OPPORTUNITY COSTS. Critical Mass comments on the revealed preference of university administrators. "There are hiring freezes and cancelled classes, tuition hikes and staff layoffs--but the ideological work of the campus diversity missionaries cannot be curtailed."

What will the upshot be? Apt. 11D sees Doomsday. "State universities have suffered from cutbacks from the states due to the budget crisis. Unable or unwilling to cut in other areas, these schools are cutting classes.

"Students can’t complete their majors because the courses aren’t offered or are closed up too quickly. And because students have to work many hours to pay off high college tuition, they can’t always sign up for the one class offered. They might be working the dish room at the dining hall when the only Intro to Stats class is being given.

"What is going on here? Even with higher tuition, colleges are struggling. Where is all the money going? Certainly not to adjuncts and junior faculty. One student in my fall class will pay my salary two times over."

Where is it going? According to 11D, "I’m going to make a Jules Verne prediction for the future. In the next 10 to 15 years, many of the mid-level colleges are going close and reopen as cyber schools. The University of Phoenix has been very successful at it." (hat tip: Invisible Adjunct.)

Perhaps, but the University of Phoenix has precious few assessors of the obvious, operators of diversity boondoggles, counselors of the unprepared, and form fiddlers. A shift along such Vernian lines is going to require more than one Nautilus holing the frigates of the Academic Establishment.