The problems in higher education run very deep, and it's risky to engage in caricature. Higher education isn't uniform across states, regions, or levels of selectivity. The core problem is money vs. resources. Human resources are undervalued, and faculty who are neither stars nor professors at top-tier institutions shoulder course loads and class sizes that make excellent teaching difficult. Money is funneled to non-academic purposes, while more and more adjuncts are hired and ill-used. Some students are ill-prepared and, in Humanities areas, resistant to learning since intellectual flexibility, argumentative skills, and respect for the written word are in short supply across the culture, even among well-intentioned people.
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