George notes Jeff Sandefer’s scathing assessment of U.S. higher education. But what caught my eye is Sandefer’s full-throated prediction that the economics of higher education, as currently structured, will be its downfall:

Sandefer holds that the [academy’s] bureaucratic “pedagogy of arrogance” may soon collapse, much like the General Motors and even the former Soviet Union. Traditional universities are beginning to partner with for-profit companies to design and deliver “private label” education, using the prestige of their name brands to sell Internet courses designed by others. While in the short run this may boost enrollment and deliver degrees for a fraction of the $30,000 annual cost of a traditional university, in the long run it will cannibalize demand until there are few students left who are willing to pay to listen to tenured faculty lecture.
Sandefer sees the decline of traditional academia hastened by a coming disaggregation of traditional teaching into separate parts: curriculum design, delivery of tools and skills to the individual student, and coaching. He foresees a much more effective market-based system that helps students learn at a time, place, and pace of their own choosing.