This paper examines Lynne Drury Lerych's essay "Meeting the Bottom Line in the College Biz" and her critique of the commodification of American higher education. The analysis argues that the prevailing "business model" of education — in which professor compensation is tied to enrollment numbers rather than academic rigor — produces mediocrity in both teaching and learning. Drawing on Lerych's concept of "edu-preneurship," the paper identifies three forces driving this trend: educational institutions, teachers, and students. It concludes that subordinating quality instruction to financial incentives distorts the fundamental purpose of education.
The paper demonstrates effective source-driven argumentation: the student reads a single primary text closely, extracts key concepts (the "bank model," "edu-preneurship," "clash between academic standards and capitalism"), and uses them as scaffolding for a broader critique. Rather than simply summarizing Lerych, the paper applies her framework to develop its own evaluative stance on the American educational system.
The essay opens with a macro-level discussion of commodification in capitalist society before narrowing to education specifically. It then introduces Lerych's text and her self-characterization as a rigorous teacher. The central sections unpack the "bank model" and "edu-preneurship" concepts, while the penultimate section distributes blame across three stakeholder groups. The conclusion synthesizes the argument by restating the cost of the business model in human and intellectual terms.
The commodification of goods and services in a capitalist society is apparent in contemporary America, as more and more institutions seek to increase monetary revenue through the services they offer. Increasingly, institutions that once provided services freely to the public — such as access to educational materials and library resources — have begun to charge fees, effectively converting those services into market commodities.
Access to educational materials and formal education itself is slowly being converted into goods sold in the "educational market." Under this logic, the higher the quality of material or service one wishes to receive, the greater the fee one must pay. This dynamic forms the foundation of what critics call the commodification of education.
This is the central concern of Lynne Drury Lerych's essay "Meeting the Bottom Line in the College Biz," a discourse on the development of America's educational system as a form of commercial service, whereby the highest payer is granted the superior quality of education. This issue, Lerych argues, stems from various factors largely motivated by the laws of economics. The present essay examines her arguments against the "business model" of education that she identifies and illustrates. It further analyzes the educational system, the quality of education, and the quality of teaching, arguing that in the present American educational system, quality teaching is increasingly equated with monetary compensation — that is, quantity (monetary compensation) is preferred at the expense of quality (passionate teaching and a genuine yearning for learning).
Lerych establishes her position at the very opening of her essay, describing herself as "the teacher from hell, the one whose classes students approach in wide-eyed panic because they're too hard." She characterizes herself this way because she considers herself a rarity — a different kind of teacher who views teaching not merely as a method of imparting knowledge, but as an activity that also demands learning and intellectual rigor. She is regarded as a "terror" by some, someone who treats hard work as synonymous with quality work.
Lerych goes on to compare herself with other professors and instructors at the tertiary level of education. Among her colleagues, she notices a striking reaction to what she calls her "selflessness" in teaching. According to Lerych, in today's educational system, "working hard is suspect if the rewards aren't immediate and obvious. Academic standards are in disrepute. A professor who sets the bar high is seen as an obstacle by students looking for a quick route to a degree, and an inconvenience by administrators with an eye toward the bottom line."
This "bottom line" mentality is explained through what Lerych terms the "bank model" of education. In this business model, quantity is preferred over quality: the more students a professor has enrolled in a course, the greater the compensation received. Monetary reward thus becomes the driving ideal rather than quality teaching or genuine student learning. Lerych identifies the emergence of what she calls "edu-preneurship" — a "clash between academic standards and capitalism" in which teachers seek to increase their pay by enticing students to enroll through the lowering of academic standards and expectations.
The result is mediocrity — not only in the students' learning outcomes, but in the quality of the professor's instruction as well. This, in turn, corrupts the broader educational system, rendering all its elements mediocre together. As scholars studying higher education in the United States have noted, market-driven pressures on universities can fundamentally alter institutional priorities, placing revenue generation above educational mission.
Lerych's discourse on the interrelatedness of education with capitalism illustrates the plight of the educational system in a society controlled and manipulated by the demand-and-supply economic framework. What results is mediocrity in teaching and education, increasingly expensive educational services, and a distorted view of what education should fundamentally be: free, liberal, and — above all — priceless.
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