Industry should/should not have more say in the taught curriculum?

My view is that industry should have more say.  In fact, I would like universities to move to a model where the majority of courses were sponsored by businesses and free at the point of delivery.  In theory, the more useful a course was, the more businesses would be willing to sponsor students.  That ought to mean both that there ought to be a better match between the number of jobs and the number of graduates, and that universities would adapt courses to be more appealing to potential sponsors / employers.



While I think this idea would definitely benefit STEM subjects, I can see people being concerned that this would be detrimental for less "useful" subjects like fine arts.  Hopefully, there would still be institutions to sponsor these degrees (galleries, museums, design houses, etc.) but in lesser numbers.



I see sponsorship as the main funding mechanism, but would also expect courses to be available on a payment basis for those who wished to self-finance.