When Universities Start Thinking Like Corporations. Part 2: When Care Becomes a Commodity (#622)

What Veterinary Medicine Reveals About the Future of Universities.

Long before many universities began openly speaking the language of corporate management, veterinary medicine had already started living it.

The transformation did not happen all at once.

At first, corporatization in veterinary medicine seemed relatively benign - even beneficial.

Larger organizations promised efficiencies, better equipment, improved infrastructure, expanded specialty services, stronger purchasing power, sophisticated management systems, and relief from the business burdens that many veterinarians neither enjoyed nor felt trained to handle.

For exhausted practice owners facing rising costs and shrinking margins, corporate acquisition often looked attractive.

For younger veterinarians burdened by educational debt, salaried employment offered stability.

For investors, veterinary medicine appeared to be an ideal industry:

Recession resistant,

Emotionally driven,

Fragmented, and

Highly “consolidatable.”

Private equity noticed.

And once private equity notices an industry, the language begins to change.

The Arrival of Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA)

In veterinary medicine, a new vocabulary emerged:

“Scalability.”

“Operational efficiency.”

“Synergy.”

“Market penetration.”

“Revenue optimization.”

“Productivity metrics.”

“EBITDA.”

For many veterinarians, this was deeply disorienting.

Veterinary medicine had traditionally defined itself as a profession grounded in:

Compassion,

Scientific judgment,

Service,

Client relationships, and

Patient care.

Suddenly, many clinicians found themselves practicing inside systems increasingly driven by financial metrics and growth expectations.

Hospitals were no longer simply hospitals.

They became assets.

Practices became acquisition targets.

Clinicians became production units.

And patients, however subtly, risked becoming revenue streams.

The shift was cultural as much as financial.

And that is precisely why universities should pay attention.

The Parallel With Universities

The parallels between modern veterinary medicine and modern universities are remarkably striking.

In both systems:

Administrative layers expanded,

Centralized management increased,

External consultants gained influence,

Branding became essential,

Growth became imperative, and

Financial performance began driving institutional priorities.

The similarities are almost uncanny:

Universities	Veterinary Medicine
Students become customers	Clients become consumers
Faculty evaluated by metrics	Clinicians evaluated by production
Programs assessed by revenue	Services assessed by profitability
Shared governance weakens	Clinical autonomy weakens
Consultants drive restructuring	Consultants drive consolidation
Rankings shape priorities	Market share shapes priorities
Public mission erodes	Professional mission erodes

In both cases, institutions originally grounded in public or professional service gradually adopt the operational logic of corporations.

And once that occurs, the institution itself begins to change.

Not merely administratively.

Philosophically.

The Emotional Cost of Financialization

One of the least discussed consequences of corporatization is moral injury.

Veterinarians increasingly report burnout not simply because they work hard - veterinarians have always worked hard - but because many feel trapped between professional values and corporate pressures.

They entered the profession to care for animals.

Increasingly, they find themselves navigating:

Productivity expectations,

Financial targets,

Inventory metrics,

Corporate policies,

Staffing shortages, and

Relentless economic pressures.

Many clinicians describe a loss of autonomy.

Others describe feeling interchangeable.

Some quietly admit they no longer recognize the profession they entered.

Faculty members at universities increasingly express similar feelings.

They speak of:

Managerial cultures,

Endless assessments,

Branding exercises,

Enrollment pressures,

Consultant-driven restructuring, and

The growing sense that educational values are being subordinated to financial priorities.

In both professions, people often experience the same underlying fear:

That the institution’s mission is quietly changing beneath their feet.

Compassion Versus Metrics

Of course, financial realities matter.

Veterinary hospitals must remain financially viable.

Universities must balance budgets.

But there is a profound difference between using financial tools to support a mission,and allowing financial logic to become the mission itself.

That distinction is critical.

In veterinary medicine, compassion cannot always be quantified:

The reassurance offered to a grieving client.

The extra fifteen minutes spent comforting a frightened animal.

The difficult ethical conversation.

The mentorship of a young veterinarian.

None of these fit neatly into productivity spreadsheets.

Similarly, in universities:

Mentorship,

Intellectual curiosity,

Slow scholarship,

Difficult conversations,

Creativity, and

The preservation of knowledge,

often resist simple economic measurement.

Yet these are precisely the things that define the institution’s deeper value.

The danger of corporatization is not that financial discipline exists.

The danger is that measurable financial outputs begin crowding out everything less easily quantified.

And eventually, institutions risk valuing only what can be measured.

The Consolidation Mindset

Corporate veterinary medicine also offers another warning for universities:

Consolidation changes culture.

When decisions move farther away from the people directly doing the work, institutions become more standardized, centralized, and managerial:

Local autonomy diminishes.

Relationships weaken.

Decision-making becomes increasingly top-down.

Those working at the ground level often feel unheard.

Universities increasingly exhibit many of the same characteristics:

Faculty governance weakens.

Strategic plans originate from executive leadership.

Consultants advise on restructuring.

Boards emphasize branding, rankings, fundraising, and market positioning.

Large institutions begin operating through systems of centralized managerial control.

And in both professions, the language of “efficiency” often masks a deeper shift toward corporate standardization.

Professional Identity Under Pressure

Professions are not merely industries.

That distinction matters enormously.

A profession carries ethical obligations that extend beyond profitability.

Veterinary medicine historically understood this.

So did universities.

Professions exist partly because society recognizes that some forms of work should not be governed solely by market forces.

The physician’s obligation to the patient.

The professor’s obligation to truth.

The veterinarian’s obligation to animal welfare.

These responsibilities require a degree of independence from purely commercial pressures.

When corporate frameworks dominate professional institutions, tension inevitably emerges between:

Mission and margin,

Ethics and efficiency, and

Public good and financial growth.

That tension now sits at the center of both veterinary medicine and higher education.

The Deeper Warning

What veterinary medicine reveals is not simply that corporatization change’s organizational structure.

It changes identity.

Slowly.

Quietly.

Sometimes almost invisibly.

Until one day professionals realize they are spending more time discussing metrics than mission.

More time discussing branding than values.

More time discussing growth than purpose.

Universities should pay close attention to this trajectory.

Because veterinary medicine has already traveled much further down this road.

And many veterinarians are now asking difficult questions about:

Autonomy,

Burnout,

Professional meaning, and

The increasing dominance of financial logic over care giving culture.

Universities may soon be asking the same questions.

If they are not already.

The Final Question

The central issue is not whether universities or veterinary hospitals should be financially responsible.

Of course they should.

The real question is this:

At what point does an institution stop using corporate tools and begin adopting a corporate identity?

Because once that shift occurs, everything begins to change:

Governance,

Priorities,

Relationships,

Culture,

Language, and

Ultimately, mission itself.

And when professions devoted to education and care begin thinking primarily like corporations, society may eventually discover that something deeply valuable has been lost.

That will be the focus of Part 3.

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