EIT?

  This morning I saw this article on News.com: Europe aims for its own MIT | CNET News.com. Now of course I was immediately annoyed by the title. Why take aim at the world's #2 tech school, why not shoot for #1? Then after reading the article, I realized that the EU does not mention MIT at all, so its inclusion in the title (though not the body) of the article is simply the ignorance of the article's author, Jo Best. Or maybe it's not ignorance, just typical lowest-common-denominator/pop-culture, i.e. MIT is to higher learning as McDonald's is to fine dining.
  Anyways, after reading the article, I couldn't help but be amazed that the EU would really entertain such a foolish idea. Do they think that the great American colleges are a product of government sponsorship? Obviously they have noticed that universities often work with private industries, but they don't do that because of some government commission "encouraging" then to do so. American universities are not run by some government commission. This is just another classic example of central planning vs. free enterprise, and we've all seen what wins out there.