Business schools definitely face many challenges. But this article calling to shut them down mostly attacks a caricature of what business schools are -- in its own words, one that focuses excessively on the question of “How do we maximize shareholder value?” In reality, the modern business school is pretty different than the picture painted here: 1) For starters, the article omits any mention of the excellent research being done in business schools. At the author's own institution of Cambridge, this includes research on patient safety in hospitals and entrepreneurship in developing economies. The faculty of most business schools include economists, psychologists, and engineers, all of whom bring different perspectives from their research into the classroom. All of this is sidestepped in the article. 2) One of the main criticisms is that the "case method" focuses too much on single decision-makers over institutions. There is truth to this. But business schools also use a variety of teaching methods. For example, when I teach MBA statistics we emphasize being critical consumers of data and developing broader data literacy skills, without using traditional cases. This makes the student the protagonist of the case rather than a hypothetical manager. 3) Lastly, the article understates the agency that students have, which shapes curricula in the long run. Competition drives business schools to be responsive to student demands, and this usually includes lessons beyond profit-maximization (try to give a 90 minute lecture to MBA students on improving shareholder value and you'll be booed out of the classroom). And if MBA graduates want to work for Goldman Sachs after graduation, that's their own decision -- let's not infantilize our students. For sure, there are sector-wide concerns about the future of MBA programs and business schools, but transforming students from altruists into mindless profit-maximizers is not one of them. nytimes.com/2026/10/18/opini…