[dsr3]

"There is no doubt that in the US in a lot of universities graduate students are a cheap workforce that reinforces corporate interests through research that is funded by them to sway public opinion in certain directions."

Citation is needed for this subject. Large amount of research in University is funded by NSF or the Federal Government. While industrial interest also contribute significantly to research fund, it is excessive to accuses a lot of universities to be a crony in a corporate-academic-complex.

[urthor]

Industrial research contributes significantly?

It was my understanding the vast majority of research funding in the US was either from the NSF, DARPA or similar, or the University. Corporations are a single digit percentage, no?

[Fomite]

This will vary wildly based on university and field.