Elite Education is Trapping Young People

We need to chart a new way forward

Mar 31, 2025

Whether you’re on the Left or the Right, there’s no denying that we live in populist times. Politics these days is defined by anger towards “elites,” the unaccountable, unelected class of people who are seen to control our media and institutions. And few institutions are the target of greater scorn than elite universities, which have become symbols of the rampant inequality that is tearing rifts within our societies.

In an ideal world, universities would be spaces of intellectual exploration, civic engagement, and personal development—places where young people learn to think critically, develop broad perspectives, and prepare for a variety of meaningful futures. However, these days elite universities have turned into recruitment pipelines for the “professional managerial class” – the class of well-paid knowledge workers employed in sectors like finance, consulting, and tech. They reside in coastal cities and espouse values of inclusion and social justice while simultaneously being at the top of the income hierarchy, benefiting from the systems of financialization and deindustrialization that have shipped jobs abroad and extracted wealth from communities. They are what political scientist Nancy Fraser calls “progressive neoliberals” – people who champion social and environmental causes while also being the beneficiaries of corporate globalization. It is this same class of people that has been excoriated as “woke” by the right-wing, and suffered a historic defeat in the 2024 US election.

Elite education is thus at the heart of a much wider debate about the role of universities in reproducing structures of inequality. Fortunately, there are groups working to disrupt the status quo. Class Action is a group of grassroots organizers founded to challenge the elite higher education system to become more accountable to the public good. They are focused on ending legacy admissions and “corporate career funnelling,” which together perpetuate the polarization of income and wealth. They have a network of organizers across 25 universities dedicated to this mission, and were recently successful in banning legacy admissions in California.

Today, we want to focus on the mechanisms by which elite education creates a conduit to the professional managerial class. The corporate career funnel is a term coined by sociologist Amy Binder to describe a system that aggressively recruits young people into high-prestige industries, only to subject them to grueling workloads and inevitable burnout. Universities have increasingly become pipelines into corporate careers, churning out “workforce-ready” graduates tailored to the needs of industry (as we wrote about last year). This has also led to the co-optation of universities by companies who increasingly buy their way into influence over recruitment, curricula, and research funding – a trend that should make all of us nervous.

So what happened here? How did industry manage to get its hands so tightly into higher education and actually begin to shape how it functions? And what can we do about it?

The Corporatization of Higher Education

The transformation of universities from places of learning into job-training centers did not happen by accident. Over the last several decades, corporate influence has steadily reshaped higher education, aligning university priorities with industry needs while eroding the traditional ideals of liberal education.

One of the most striking trends has been the shift in enrollment patterns. Between 1997 and 2007, business and management became the most popular undergraduate programs in Canada, growing at a far faster rate than humanities and social sciences. This change reflects a broader ideological shift toward what scholars call “industrial utilitarianism”—the belief that the only learning considered worthwhile is professional, applied, or vocational. As a result, university administrators and policymakers have systematically redirected resources away from arts-related disciplines toward business, engineering, and applied sciences, reinforcing the idea that education exists primarily to serve economic growth. In 2024, for example, Queen's University implemented significant cuts within its Faculty of Arts and Science. These measures were reportedly in response to financial constraints, despite substantial donations to other faculties.

Governments have accelerated this process by linking funding decisions to industry needs. In 2012, for example, the federal government allocated $14 million to expand corporate-sponsored internships, effectively subsidizing private sector recruitment pipelines. Universities, increasingly reliant on external funding, have deepened their partnerships with corporations, allowing private firms to shape curricula, sponsor research, and influence hiring priorities.

The result is a university system that positions itself less as a public good than as a service provider for corporate interests, transforming students into consumers and learning into a product to be monetized.

Adding further pressure to this corporate dependency is the financial crisis many universities are now facing due to declining international student enrolment. Recent federal restrictions have dramatically reduced the number of international study permits, with an additional 10% reduction announced for the next two years. This includes restrictions on post-graduate work permits, which have long been a key incentive for international students to study in Canada.

