One can consider the above scenario to have been the paradigm or framework for our thinking and assumptions for decades. However, the paradigm has shifted. One can argue that some aspects of this change are positive and are prompting higher education institutions to be more analytical and accountable for public funds. No doubt this is true. The trick is to learn from business models without becoming a business, to uphold higher values and principles of academic freedom and the intellectual life from which the great ideas and scientific discoveries fueling our society today arose.
Universities look inefficient to most people.
Yet it is this seeming chaos of activity that in fact produces the critical mind. No one can deny that the general economy is in transition. To survive, corporations must adapt to these broad, even global, changes. Likewise, higher education is in transition and must adapt to a new economic and political reality in order to survive. Doing more with less is not hype or empty political rhetoric.