Funding Books

I think all women should read this book and share it with others (family and children). Not only does Mr. Bach discuss how saving a little here and there can help with retirement, but he also gives women inspiration to live out (and especially to finance) their dreams. A wonderful book.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to become wealthy and this book details how easy it can be. If you're looking for glitz and glamour and "get rich quick" this isn't it. There's no such thing as an overnight success. Read David's book and get going on the road to wealth.

Love all his books - bought this, gave it someone and had to buy it again. It all depends what level you are on. Not too much non-common sense, but good for women to read.

I bought this book because I heard so many positive things about it. I am in my 50's, five years ago I went from having the wonderful life that all women dream of. I had the beautiful home in the suburbs, 2 beautiful children, friends, you name it I had it. Then I lost it all in the blink of an eye. I had relied on my husband to handle all the finances I couldn't tell you the balance in the check book. All I knew was he made the money and I spent it. Thank the Lord I was a RN, but I hadn't worked in quite a few years. I am not going to go into detail what happened but when I said I had nothing but the clothes on my back I mean just that. I have been working two jobs for the past five years making good money but I have NOTHING to show for it. By reading Suze book I was able to identify myself, it is so easy to understand that someone like myself with NO understanding of finance can take her suggestions and work them into my present life. It is going to take discipline on my part and learning to say NO to my children is going to be the hardest. But, I need to take care of myself. This book was just what I needed to read. I highlighted areas, I keep going back and re-reading certain sections. I keep it next to my bed. Buying this book was one of the best things I have done for myself.

Smart Women Finish Rich is a bit different from other financial books I've read. I have to admit I was surprised with how well David Bach addressed both the emotional and intellectual relationship women have with money. His grandmother taught him well.

I am going to say that Smart Women Finish Rich is more for a financial beginner than a woman with financial savvy. It's a well thought out system of gaining and keeping control of your financial self-sufficiency. Bach has filled this book with definitions, resources, quizzes, systems, exercises and tables. I was impressed and give it a must read if you're serious about becoming more financially organized.

David Bach addresses both the heart and the head in Smart Women Finish Rich. He used the lessons he learned from his grandmother, and his mother, as inspiration. After growing up with two such powerful role models, he was surprised by the number of financially uniformed women. Many of the women who came to him for financial advice, had no clue about building financial security.

Smart Women Finish Rich is easy to understand. I read it and "got it." This is a "how to" book that involves a commitment on your part to read, work and put the assignments and lessons into daily practice. Bach has carefully given us valuable financial keys, now it's up to us to follow through.

What you'll get out of this book is going to depend on what you're willing to put into it. It's a book that has the potential to give you a great foundation for financial self-sufficiency.

Here are some of the areas I found particularly useful:

1.The first exercise, "Financial Knowledge Quiz" is a great practical place to start. I found it to be thoughtful and quite an eye-opener. I learned about how well (and sometimes not so well) I understood the role money played in my life.

2. David Bach is adamant about pinpointing the reason money is important to you. To find this out, you'll need to examine your money values and ask yourself if your financial behavior matches those values. He provides a simple but thoughtful exercise called the "Values Ladder."

3. Smart Women Finish Rich is a great blend of exercises, systems, quizzes and practical "real world" information. For example, the "Finish Rich File Folder System" is a simple, easy-to-follow and yet an organizational time saver.

I definitely give Smart Women Finish Rich five stars! If you're ready and serious about getting your financial house and monetary priorities in order, this is the book for you!

It has the most up to date material about science and he puts it in a funny way.

This book may be advertised as a polemic, but it actually provides straight common sense where it's most needed. In a political era where ideology often takes second place to facts, Stebbins lays the science bare on a host of controversial issues--from stem cells to genetic testing. You might not always agree with him, but he'll definitely get you thinking.