Given that international students pay tuition rates up to five times higher than domestic students, universities have become increasingly reliant on these higher fees to balance their budgets. With these revenue streams shrinking, universities will likely turn even further toward corporate partnerships to stay afloat, making them even more vulnerable to industry influence.

Let’s take a deeper look at how this happens–and what we lose as a result.

The Predatory Cycle of Campus Recruitment

As universities become more aligned with corporate interests, professional services firms have embedded themselves deeply into the student experience. Career fairs, corporate-sponsored research programs, and industry-aligned curricula create the illusion that elite corporate jobs are the natural endpoint of a university education.

Through corporate partnership programs, these companies pour millions of dollars into on-campus branding, funding student events, recruiting ambassadors, and securing exclusive partnerships with career centers. The messaging is clear: finance, consulting, and tech offer the only legitimate path to success for high-achieving graduates. Students are told that these firms will help them “jumpstart” their careers, exposing them to high-level problem-solving, elite mentorship, and global opportunities. And universities are selling their students' attention to the highest corporate bidder. These partnership programs allow companies to recruit directly from campus through events, access to faculty, and ambassador programs to bring in more students to their firms.

The reality of these paths is far less glamorous than what is sold to students, however. More than 60% of students who take corporate jobs do so often not out of passion, but due to financial insecurity and a lack of visible alternatives. Corporate recruiters capitalize on rising tuition and student debt to ensure a steady supply of indebted graduates, willing to sacrifice work-life balance for financial stability.

Over the last three decades, government funding for Canadian universities has plummeted, which has shifted the financial burden onto students. In 1979, public funding made up 84% of university operating revenues; by 2009, that figure had dropped to just 58%. As a result, tuition fees have skyrocketed by 263% between 1991 and 2016, saddling graduates with unprecedented levels of debt.

For many students, debt dictates career choices. Sixty percent of Canadian students graduate with debts exceeding $27,000, and for those in professional programmes like law or medicine, that number can be much higher. Instead of pursuing careers in education or the public service, graduates are funnelled into high-paying corporate roles simply to stay financially afloat. The result is a labour market where wealth, rather than interest or talent, dictates career choices – something we’re going to need to address if we want to invest in the clean economy.

What Do We Lose When Education Gets Corporatized?

There are some that may not see the problem with universities becoming more akin to job-training centres. After all, students need a return on their investment and we live in a capitalist society where they need marketable skills to be hired. This perspective isn’t necessarily wrong in its entirety, but it’s important not to discount the cost that this shift has on our society.

When universities become pipelines for corporate interests, they lose their ability to serve as spaces for critical inquiry, public debate, and independent thought. The two are unfortunately very hard to do well at the same time (if not mutually exclusive). Higher education has historically played a vital role in fostering civic engagement, advancing social progress, and producing knowledge that benefits society as a whole. The emphasis on job-ready skills at the expense of broader intellectual development narrows the scope of inquiry and undermines the ability of students to grapple with complex social, political, and ethical issues.

There’s also a striking disconnect between the lofty ideals that universities profess and the corporate pipelines they perpetuate. Many Canadian institutions brand themselves as places of discovery, social impact, and moral imagination. The University of Waterloo’s motto, for example, is “In harmony with truth.” Concordia’s is “Small planet. Big thinking.” And UBC tells students, “It’s up to you.” These are bold aspirations—but they ring hollow when set against the reality of career centres dominated by professional services firms, dwindling humanities departments, and student cultures shaped by competition and credentialism.

It has impacts on the research agenda as well. As funding shifts toward applied fields, research that does not have immediate economic value is increasingly marginalized. Humanities and social sciences programs—fields that have long been essential in shaping public discourse, cultural production, and political thought—are seen as expendable, the first programs to be cut. The decline of these disciplines weakens society’s capacity for critical thinking, erodes democratic participation, and reduces the space for questioning dominant economic and political structures. A corporatized university system does not cultivate engaged citizens so much as it manufactures compliant workers, trained to navigate systems rather than challenge them.

