to the commercially neglected education industry, and school uniforms will never look better. With offerings for every stage of development from Virgin Nursery to Virgin University, young people will now have the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in the brand that signifies hip. Using the integrated technology that has proven so lucrative in air and train travel, students will use touch-screen devices built into their desks to order school lunches, alert attractive teachers, and message-in answers to innovative pop quiz questions. Morning announcements will be delivered by the charismatic, inspiring and animated figure of Sir Richard Branson. There will surely be critics, as once can imagine, when a horrified parent will have to answer their six year old’s question, “Mommy, what is a virgin?” And what will parents think at Virgin High’s football games when teenage boys are running on field to chants of “Virgin! Virgin! Virgin!”

Kraft Culinary Institute
Do you have a mild passion for semi-creative cooking? Could you compromise it for a lucrative career to become the next Sandra Lee the Casserole Queen? Are you one of the few enlightened souls who can see through the “real,” “locally sourced” and “organic” foods charade? If you can say “yes,” the Kraft Culinary Institute is the place for you! Since the early 20th century, Kraft has been at the forefront of over-processing and over-packaging food* to make it more convenient for the everyday consumer. Kraft Culinary Institute will be gastronomically committed to the cause of consolidating the cheese product, snack and confectionary industry one company at a time. Degree programs will be available in the areas of Food* Science, Culinary Arts, and International Food* and Beverage Business. Course offerings will include: “Improving Upon Nature,” “Factory Operations in the Mid-East,” “Retaining Customers While Lowering Costs After a Takeover,” “If It’s Not Cheese, What Is It?” and “The Development and Creative Use of Powdered Food* Products.” Fill out an application today and show the Culinary Institute what you can do with a Kraft Single!  Kraft Culinary Institute also plans to produce its own version of Top Chef called Top Kraft.

*The term “food” refers to any product fit for human consumption, regardless of chemical or biological origins.

**Kraft will not assume responsibility for any costs resulting from Gastric Bypass Surgery following enrolment at the Culinary Institute.

Berkshire-Hathaway Online University
Since Buffet likes to think he can educate the entire world on matters financial anyway; his company—Berkshire-Hathaway—will go viral with the Berkshire-Hathaway Online University. Buffet himself will be the Dean and write all of the course books himself. Short-selling investment strategies will be the primary focus at Berkshire-Hathaway Online University. Buffet’s university will work in conjunction with the Goldman Sachs School of Finance, offering Buffet’s students summer internships in exchange for Buffet’s ‘donation’ to Goldman Sachs’ investment bank.

Wal-Mart School of Merchandising
All classes will be held at Wal-Mart. All pre-existing outlets will be retrofitted with educational facilities. Naturally, school supplies, backpacks, lunches, juice boxes, toys, recreational objects and firearms will be supplied by Wal-Mart (free of charge). Retirees will greet the students at the sliding doors and escort the children to the educational wing inside of shopping carts. Recess will be held in a textile and sewing facility where older Wal-Mart clerks will ensure the children are learning properly.  The clerks, of course, will hold Wal-Mart brand rulers and whack the children on the hands if they waste fabric.

Mac School of Design
Every desk will actually be a modified iPad called an iDesk. There will be no flesh and blood teacher.  Instead, a holographic iBoard stretching across the front of the classroom will display an iTeacher. No traditional books will be allowed in the room. Apple’s design department will ergonomically design all chairs with Apple’s trademark metal. And, in keeping with Mac’s product philosophy, all classrooms will have a rough planned obsolescence of about three years. Tuition will be outrageously high. Technical support will always be free to answer student’s questions, provided they fill out a digital note and submit it by an iDrop-box positioned in the lower right hand corner of their iDesk. It’s generally assumed that Steve Jobs will introduce the Mac School of Design at next year’s Macworld.

Mansanto-Syngenta School of Biotechnology, Agriculture & Corporate Espionage
A school co-founded by the Mansanto and Syngenta corporations. This school will admit both Biotech and Agricultural post-graduates who are interested in how to biologically engineer foods and squeeze every last bit of productivity out of farms.  Students will be on the cutting edge of genetic-modification of seeds. A secret course will be taught in sabotage, in which students will be instructed in the various covert methods of destroying smaller farms. And if that doesn’t work, more incendiary tactics will be discussed and likely employed.

Raytheon College of Modern Warfare:
Don’t know what to do with your child’s obsession with video games, particularly first-person shooters?  Want them to be the next Dr. Strangelove? Send them to Raytheon College of Modern Warfare, where instructors will teach children how to test weapons systems remotely via simulation, and then move onto controlling actual drones and robots. Graduation from the Raytheon College of Modern Warfare will guarantee a job designing new systems of death from above (and anywhere else imaginable). Considering the excellent long-term forecast of warfare, your child should never want for a job.

General Motors Technical College (GM Tech)
At GM Tech, students will use typewriters and abacuses for classes. The college will also boast a state-of-the-art word processor. Professors will all wear pale yellow short-sleeved shirts with transition lens glasses. Classes will be taught in a dilapidated Detroit building, where students will be enrolled in and study on a two-year long assembly line. Thesis projects for each student will be business proposals on how General Motors can survive through the 21^st century.

Graphics and additional reporting by Liza Cucco.