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I was deeply involved with an upstart college in the South 3 decades ago. The college president explained the business model that he and most modern institutions use.

The traditional way of thinking is that college-age students seek the educational services that colleges and universities provide based on the balance of the student's educational needs and ability to finance the experience. Correspondingly, the colleges offer areas of studies that match the student's needs at a competitive cost.

The reality is that students are just a pass-through for colleges. In addition to the typical SALLIE MAE student loans and PELL grants, there is an ocean of funding from public and private sources. Every industry offers scholarships to the children or close relatives of its members. Church groups, civic organizations, professional societies all offer funding for the progeny of their supporters.

The new business model identifies applicants that have the most access to this ocean of funding. Academic achievement or aptitude in the desired field of study is a distant second. Under the new business model. a students first visit is not to their academic advisor but to the financial aid office where trained bureaucrats identify all the potential sources of financing available and assist the student in filling out the forms needed to generate the checks that follow. The student never sees the cash rewards from the grants and scholarships. These go directly to the college in the form of tuition, room, board and fees.

Under this model, the student's value is tied directly to their ability to generate dollars for the college. Inasmuch as the college has time and money invested in attracting and signing the student to their “contract” with the institution, the goal now becomes keeping the student tied to the milking machine for as long as possible. Retention is king! Academic achievement and recognition is given in the same spirit that Don Rickles offered a cookie for good behavior. It is a sarcastic afterthought.

I think colleges and universities can be saved if the financing paradigm is flipped. If the colleges were required to be cosignatories to any loans, I think you would see lots of marginal colleges start offering courses with intrinsic value in no time at all. As a previous post correctly pointed out, some things need rigorous study: medicine, law, engineering and architecture to name a few. For the rest, a few hours spent in a good library will suffice. When colleges and universities are forced to confront this reality, change will follow.