HIGHER EDUCATION: A Bad Moon Rising? “Faculty members have never been known for being particularly Panglossian, but most of those interviewed noted that things now really do seem to be worse. While the current state of affairs is, in one sense, a reflection of the wider economic shocks that have hit other workers, many of the problems now surfacing pre-date the financial crisis. The erosion of status, stature, and prospects for a future that much resembles the past has occurred for complicated reasons, experts say, including long-term, systemic, external and ideological ones as well as more recent political and economic developments, and some self-inflicted wounds.”

Among the self-inflicted wounds: The conscious setting up of academia as an adversary to the larger society, something that makes the larger society less interested in footing the bill once it’s noticed that.