The New York Times today published yet another contribution to the “evil colleges are dens of iniquity filled with heartless evildoers” genre. This time, colleges are blamed for pushing students into expensive meal plans and then sneakily using some of the funds for academic programs. Of course, the article’s author doesn’t deign to explain the desperation of state colleges that are simply not getting any money from the state and are driven into collapse by a growing bureaucratic apparatus they are forced to maintain with God knows what money.
Of course, this is not solely the journalist’s fault. Readers are eager for fresh contributions to the anti-college genre and will lap up any bit of idiocy that tells them what they want to hear. The actual reason for this college-hatred is, in reality, the general public’s unease with the new reality where everybody will need at least one college degree in order to be even marginally employable. This reality is not going away no matter how much one rants about meal plans, elitist professors, manipulated rape stats, etc.