Italy’s center-left minister of universities and research, Fabio Mussi, has called for big changes in his nation’s higher-education system, characterizing the present governance system as a “big bordello,” with loose accreditation standards.

Mussi’s solution, in light also of his criticism of low salaries for university staff members? According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, a request to more than double government funding for institutions that receive public funds.

Mussi also proposes an independent agency to assess faculty hiring and the distribution of research funds. Such an agency, he maintains, would reward merit in a system rife with cronyism and institutional inbreeding (Francis X. Rocca, “Italy’s Higher-Education Minister Calls for Major Changes in University Governance,” September 21).

The dynamic of the debate about government-provided higher education seems interchangeable in the West: faults, and yet more faults, acknowledged; and more funding, and yet more funding, demanded.