And if a university is about education, it shouldn't conduct itself like a multi-national corporation. There are problems, of course. A substantial amount of the teaching is now done by grossly exploited graduate assistants or temporary instructors. Public financing has not kept up, and scientists cannot feed so easily at the federal trough now that the Cold War is over. The cost of higher education has been increasing rapidly, particularly in research institutions, where equipment and labs absorb millions in the competitive chase to produce cutting-edge research.
Universities now operate in a much more Darwinian world, where the fit survive and others flounder.
Tenure is under threat, bothersome rankings and performance indicators are becoming common, and new university structures are arising to provide professional qualifications at very low cost. But nothing is going on here that has not already gone on in government and business. A dose of private-sector logic will surely help. Internal resentments and resistance abound, of course. It is on this last point that much of Bill Readings's challenging book turns, setting The University in Ruins interestingly apart from comparable writings in recent years.