Education as Doorbreaker

Tyler Cowen goes ballistic over Jonathan Kozol. Kozol says (in the August Harper's):

[W]e may soon wake up to find that they have been replaced by wholly owned subsidiaries of McDonald's, Burger King, and Wal-Mart.

Tyler responds (link):

Note that while there are some good (though in my view not decisive) arguments against vouchers, Kozol instead focuses on reminding us that corporations are greedy profit-maximizers. Nor does he mention that in America's inner cities, "democratic access" to good french fries far exceeds democratic access to good schools. And might not Louis Vuitton join Wal-Mart in educating some of our children?

I don’t think I’m up to the task of translating this response into English (is Tyler denying that corporations are greedy profit maximizers? Or is he admitting it and saying he likes it that way?). My particular purpose is to note a marketing point that has hitherto eluded me (but not, I suspect, the folks at McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wal-Mart).

That is: why would any self-regarding entrepreneur want to run a school, anyway? The process of education itself has never looked like a source of easy profits—a lot of investment for deferred on dodgy returns. But the related business—textbooks and computers, maybe, but also mass market fashion and, yes, hamburgers. Education as a doorbreaker: a loss leader to bring the customer to the real goodies. Now, that is a marketing opportunity.