I doubt I can get comrades Rudy and Smith to agree about higher education. But here is something I wrote that Inside Higher Education published: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/05/28/yates
This essay is taken from my book, In and Out of the Working Class. In this book, I have many things to say about how colleges are run. I say this lest some criticize me, as they have in the past, of being condescending to students or blaming them for what is wrong with academe. I was a most gracious and understanding teacher! But I did enjoy my Vietnam veterans, first-generation working class, and displaced steelworker students from Johnstown much more than the kids from the Pittsburgh suburbs.
And Alan, my college was below third tier! And Michael, one of my biggest academic thrills was studying calculus. I did have a classmate who conversed with our history instructor in Latin.