Are Universities Doomed? By Victor Davis Hanson

[mystery-ak]

Are Universities Doomed?
Elite university degrees certify very little. And the secret is out. 
By Victor Davis Hanson
December 21, 2022

In a famous exchange in the The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway wrote: “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.”

“Gradually” and “suddenly” applies to higher education’s implosion. 

During the 1990s “culture wars” universities were warned that their chronic tuition hikes above the rate of inflation were unsustainable. 

Their growing manipulation of blanket federal student loan guarantees, and part-time faculty and graduate teaching assistants always was suicidal. 

Left-wing indoctrination, administrative bloat, obsessions with racial preferences, arcane, jargon-filled research, and campus-wide intolerance of diverse thought short-changed students, further alienated the public—and often enraged alumni.

Over the last 30 years, enrollments in the humanities and history crashed. So did tenure-track faculty positions. Some $1.7 trillion in federally backed student loans have only greenlighted inflated tuition—and masked the contagion of political indoctrination and watered-down courses. 

 But “gradually” imploding has now become “suddenly.” Zoom courses, a declining pool of students, and soaring costs all prompt the public to question the college experience altogether. 

more
https://amgreatness.com/2022/12/21/are-universities-doomed/

[Free Vulcan]

In short - yes.

Which offers an excellent opportunity for conservatives at the state level to control the coming cutbacks by refusing to fund any major that doesn't have real world prospects at finding a private sector job.

Not holding my breath that they will take advantage of it.

[mountaineer]

... At Yale University, administrative positions have soared over 150 percent in the last two decades. But the number of professors increased by just 10 percent. In a new low/high, Stanford recently enrolled 16,937 undergraduate and graduate students, but lists 15,750 administrative staff—in near one-to-one fashion.  ...

Stanford’s published 2025 class profile claims a student body of “23 percent white.” Fewer than half of the class is male. Stanford mysteriously does not release the numbers of those successfully admitted without SAT tests—but recently conceded it rejects about 70 percent of those with perfect SAT scores.

In fact, universities are quietly junking test score requirements. Ironically, these time-honored standardized tests were originally designed to offer those from underprivileged backgrounds, or less competitive high schools, a meritocratic pathway into elite schools.  ...

No grades, no entrance exams. Do we want these children becoming our surgeons, civil engineers, and the like? Wear a hard hat, or something.

[Bigun]

Are Universities Doomed?

I don't know, but they damned well should be IMHO. At least the publicly funded ones!