I think the outrage is based on a perception of a teacher/student relationship, but unlike high school, the students in college are legal adults. Legally, and I would argue ethically, college students are not under the care of their professors or administrators.
If there were allegations that professors were tying their instruction to investment--e.g. let me invest in your company or I will give you an F--I would agree that there are ethical issues. But I don't see any allegations of that.
>If there were allegations that professors were tying their instruction to investment ...
That's not the point. The faculty-student relationship and university-student relationship is fraught with those kinds of ethical landmines. For example, I can tell you right now, if a professor is invested in student's company, he cannot be his professor ever again (i.e. he may be his lecturer, but he can never grade his or her projects, papers and exams).
This is all especially true in the context of investment and startups. I'm sure if you're a high-flying startup going towards a billion dollar exit everyone is happy and best-friends. But let me tell you, the nature of your relationship with your investors changes fundamentally when your business starts failing and there is a very real risk of people losing hundreds of thousands (or millions) of invested money.
>but unlike high school, the students in college are legal adults.
Doesn't matter. A doctor cannot write prescriptions for people he may know personally because of the obvious conflict of interest. Similarly a clinical therapist shouldn't be providing therapy for friends or family. It doesn't matter that all parties are responsible, upstanding adults.
Fair. I don't know what the legality is in every jurisdiction and it may very well be legal everywhere so I'll clarify. It is highly frowned upon, and potentially unethical, for doctors to treat their family or prescribe medication for themselves or their family. This most certainly extends to non-family members if a conflict of interest exists. It would be unethical if you prescribed medication to your bookie.
Anyway, my point stands regardless. The fact that there may be no strict illegality in a school or faculty investing in student project, does not mean there are no ethical issues that have to be resolved. Furthermore, the faculty or school may be opening itself up to liability. Frequently these kinds of issues are not judged (in civil court at least) strictly on their legality but rather on the 'smell test'. I can imagine a scenario in which a student may sue the school alleging some negative repercussions in his school life given that the investment fell through (maybe sue the school for tuition fees he paid prior to being 'pressured' to quit school). The case may be merit-less, but the school could be punished for putting themselves in a position in which a conflict of interest exists. When a business blows-up there are a lot of hurt feelings and a lot of anger and bitterness.
I generally agree with this - there should be some sort of safeguard or a set of enforceable ethics guidelines and oversight. Although: it's nice that instead of the students paying gobs of money in tuition to the school, the schools is paying gobs of money to the students....