Doctor Mike Rocks! I urge you to read this book. The Dr. lays it out there, whether you know anything about science or not it doesn't matter - you will after reading this book. It's funny and really terrifying at the same time. A tell all, hard-and-slamming-clash between the myths, truths and politics behind the world of science. I couldn't put it down, bought three copies for friends. Brilliant piece of work!!

Being able to explain scientific concepts to nonscientist is an art. Michael Stebbins has accomplished the goal of explaining several areas of scientific research that sometimes gets drawn into politics (embryonic stem cell research). He takes every subject and explains it in language that the lay person can understand. He does a great job of showing how special interest groups can take some segment of the subject, distort it and promote opposition to the research and make it look legitimate to the unknowing public. We need more books like this and more scientist like Michael Stebbins!!!

Sex, Drugs and DNA is a fantastic literary find. Michael Stebbins shares a voice seldom heard in today's news and politics, that of an independent and experienced scientist. Most of what you hear on the news about science these days seems to consist of "expert" journalists with no more information on the subject they are discussing than a brief overview of a watered-down scientific abstract. This is a man who has devoted his life to science and is not afraid to give his opinions on what is wrong with today's society, and, more importantly, how these problems might be solved.

I was personally very impressed with his first chapter. It is something that I would highly recommend to most young and developing scientists. I feel it gives an honest and needed look at what they will be dealing with in the near future.

Michael Stebbins makes this foray into the world of a science an entertaining and informative journey. I highly recommend it.

This is the definitive guide for anyone looking for a corporate sponsor. It was enjoyable to read and I find myself reaching for it time and again. The concepts were easy to grasp and the tools were especially useful. It is a great source of information for beginners as well as seasoned sponsorship seekers. It's a great read and well worth purchasing.

Being a realtive newcomer to sponsorship procurement, this book has been valuable and well used. The Sponsorship Seeker's Toolkit teaches every step necessary to make first contact, foster relationships, build a creative winning proposal, administer your proposal and prepare followup reports.
This and the two previous Sponsorship Seekers Toolkit can take a novice and teach them how to speak to sponsors confindently and knowledgably.
If you're a seasoned professional, Kim and Anne-Marie come up with such creative partnerships, you'll find yourself smiling over the common sense they inject into every chapter.
This book has taught my staff how to present proposals that will enhance multiple sponsors, thereby giving them more bang for their buck as well as making the event more memorable for the audience.
This book is a dog-eared must in my professional library.

Content was relevant and definitive. Great examples and templates and every aspect clearly explained and expounded where necessary. An essential piece of reading.

This book is an excellent resource for anyone attempting to obtain sponsorships. It is well written and easy to follow with many useful tools.

This book is very useful and practical thanks to its suggestions in a matter which is at the same time delicate and fundamental. Besides it is well-organized and clear in its contents

Chris Mooney presents a fascinating inside look into the politics and personalities behind hurricane science and scientists. With the possibility that global warming can increase the destructive power of hurricanes, a formerly non-controversial topic became highly politicized in a short amount of time. Predictably, scientists were in two basic camps: one believed global warming makes hurricanes worse, and one believed that global warming (which may not be occurring) does not make hurricanes worse.

Although Mooney keeps the pace moving along, by the time you finish this book, you may know more about hurricanes than you bargained for. At times, the book is almost too detailed for its own good, but if you know at least a little basic meteorology, you should be able to handle all the atmospheric science thrown into the book. Good book on a fascinating subject.

This is an exceptionally well done example of scientific journalism.
It presents a balanced review of both sides of the global warming ->
hurricanes issue while recognizing that the consensus of scientific opinion is that global warming is a real phenomenon.

Chris Mooney has written a fascinating account of one of the more complex issues associated with global warming -- the possibility of increased hurricane activity. Ever since Katrina, this issue has been central in public debate about the consequences of enhanced greenhouse warming on our planet. However, linking greater hurricane intensity to global warming is less straightforward than understanding the melting of glaciers and polar ice, desertification, or the rise in sea levels. Mooney explores this complexity and the different approaches to science of the main protagonists. The result is a fascinating and subtle account of personalities and science issues -- more nuanced, and hence more accurate, than many journalistic perspectives on the science behind global warming.

