FIRST, RECOGNIZE THAT YOU'RE IN THE SAME BUSINESS.

Matt "Dean Dad" Reed visits his son, who matriculated at the University of Virginia, and used his column to a number of purposes, including asking for resources.

I just wish we could direct some meaningful fraction of those resources to the state and community colleges that together educate the majority of college students. Every student deserves an experience that good. Community and state colleges work wonders on shoestrings, but could do far more with actual resources. And that wouldn’t just benefit the few.

I have been riffing on this phenomenon for years.  "[W]e contend that the way to compete is for the state flagships to spend some money on strengthening their faculties generally, and for the regional comprehensives and the mid-majors to strengthen programs that might already have a decent profile."

I've diagnosed the funding problem, repeatedly.

It took [Atlantic scribe George Packer] long enough to get to the point, which is that the U.S. News problem exists in part because the universities less favorably ranked have created academic gulags that do little to help young people seeking a way out of that dim world, all in the name of Access.

Shrinking enrollments and angry normals are real. Never mind that one of the functions of the community colleges and the regional comprehensives is to provide second chances, when the people running those institutions err too far on the side of admitting unprepared people and calling it access,  while attempting to emulate the Oberlins and Antiochs when it comes to wokeness, they're going to get called on it, and defunded.  Meanwhile, the U.S. News guides continue to sell well.