The Looming Decline of the Public Research University
Think of this article as describing the canary in the coal mine.  The effect it describes is absolutely real.  Universities in the US are facing serious issues.<p>The university system in the US is the envy of the world right now.  But US universities are degrading on several fronts, some internal (rising tuition which drives out smart students from less well off families, most evident now in law schools) and some external (cuts in government funding, most evident in Wisconsin GOP donor attacks on universities and public education more generally[1].)<p>There are some posts below from students who say they don&#x27;t see much going wrong.  Yes, they don&#x27;t see much going wrong <i>yet</i>.  But the underpinnings of universities are being eroded.<p>Research funding is harder to get.  NIH and NSF budgets are down 20-30% in real dollars in the past two decades.  Meanwhile schools are expanding and hiring more faculty and staff that are supposed to obtain their salaries from NIH and NSF.  At the same time the long-held commitment to educating the best students is fading [2].<p>[1] &quot;Hacked records show Bradley Foundation taking its conservative Wisconsin model national&quot; 
 <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;projects.jsonline.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2017&#x2F;5&#x2F;5&#x2F;hacked-records-show-bradley-foundation-taking-wisconsin-model-national.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;projects.jsonline.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2017&#x2F;5&#x2F;5&#x2F;hacked-records-s...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;opinions&#x2F;book-review-failing-law-schools-by-brian-z-tamanaha&#x2F;2012&#x2F;08&#x2F;03&#x2F;e7054c9c-c6df-11e1-916d-a4bc61efcad8_story.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;opinions&#x2F;book-review-failing-...</a>
&quot;If you think those claims sting, consider Tamanaha’s argument that law school effectively transfers money from students to relatively well-to-do professors, via student-loan debt — much of which is ultimately guaranteed by federal taxpayers who are generally not as well-off as the typical law professor.<p>Law school faculties are also bastions of liberal politics, and this irony is not lost on Tamanaha, who accuses the professoriate of not only enriching itself but also erecting de facto barriers to upward social mobility and true public-service law practice, all in the name of “academic freedom” and other abstractions.&quot;