This is a good book, but not quite as good as the other reviewers suggest. I suspect that how much you like this book depends, in part, on how much you agree with the author's views. Put simply, although the book purports to be an objective overview of the interaction between science and politics, Mr. Mooney makes it clear which side he thinks is right. Those skeptical of global warming tend to be marginalized as out of touch, cranks, or biased by "special interests." This detracts from the book in a significant way because it casts doubt on the accuracy of the analysis. Indeed, in several places, the author seems to go out of his way to downplay data that undercuts the "global warming is making hurricanes worse" thesis that he endorses.

Having said that, the book is still very readable and full of information about hurricanes and the history of their study. Whenever the author is not talking about global climate change, his account of the science and the scientists is engaging and clear.

In sum, worth reading if you have any interest in hurricanes, but take his discussions of the state of global warming science with a large grain of salt.

It was probably a coincidence that this book reached our library just as I started teaching an online meteorology class at a local university. Whether or not, I found it invaluable in directing the discussions for this class since global warming is the most significant current issue for this science, and all roads/students/newspapers etc. lead directly to the issue.

For such a topic that is wrought with both political and emotional issues, I thought Chris Mooney did a wonderful job of presenting all the sides. There are never just one or two sides in any science. I saw that when I did research in HIV encephalitis in med school. It was amazing not only the good research that was done and reported but also the quacks that came out of the woodwork. They could have done reasonable and valid research prior to their introduction of mistaken theories and concepts, but boy, if you insisted they were wrong...even if it did turn out later they were wrong, they would cling to those theories like velcro. Not only did they cling to the theories, but if they couldn't get published in recognized peer reviewed journals, they started up their own journal!

This inability of both scientists and politicians to admit to mistakes about previously held beliefs is a real problem in science. Not just in meteorology, though I can see from Mooney's book that due to the attention that hurricanes brought to global warming, these guys who are often social inept were thrown into a maelstrom they didn't have the foggiest idea how to contend with (weather puns definitely intended).

I recommended this book to my students, and I don't do that often. I will continue to refer back to this book because it put very well the divides that not only exist in science, but even among communities and families concerning this issue (my husband is a wait-and-see guy, while I am one of those people who think we should do whatever we can possibly do to minimize our impact on climate).

Great book...great discussion.

Karen Sadler

ALL YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT PLANING ESTATE PLANNING. IF YOU GOT THOSE LITTLE ONES AT HOME AND YOU WANT TO LEARN THE JOY OF GIVING. THIS IS THE BOOK. IT HELPS YOU LEAD YOUR FAMILY DOWN THE PATHOF WEATH AND CLOSENESS. THIS THE BOOK.

Through the years I have visited the financial section of book stores, somethimes purchasing a publication that looks interesting, only to find that I would need a degree in finance to understand it. What a pleasure to find "Funding Your Dreams". A book that is written so that one can understand its concepts without all the 5 dollar words that send me to the dictionary every other sentence! Carol writes with knowledge, compassion and understanding of the lay readers needs. Most of all she gives sound, solid advice with suggestions for practical application. I wish I had had this book twenty years ago but it's never to late to start. This book is a must read for everyone, regardless of monetary assets. I also appreciate the balance that Carol presents to the reader. Yes we need to save, yes we need to plan for our children, our aging parents, and our own retirement, but we can also need to give ourselves permission to set aside some funds for our own enjoyment. Carol obviously has a zest for life and her energy comes through in her writing. This book should be on the coffee table of every home, and should be read by every generation that lives with that coffee table! This book would make a wonderful gift for young couples ( or graduates) starting out as well as those of us in the baby boomer generation. Thanks Carol, for writing words that I have needed to read for years!