Part of the problem is cultural. Students are taught from an early age to measure success by their proximity to elite institutions and prestigious careers. Worth becomes tied to GPA, resume line items, and job offers—not personal growth or social contribution. This logic of credentialism reduces education to a means of status acquisition, rather than a tool for building a more just and democratic society

The narrowing of education also has broader economic consequences. A workforce trained only for immediate market needs is more vulnerable to disruption and less adaptable to long-term shifts in the economy. An education system that prioritizes technical proficiency over critical thinking and creativity risks producing workers who are highly skilled in specific tasks but ill-equipped to navigate the broader social, economic, and technological transformations of the future. Countries that fail to cultivate a well-rounded knowledge economy may find themselves at a competitive disadvantage in the long run, as industries dependent on innovation, problem-solving, and ethical leadership fall behind.

The Problem of Brian Drain

We sure are on track to fall behind in this arena if we don’t change course. Canadian graduates, particularly those in STEM fields, are increasingly leaving the country to work in the United States and other global tech hubs–a phenomenon known as brain drain. One in four Canadian STEM graduates opt to work outside of Canada, with 66% of software engineering graduates leaving for jobs abroad.

There’s an opportunity here for Canada to think more strategically—and more justly—about national resilience. In a time of heightened global nationalism and economic protectionism, investing in Canadian talent and giving graduates the living conditions and career pathways to stay—not just in Canada, but in their hometowns—is a critical step. Right now, brain drain doesn’t only happen across borders. It happens within them. Young people leave smaller towns, rural regions, and economically struggling areas in droves, heading for a narrow set of urban centres. This weakens local communities and leaves entire regions out of the national innovation economy. If we want to build a more resilient Canada, we need to think seriously about how to support graduates to return home, reinvest their skills, and help lead local transitions.

The overwhelming majority—81.5%—head to the United States, particularly to states like California and Washington, where tech giants such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft dominate the job market. They’re driven by a combination of higher salaries, firm reputation, and broader job variety. The result is a vicious cycle: Canadian universities pump out highly skilled graduates in a narrow range of fields, only to lose them to more lucrative opportunities abroad, weakening the country’s ability to foster a thriving, self-sustaining innovation economy.

There’s also a climate imperative here. Every job is a climate job. Canada’s energy transition will require not just political will but technical expertise, labour, and innovation across sectors. We already face a shortage of green-skilled workers. We can’t afford to keep channeling our brightest minds into careers that are often fuelling the climate crisis. If we want to build a liveable future, we need to make sure our institutions are equipping people to be part of it.

The Path Forward

The first step in reversing this trend is recognizing that the corporatization of education is not inevitable—it is the result of deliberate policy choices. Policymakers must reinvest in public higher education, reducing tuition and student debt to free graduates from the financial pressures that force them into corporate careers. But we also need culture change – we need to redefine what we think “good jobs” are and stop buying into the allure of these jobs that ultimately do not deliver on their promises.

Universities must also be part of the solution. That means resisting the slide into credentialism and careerism, and recommitting to education as a public good. It means curbing the influence of corporate recruitment on campus, re-investing in the liberal arts and social sciences, and cultivating a culture of critical inquiry that helps students ask deeper questions—not just about how to succeed in the system, but whether the system itself should be changed.

Beyond the university system, Canadian businesses must be incentivized to invest in innovation and high-skilled employment to create competitive alternatives to the lure of U.S. firms. Things like increasing salaries, expanding research funding, and strengthening Canada’s technology and industrial policy to retain skilled graduates will all help to reverse this trend. If Canada wants to stop losing its best and brightest to foreign firms, it must create the conditions where staying—both in meaningful careers and in the country—is a viable, compelling choice.

Ultimately, the corporate career funnel thrives on the illusion of inevitability. The truth is, there is nothing inevitable about it. The first step is recognizing the game for what it is. The second is opting out. It is time for young people to redefine success in education, employment, and the economy as a whole.