Public No More: Why the B-School Model Works - Andrew J. Policano and Gary C. Fethke, Bloomberg Business Week

Overall, business schools have become more efficient because they are disciplined by market forces. They are not the only ones that have had to do so. Other professional schools, university hospitals, dormitories, food service providers, and others operate in a similar fashion. These are the “enterprises” of modern public universities. In contrast, many other academic areas have tried to retain the environment of a protected subsidized model that does not focus on students, on transparency, or on accountability. As state funds continue to diminish, public universities can select a strategic alternative: They can choose to follow an entrepreneurial path to become “public no more,” with more financial self-reliance and less dependence on entitlement and internal subsidy. As business schools and other areas of the university have shown, this path can lead to academic excellence in a financially sustainable framework, but it requires making some tough choices.