HIGHER EDUCATION'S GRIM DECADE OF DECLINE. The bottom ten lowlights, as seen from the Pope Center.

Whether academia will undergo the same sort of collapse that the housing market suffered remains to be seen. But higher education's Gilded Age is now over. When the Dow Jones Average fell below 7,000 in March of 2009, the private colleges' endowments no longer looked so big, and the schools became less eager to fund extraneous activities.

The down economy, which continues, is having even more impact on the public sector. State revenues have fallen dramatically, and their universities are being forced to pull in their belts in equally severe fashion. Mission creep will necessarily end, courses, programs, and even entire schools will be eliminated, and many universities will reduce enrollments.

The result should be leaner universities, more focused on primary goals.

If those primary goals are a restoration of academic integrity, with the responsibility for high school returning to the high schools, 'twould be a consummation devoutly to be wished.