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By Brian Stempeck

Feb. 2, 2000 | Turn-of-the-century college students always struck me as a little silly, whining about the perils of capitalism from the plush confines of an apartment furnished with Ikea, or blasting Rage Against the Machine from a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Apathetic and aimless as they were, however, they still entertained the notion that there was something better, something to strive for, that somehow, they could be part of the impetus for change. Not like today's students. Today's kids are cutthroats. They're mercenaries.

In most of the first- and second-world countries, the multinational corporations have taken over education as smoothly and efficiently as they took over the world economy. They offer specific training in lieu of liberal arts. They offer applicable skills instead of the ability to think. It's like vocational school for intellectuals. The new colleges churn out students with concrete skills. They turn kids into certified public accountants by age 20, into engineers by 19, into marketing experts in six months. Why have pre-law, pre-med or pre-business curricula, when you can just cut to the chase?

No one complains, because it's free. All you have to do is sign a contract saying you'll work for the company after you're trained. And why not? Everything is in place for you. A nice neat transition from high school to the workforce. There are no job applications or interviews, and starting salaries average in the six figures. How can any other university compete with that? It's free! For the first time in history, students are investments: living, breathing portfolios.

The new colleges don't pose questions that can't be answered. Who needs the big questions when you have the promise of $1,000-an-ounce olive oil, a Mercedes SUV, stock options and a Lear jet? Instead of asking life's eternal questions, the new schools substitute the vocabulary of the real world. Mergers. Margin. Downsizing. In the red. In the black. Overhead. Demographics. Target markets.

But the old guard of multinationals are a bunch of college kids at heart, and they want their replacements to uphold their legacy. So they left some of the old universities open. No one goes there except the corporate kids and a handful of rebels willing to spend 70 grand a year for a liberal arts education without the guarantee of employment. The corporate kids spend their four years messing around with astronomy classes and creative writing before moving into their parents' executive suites. The rebels do something else.

Just like 20th century pirates bootlegged new movies and hawked their tapes on the street, some students in the remaining colleges have begun recording lectures. With digital video cameras small enough to conceal in a shirtsleeve or a backpack, and laptop stations and Internet access at every lecture seat, students broadcast college lectures to the world. All the noise that the recording industry made in 2000 about MP3's floating around, that was just rock and roll. This is information, and it's up for grabs on the open market.

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