I started reading this and I am no where near finished, but I'll put in my two cents on the topic so far:

College doesn't entitle anyone to anything or provide a certain obligation to be filled. In other words, I hate to see there is an inference, not necessarily from the article but from what I've heard from others, that because people are graduating and not getting shit worth of their investment that college education as a whole is deteriorating. University only provides the means by which to learn certain things and it is up to the students to commit to the task of learning. It only allows for the opportunity for their consumers - students - to perhaps acquire knowledge that can potentially aid them when they try to provide for themselves in the future in whatever means that may be. A university is a business and it's product is providing knowledge - not job security, not job opportunity, not job stability, not higher salary. Nothing about this has changed from what it was. What HAS changed is the amount of people with degrees, the number of available jobs, and the number of potential candidates alongside globalization. This in turn affects the illusion of what a college degree can tangibly do for you but it doesn't change what a university used to do and what it does, and it's unfair to label the University as something because of unrealistic expectations that often placed upon it when students attend them. A University doesn't "train" people for anything.

Some things that does scare me are the submission of professors to the insolence of some students and the lack commitment on the University's upper management to allocate towards providing the opportunity of knowledge. In regards to professors dumbing their classes down for students, the students are usually the "idiot crew" that was mentioned and it's really sad to see potential that a class itself or a teacher has to offer in a course go to crap because they care more about the pass/fail ratio to their students, getting labeled as an asshole from failing an insolent student, or or other things generally not related to their ability to teach. That WILL destroy college in my opinion because it's affecting the core product/service provided.

I've seen so much money wasted on such senseless crap to market an illusive brand image that my University has embraced, and it's so far away from the reality of their service that it's disgusting. I asked a professor why my lab and lecture was switched so that the lab was actually the lecture and vise versa, and he told me that the University does it to artificially inflate the student-teacher ratio. My University decided not to expand the library because we didn't have the funding. They DID however, create a $7 million leisure pool for students and raise their fees to fund it. At this rate, we'll eventually see commercials of scantily-clad women and cleaned-up male underwear models advertising to come to 'University, where all your dreams and adventures come true!' Sort of like marketing a resort to Sandals, Jamaica.

I'll have to read more later though. I'm going to study. Go figure.