I completely agree, which is part of why I wonder if a reset is needed. The science and engineering produce the money in the economy, and the MBAs that flocked to universities in the last decades have started beancounting to only that stuff.
Humanities, despite my little crack at them, are unquestionably the heart and soul of the institutions/foundations of higher learning of the last 2000+ years.
The fact that the university system is being so thoroughly disrupted over the course of just 20-30 years is really appalling.
Let me double down with something: the heart of the value proposition for college to employers (well, before AI) was the stratification and demonstration of intellectual labor ability. Humanities may not have as many direct employment skills as some of the sciences do, but it still has a lot of value hiring a philo major from Yale versus a Sociology major from Arizona State University.
So the humanities needs to form new associations with the exclusivity, without their tuition revenues being siphoned off to vanity buildings, administrator/MBA salaries, etc.
If you can offer "good college" hiring value / eliteness of degree but at half cost tuition to the students, you would have a HUGE value proposition.
It's always taken a long time to build up the exclusivity. If one could "hack" an institute of higher learning quickly it would be a revolution.
Perhaps some well-connected elite guy with elite schools proposes to some admin doofus at the school a way to attach the institute to them and give them revenue (which is ALL they care about, have any of you seen all the satellite univerisities in Saudi Arabia???), dress it up as a "specialist think tank" or something.
Likely no way to grass roots build the reputation.
Humanities, despite my little crack at them, are unquestionably the heart and soul of the institutions/foundations of higher learning of the last 2000+ years.
The fact that the university system is being so thoroughly disrupted over the course of just 20-30 years is really appalling.
Let me double down with something: the heart of the value proposition for college to employers (well, before AI) was the stratification and demonstration of intellectual labor ability. Humanities may not have as many direct employment skills as some of the sciences do, but it still has a lot of value hiring a philo major from Yale versus a Sociology major from Arizona State University.
So the humanities needs to form new associations with the exclusivity, without their tuition revenues being siphoned off to vanity buildings, administrator/MBA salaries, etc.
If you can offer "good college" hiring value / eliteness of degree but at half cost tuition to the students, you would have a HUGE value proposition.
It's always taken a long time to build up the exclusivity. If one could "hack" an institute of higher learning quickly it would be a revolution.
Perhaps some well-connected elite guy with elite schools proposes to some admin doofus at the school a way to attach the institute to them and give them revenue (which is ALL they care about, have any of you seen all the satellite univerisities in Saudi Arabia???), dress it up as a "specialist think tank" or something.
Likely no way to grass roots build the reputation.