Today’s freshmen are more focused on the financial benefits of a college education than were their counterparts four decades ago. Freshmen now are also more racially and ethnically diverse, harbor higher expectations for the college experience, and are increasingly interested in pursuing graduate degrees.

“45 Years of Survey Data Show First-Year Students’ Financial Concerns Are on the Rise,” Libby Sander

Today brings another helpful  juxtaposition or a set of juxtapositions all set against research into student attitudes done by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at the University of California, Los Angles.  Students, this implies,  understand that education is both increasingly important and increasingly too expensive.  Interestingly, this interest in graduate programs is being met by shrinking Ph.D. programs (“Top Ph.D. Programs, Shrinking“).

It’s not surprising that the humanities are the weakest link in this chain. I suspect that many of these students would be far less concerned about their job prospects if they were not forced to go into so much debt.  I am also convinced that the so-called glut of Ph.D.’s, as Rosemary G. Feal, executive director of the MLA suggests, is less about demand and more about the dominance of adjunct and part-time positions in university employment.

Are we shaped by the market or do we shape the market? If we allow the market to dominate– letting the push of  indentured student debt and poorly paid teachers drive economic development– we get something like the current medical system. If we choose to shape the market to our own interests and desires, we could create an economy in which education is cheap and accessible and college teachers well paid and secure.

Juxtaposition is a wonderful thing and, sometimes, hints at something interesting. Here’s a set of fruitful contrasts. First is the story about the beleaguered U.I. president, Michael J. Hogan, confessing to what he calls a “communication shortfall” (“U. of Illinois President Acknowledges Communication Shortfall“). Among other things, these “shortfalls” may include asking his personal assistant, Lisa Troyer, to send faked anonymous emails “designed to sway a faculty governing body’s decisions on enrollment management.”

That’s seems a little beyond “communication problems.” Once the emails were discovered Troyer resigned and Hogan rewarded her for falling on her sword with a tenured faculty appointment. Meanwhile, over in the “Administration” section there’s a piece about proprietary school’s ongoing effort to buff up their image by changing their vocabulary (“By Any Other Name: For-Profit Colleges Watch Their Language“). Project Rose, as its called, is essentially a shift from corporate terms to traditional university terminology. It’s professional truthiness.

One helpful comment in the Hogan story points to a study called, “Narcissistic Leaders and Group Performance,” which suggests a link between an “arrogant and overly dominant” leader who’s perceived strengths actually result in communication problems.  Maybe. I’m thinking this is one of those “moral hazard” problems.  Hogan and his ilk know that there is no price on failure, beyond a temporary embarrassment. We’ll see how much he’s paid if he has to resign and who hires him next.