An example of this? A UCLA store in the land down under.

The Age reports.

University is more than a business

God, I hated that song at uni. It was old enough to be classic, but not old enough to be cool.

It did well enough to fill a dance floor in the houses that surrounded the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, the place I’d gone when I left home to learn how to become a complete person.

That was, I thought, the point of going to uni – not (in the first instance) to get a job, or even to get a degree. The point was to learn enough things, from enough disciplines, that I could feel confident I knew something about myself in the world, and what I might be able to contribute to those around me. That’s what university meant, and that’s what an education was. This wasn’t (it doesn’t seem) all that long ago.

But yesterday I was walking through a shopping mall in the central business district of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia – the other side of the world from Los Angeles – and there shone the proud UCLA emblem blazing next to the likes of Uniqlo, Zoo York and G-Star RAW. The university is now an international clothing company, sharing (literally) rack space with the boxing brand, Lonsdale.