This is the first book that really made a difference for me financially! My family and I have met several times to discuss and plan our dreams and funds. We have been able to brainstorm and come up with ideas financially for each family member, with two of their dreams already accomplished. Even my nine year old is happy (he got an increase in allowance) and is telling all his friends to have their parents get the book!

I loved how the author "speaks directly to you" rather than just giving financial information. I hightly recommend this unique book that is simply put, direct, and actually affects changes in your financial status! It's a must for single parents like me!

Through the years I have visited the financial section of book stores, somethimes purchasing a publication that looks interesting, only to find that I would need a degree in finance to understand it. What a pleasure to find "Funding Your Dreams". A book that is written so that one can understand its concepts without all the 5 dollar words that send me to the dictionary every other sentence! Carol writes with knowledge, compassion and understanding of the lay readers needs. Most of all she gives sound, solid advice with suggestions for practical application. I wish I had had this book twenty years ago but it's never to late to start. This book is a must read for everyone, regardless of monetary assets. I also appreciate the balance that Carol presents to the reader. Yes we need to save, yes we need to plan for our children, our aging parents, and our own retirement, but we can also need to give ourselves permission to set aside some funds for our own enjoyment. Carol obviously has a zest for life and her energy comes through in her writing. This book should be on the coffee table of every home, and should be read by every generation that lives with that coffee table! This book would make a wonderful gift for young couples ( or graduates) starting out as well as those of us in the baby boomer generation. Thanks Carol, for writing words that I have needed to read for years!

Carole touches on important and weighty subjects, yet presents them to the reader in a friendly, accessible, easy to understand style. From the very beginning we think of her as `Carole' rather than Ms Akright, feeling that we are not facing a stranger, but, instead, listening to someone we know who cares about our problems. Not only does the book convey great generosity of spirit, but it also offers practical information that can benefit any family. The book is devoted to showing that dreams can indeed come true, and helps the reader understand `that money can and should be used as a family resource' that can help with dream fulfillment. Carole covers the dreams and needs of each generation, including basic issues such as retirement, long-term care, children's education, even meeting the bills. But she does not forget the vacations, adventures, life styles, purchases that one might also dream of. As she says, `You have the right to go after what you want in life.' According to Carole, inter-generational dream funding leads to a greater closeness of families, a greater sharing of values, and offers more emotional support, ideas and energy, as well as larger financial resources to call upon. This is a book to read, think about, and then perhaps read again in order to learn how to make dreams come true.

This book already saved us money!

I have only had "The Art of Film Funding" about a week and already it's saved our production company hundreds of dollars. The research I was able to do in the pages of Dean's book made our first meeting with an attorney go quickly and smoothly. It's putting us a few precious steps ahead of the game, and in the documentary world that can make worlds of difference in the cost of your production.

There are so many post-its on the different pages it looks like I trapped a herd of butterflies inside the book.

Buy it, read it, keep it by your side all during your film funding process.

PJ Smith
Producer, RGO Media Associates
Author - The Power of the Dark Side: Creating Great Villains, Dangerous Situations, & Dramatic Conflict
Inner Drives: How to Write and Create Characters Using the Eight Classic Centers of Motivation

As a documentary filmmaker in desperately search for funds to make my film a reality, I can say that this book has helped me explore the infinite possibilities that lay out there in the universe waiting for me to tap on them. As the cover of the book evokes, Carole Dean gives you the best tips for you to catch those colorful funding butterflies that can not only bring you the moneys you need but will help you spread the word on your film and sow the seeds of what can become a forest of funding opportunities. The back of the book is an incredible resource that has over 100 funding organizations listed with contact information, you have months of research done for you to find the funding you need.

