Mitre Corporation (www.mitre.org) was rated one of Fortune Magazine's Top 100 Corporations to work for. Hooray for Mitre but why is it a nonprofit (Senator Grassley)? What void is it filling that lacks incentives for for-profit pursuit? Why does the public sector, which heavily funds it, not want to pursue?

Maybe this is what Bill Gates has in mind when he says that for-profits or capitalism should be helping the bottom third of the world?

From the Chicago Sun Times we learn that Senator Grassley has called on colleges to do more with their endowments than build them up. Senator Grassley wants colleges to spend more to subsidize tuitions through loans and grants.

Hurray for Senator Grassley but has he gone far enough? Given the near profit-making nature of universities in particular, is it not time to set some different standards for when or if they are nonprofit vs. for-profit. Maybe if they had to pay more than in-lieu-of taxes, universities would be more responsible. After all, right now the big folks in particular are just tax-free corporations with few obligations to the public other than those they self-impose.

There are after all the public schools to address the public good so why do we need a free-standing for-profit disguised as a nonprofit. Senator Grassley, let's go for bigger stakes of accountability and not just ask universities to share more -- make them for-profits and tax responsible to the communities they want to serve.