The university has traditionally been supposed to be the autonomous community of professors and students in pursuit of knowledge. This tradition had been secured with the indoctrination of the right of self-rule and the financial support of the church and state to the community in the medieval age. The foundation of the University of Berlin by Wilhelm von Humboldt in the early 19th century established the notion of the university as the institution of pure scientific research in addition to the medieval tradition. The University of Berlin has functioned as a role model in the construction of university missions throughout the world. However, since the late 20th century American corporate universities have deteriorated the university mission for the interest of business corporations. This paper examines the emergence and functions of American corporate universities. The unique tradition of American private universities renders the university vulnerable to the interests of business corporations. The governing body of American universities has had to manage the institution economically, efficiently, and profitably with the limits of public financial support. Thereby, American universities have been transformed into business corporations in that economy, efficiency, and profit-making are what capitalistic corporations pursue for. Recently, for-profit universities such as the University of Phoenix and corporate universities per se, the employee-training institutions in corporations such as the Hamburger university of McDonald's are joining corporatized higher education in the United States. The prosperity of corporate universities in the United States threatens the traditional university and its mission of knowledge pursuit. With the superpower influence of the United States in the contemporary world, the corporate management style of American universities is being instilled in the universities in the rest of the world. As a consequence, humanities in the university are in decline in most universities. However, prestigious private universities and liberal arts colleges in the United States still maintain humanities programs for the interests of the privileged class in the United States. Humanities are now privatized by prestigious rich elites in the American society and thereby function to maintain the status quo for them. The mission of humanities and the university is in ruins.