At last...a positive attitude successfully combined with real experience in the independent film world!! The admirable Ms. Dean, who started a business selling those end pieces of film from the major studios to aspiring filmmakers with tight budgets has her heart in the right place. She admires people who are following their dreams by taking those first steps and wants to help them keep steppin' to the finish line. I gleaned a lot out of the stories of how individual filmmakers got their films made. Read the book, then get to work on your film!

This book aims at the beginning independent filmmaker. As such, it's an excellent introduction to thinking like a business person, opening your mind to new approaches to funding, and becoming aware of potential legal issues. The prose is highly readable, even energizing as her positive spirit infuses every page. Reading this book is like a late-night jam session crammed full of the excitement of ideas and possibilities. The interviews in the book are useful both for their good advice and for the sense they convey that there are very specific people available to help you get through the process. The information presented in this book makes film funding seem doable.

When I opened this book, I expected two things. One: Due to the sub-title "Alternative Financing Concepts" - I expected a chapter on "How to Sell Your Body Parts!" and, Two: I expected this book to be boring.

Happily, I was wrong on both parts - but why do I need an extra kidney anyways?

Ms. Dean does a great job in making the art of film fund finding, well, fun. With years of experience on both sides of the business, she explains in a mix of interviews and stories the process of pitching your idea, looking for those willing to fund your film and all the nuances and approaches you should take. Not only that, she includes an EXCELLENT reference section (50 pages of a 250 page book) with names, addresses, phone numbers, websites, etc. That alone is worth the price of the book.

Much of the first few chapters in the book revolve around pitching your idea. Even if you are on the fence in terms of whether to make your film or not, Ms. Dean emphasizes a lot of the aspects of Pitching that can come in handy in any situation where you have the opportunity to talk about your idea.

With my own independent film on the horizon, and the aspect of me trying to sell a kidney to raise funds, I was surprised when the first half of the book focused mostly on documentaries. I wondered as I read through those pages as to how the rules and ideas and suggestions she was giving would fit my project: A feature film with 15 actors using an original script written by me. Not my documentary on the slaughter of innocent ants by rabid 10 year old boys with magnifying glasses.

Half-way through the book, though, she does focus on the aspect of how to find funding for your independent film and then she goes on in later chapters to deal with "Branding" (making your pitch unique with photos or other graphics), "Finding Partnerships" and even a chapter on "Federal Tax Laws" - and again, if you think these chapters are pages and pages of droning commentary - think again: Most of these are interviews with people in the trenches who have worked through the process, know the process, live the process.

One of the things I found surprising in this book is there is a lack of focus on story and the story you are trying to tell (whether it is in Documentary Form or Fictional/Non-Fictional 3-Act Structure Story Telling). A recent seminar I went to on Independent Film one of the speakers came right out and said: "Is your story worth telling?" Though Ms. Dean touches on it a little, there is not a lot of time spent on making sure that your story is one that has an audience. Granted, a book about film financing should be about film financing not a book on whether your documentary of sadistic 10 year old boys is worthy for a slot on PBS during their next pledge drive.

Another issue I have with this book is a common one: Create a list of all the websites mentioned in the chapters for easy reference. Though the expansive reference section alone is worth the price of the book, Ms. Dean sprinkles almost every chapter with names, websites, even phone numbers of people to contact. It would have been the icing on the cake to also include those in the reference section under a separate heading broken down by chapter. That way lazy writers like me don't have to skim through the chapters looking for the familiar www. Though, in their defense, they did a unique thing of highlighting the interviews so they could be found quickly.

Once again Michael Weise Productions has produced a great book, unique to the marketplace filled with all the nitty-gritty details of what it takes to find financing for your film. Hats off to them, and Ms. Dean.

My oldest child is a high school senior, and we felt so clueless about how to go about starting "the college thing". This book told me everything I wanted to know and much more. Now, I feel so much more informed and confident about the process, espicially the financial aspects.

