I agree with what you’re saying. I think that research labs creating spin-offs for their discoveries is the way to go. It helps separate the drive for business profits from education.

Ideally the academic institution (colleges, universities) should go beyond profit, and exist as a place to promote learning and discovery for that intrinsic purpose. The fact is that scientific discovery needs funding, which is assigned based on the approval of grant boards, so a relatively small number of people can have a large affect on the type of science which is studied in the US.

With less funding going to US colleges and universities from the government, those learning institutions have to profitize or monitize their departments to maintain their educational resources. Otherwise they have to raise tuition rates and fewer students are able to attend and earn degrees.

Now creating spin-off companies from research departments is an ideal solution. It allows a profitable outlet for successful discoveries and boosts the local State economy. To serve this end, I think there needs to be a large integration of business classes in engineering degree programs so scientists are made aware of those opportunities. Silicon Valley is good example of success. On the other hand, there are states like Michigan, with very good universities like Michigan State and University of Michigan, but the overall state economy is in a decline.

For example, lets say that an engineering professor invents a device that can reduce the pollution of coal powered plants by 80%. One strategy could be to maximize the potential profits from this invention. Another might be to maximize the benefit to society. I do not think that if the choice is made to sacrifice profit to benefit society the success of the invention should be seen as lower than if profit were maximized.

Some more on my thoughts on this idea can be found in:

http://engineering.curiouscatblog.net/2006/07/01/the-future-is-engineering/
http://engineering.curiouscatblog.net/2006/09/17/engineering-the-future-economy/
http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2005/08/16/purpose-of-an-organization/
http://engineering.curiouscatblog.net/2007/02/07/educational-institutions-economic-impact/

Another example is that if a professor were doing more basic research that then allowed others to create businesses that commercialize these efforts that is valuable. It is even more valuable to the university (and state, country…) if those benefits can be concentrated locally. And in general, this is true (location matters) – you can see the advantages areas with great research universities have for creating businesses related to that research (Silicon Valley, Boston…).