Geriatric Education Centers (GECs), as funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration, promote interdisciplinary geriatric education and training for more than 35 health-professions disciplines including medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, and social work. GECs are charged with becoming self-sustaining beyond the period of their funding. Sustainability in this application means that a GEC can fund itself through the generation of multiple revenue sources. This study seeks to explore changes in the structure, activities, and relationships of GECs over time in their pursuit of sustainability, and hypothesizes that GECs have shifted from the old economy, or the public good knowledge regime, to the new economy, or the academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime, and from the manufacturing to the networking economy. The theoretical framework of academic capitalism and the knowledge/learning regime will be used as a lens in this qualitative multiple case study.

Sources included structured, in-depth, on-site interviews and observations, as well as documentary and virtual (website) evidence. While GECs are engaging in market-like behaviors, creating markets and circuits of knowledge, developing interstitial and intermediary organizations, and expanding managerial capacity, they have been unable to connect with related markets, as these markets lack a profit motive, and have ultimately been unsuccessful in their pursuit of sustainability. Continued federal funding for GECs is justified based on the public good argument that without public encouragement, these services would not be provided by the private sector. The study concludes with recommendations to enhance opportunity structures for GECs.