As a mother of a HS junior who attends a local school in France, I have to take a more active role with the US college search since his school has no guidance counselor and there are no college road shows in the vicinity. I find myself reliant on word of mouth and written sources : guidebooks, blogs ,, newspaper articles, books /websites & advice and have invested the better part of son's junior year compiling information for the college search.
I ordered this book after reading a reference on a college admissions blog. I finished it during a train ride - and found it so riveting that I missed my stop.
Based on the title, I had expected to find just tips for affording college education but was pleasantly surprised by the author's insistence on quality -how to get your money's worth. So often the writers authoring these books report from the hallowed halls of academia. This author is a parent - and bases her experience as a mother of a college freshman while wearing her financial reporter thinking cap. How many college admission books are written from this point of view?
One innovation is that the book reverses the criteria for the college search by starting with match schools , not reach, where the student has more chance of obtaining scholarship money. The bottom up approach also instructs on how to find the best fit academically with several chapters on grading academic departments and discussions on professor ratings. Not stopping with the college admissions process, she addresses another under looked category - undergraduate research. And thanks to the author's chapter on freebies & best buys, I have added another school to the list.
The book closes with a list of informational websites, helpful cheat sheets and timelines in the appendix.
The author has packed an enormous amount of information here but has addressed the most salient points in a practical college admissions and quality education search. I could have saved a considerable amount of time and money had I read this book first and feel more empowered now for the final year of the search.

I am a college counselor at a large, racially diverse, urban high school. I am going to recommend "The College Solution" to my student's parents beginning at Freshman orientation. There is so much useful information contained within the book's pages,of which most lay people are not aware. It is also time to look away from US News and World Report rankings. There are many other ways to search for colleges, and Ms. Lynn Shaughnessy points out many!! There is also great advice, and strategies for maximizing financial aid.
Kudos to you , Ms. Shaughnessy for condensing everything a parent needs to know between two bookcovers.

Sharon Drell
College Counselor
Cleveland HS
Reseda. CA 91335

This is a most helpful guide. As we make college videos, I was particularly interested in what you had to say in chapter 36, Visiting Campuses. You made two excellent points: one is usually wrong in newspaper articles and the other is almost never mentioned. First, I hate being told that summer is a great time to visit the colleges. Yes, the students may be off from school, but small colleges are deserted and even the large state universities have only limited students on campus. The campus itself, however, will look better than at any time during the academic year.
Very important too is the need to have the college build a file on the student. The best way is to visit the college itself. It shows real interest. Admissions counselors say that all things being equal, a "stealth" candidate (one where the college first learns about your interest when the application arrives) has a lower chance of acceptance than one who has shown previous contact with the college. You are a realist in saying that because of financial and time consideration, an actual visit may not be possible, and you urge your readers to show their early interest "through a request for literature, a call to the financial aid office, or a conversation during a college fair." That advice alone could justify the cost of the book.

As a college counselor, I really appreciate the concise, no-nonsense information contained in The College Solution. Ms. O'Shaughnessy's practical advice will let you breathe a bit easier as you work your way through the process. I originally picked up the book to use as a resource for the financial info, read it straight through in a day and have anointed it the single most useful book I have read on college admissions in general. I highly recommend it to other counselors, as well as students and their families.

In these rocky times for real estate investors it's getting harder to sell houses. This is an excellent book that explains how the seller financing procedure works. It is the most complete book on the subject that I have ever read. If you are a real estate investor and you rehab houses or lease option, this is a must read.

Don't bother taking Russ Dalbey's course. Read this book,call Eddy to create the note he'll buy then go fishing.

Eddie Speed quotes the seasoned Texas banker who said, "The best time to worry about a loan is before you make it." Then he details how to do so. As a note broker, I can recommend this book to anyone considering seller financing. Whether you plan to collect payments for 30 years or you want to sell your note at some time in the future, this book will help you create a note that is more likely to be an asset you can sell instead of a life time headache. This book is a guide for the creation of the note and a reference for managing it. It even has helpful ideas for what to do when things go wrong during the life of the note. This book proves that good things come in small packages. Every note holder should keep it handy. I plan to.

If you are interested in seller financing, this is the book you must have. As a practicing attorney for 30+ years, specializing in real estate, I thought I knew it all but I even learned some things from Mr. Speed's book. He speaks to the issues facing seller financing in a way that is easy to understand and follow with real world solutions. This is a tough area with many dangerous curves but Streetwise Seller Financing addresses each issue providing valuable tips to assist the seller. I found the book to be of more help then many of the legal books due to the fact that Mr. Speed does not give you theory but just important facts on the correct way. I have dealt with many lenders in my years of law practice that could have used this book.

I've done private financing using seller notes for over 20 years. In this field, knowledge and integrity are of extreme importance. This book provides all the knowledge that any note seller will ever need, and more. We've always known this method of funding can quadruple the inquiries and double the qualified buyers, now the average seller knows how everything works. That's a hundred times better than being at the mercy of the institutional mortgage system as it now exists.

Jennifer Washburn's investigation inside U.S. universities is disturbing. She paints a portrait of colleges that have forgotten their primary mission and societal role. That is upsetting enough for readers who cherish fond memories of free-thinking college days, but its implications reach far wider. She cites restraints on free inquiry and free speech that should alarm civil libertarians. Her reports of far-reaching attempts to generate profit through patents and technology transfers should concern businesspeople. The most perturbing element of Washburn's analysis covers how drug and medical trials have changed, as their control has shifted from the impartial hand of traditional science to the vested authority of pharmaceutical companies. She even implies that anyone using a drug developed in such trials is at risk. The issues in higher education are so sweeping that, at times, Washburn's treatment is more a foreboding sketch than a complete analysis. That aside, We recommend it to anyone interested in a well-articulated, strong point of view about higher education, or anyone who follows the issues involved in having a well-functioning civic society, including quality higher education.

This has to be one of the saddest books I've read in a while. It's beautifully ironic. This book comes along and laments of the conflicts of interests with the marriage of universities and business while I am learning to embrace that I can love to have money.

I graduated from the University of Southern California and had a sense that something was amiss in the university system. Back then, I saw a university that catered strongly to the football program and felt like I was getting the scraps. The football program brought in the money and with the latest successes some immeasurable advertising.

However, there was an uneasy truce of advancing education and earning money. A university gets all excited about a new corporate sponsor giving millions to a department. But what if the corporate sponsor stipulates that the money be spent on research for the advancement of the sponsor's own products? Or that any breakthroughs from the research would be considered the assets of the sponsor's? And what happens when a professor mentoring graduate students is an owner of a private company?

In the former scenario, the research would have a STRONG affinity toward saying something positive about the sponsor's product. What department would say something bad about their sponsor even if research says so? There's statistics that would be some bias. In the second scenario, the spirit of research/education in a university environment is stymied and looks more like competing departments in a business or competing businesses. Instead of open sharing of ideas at the local coffeehouse, students are making fake notes to disguise their research from each other. In the final scenario, we may have a professor who only supports a thesis that supports his stock portfolio.

I recommend the book for anyone who is in the process of higher education or thinking of going in that direction. It could turn your head. There's a whole lot of research and data in this book that began to numb my brain. I give the book 4 stars because it was difficult to read - perhaps more because of the revelation of the corruption of higher education. It will make a lot of you sick.

Jennifer Washburn has written the most important book about the impact of corporate culture on higher education since Thorstein Veblen's 1918 classic,The Higher Learning in America. Over the past quarter-century, Washburn shows, our leading universities have quietly allowed themselves to be transformed into "patent factories" generating income for the campuses and their corporate backers. The ability of faculty to produce basic knowledge has been compromised by the competitiveness, secrecy, and profit-seeking that characterize private sector (as opposed to traditional academic) research. Because they are less lucrative than the patent-generating disciplines, the social sciences and humanities have been downgraded. Emphasis on teaching, which is expensive and unrelated to patentable research, has diminished. Conflict of interest has run rampant. Washburn devoted the better part of a decade to research for this book, which is a model of investigative journalism. Indeed, I know of no more important study of the American university in print.
John Broesamle
Professor Emeritus of History
California State University, Northridge

A great book! It's a pointed critique of how universities have lost their way by involving themselves too closely with the business world. The author does a great job of weaving interviews, anecdotes, history, and economics together.

It reminds me of Fast Food Nation: with both books I had to stop reading several times along the way--not because I didn't enjoy it, but simply to keep from getting too angry. (A complement to the authors in both cases!) Although I was able to quit eating fast food altogether, I won't be able to give up my relationship with higher ed...

So I can only hope that students, parents, university administrators, scientists, government regulators and business executives read this book--and demand changes.

Over the past twenty years a flash flood of books has appeared which are critical of the intrusion of business models into the University. Washburn's book is striking the same vein - a cynic might sneer that the debate is beginning to have a 'burnt over' look to it. However, Washburn's book is unique in several respects. In the first instance it is very well written, well-paced, and the narrative fairly gallops along. Secondly, the examples of corporate contamination that she focuses on clearly illuminate the ambiguities that the University is prepared to live with, well at least the ambiguities that an Administration will live with. Moreover, Washburn identifies the tension between good old professor X receiving his state salary and good old entrepreneur professor X receiving huge sums of money from his privileged access to the social capital floating in the University environment. There are several very telling quotes from academics who believe it unwise to speak about their research too publicly lest a 'colleague' harness it to his or her own commercial enterprise. Thirdly, Washburn is balanced in her analysis. While acknowledging that corporatism can threaten many traditional values in the University, she is phelgmatic enough to acknowledge that some level of corporatism is both desirable and unavoidable (Roger Geiger in his book 'Knowledge and Money' refers to this nexus as the 'paradox of the marketplace'). The dilemma for Washburn and all who wish to espouse a both/and position on Business and the University, rather than an either/or position, is how to turn a seemingly sensible policy into a set of sensible procedures. Almost all books in this genre grudgingly accept the policy but few have ever laid out procedures to make it credible. Washburn goes some way towards closing the circle here (for instance, her proposal for an ammended Bayh-Dole Act and the setting up of specialist research contact points for industry). In conclusion then, Washburn's book is more grounded in the realities of the political economy than most. This is a debate that won't end soon. Every age has looked to the fruits of knowledge and discovery to oil the wheels of commercial progress. In the past much of this debate was hidden or disdained largely because participation in the University was for the elite - meaning those that had some money in their background. The opening of education and communication in the past thirty years however and the rapid growth of economies due to globalisation has created a new set of arguments to toss into the debate. Washburn's book is part of this new movement. A welcome breadth of fresh air.

the right book, at the right time, in the right place... dubai

This isnt a book for someone who wants to dabble in real estate investment. This is a book for big time investors (or people who want to be big time.) It is great if you're looking at large projects like apartment complexes, and it's well written.

Very interesting  book; very easy to read.
As a small real estate investor I found it very helpful in understanding many of the ins and outs of real estate and financing, especially on the scale i would like to grow to.

I read construction funding, prematurely perhaps, as one of my first ever real estate books - and I loved it! The book takes the reader through several once-real-life scenarios and explains the construction process step by step. I think that both ambitious beginners and more seasoned loan officers and developers would benefit from reading this book.

The third edition of Construction Funding by Nathan S. Collier et al is a remarkable demonstration of insight and expertise. Collier and colleagues provide an exceptionally lucid description and analysis of the process of real estate development that is accessible to non-experts while being authoritative at the same time. In addition to being an excellent text for students and others interested in careers in real estate development, this book serves as essential background for all those whose responsibilities include any part of the development process.