Not every great institute of higher learning needs a medical school, law school, and business school.

We need to revisit what is intended through the use of terms like "comprehensive."

We should focus on quality, not quantity.

Lastly, Academia needs to do a MUCH better job of getting the message out. It's time for Higher Ed to flex its muscles and truly represent itself as the last great American industry, while it is till is. Because right now, it is losing the PR battle. This is why some like AUTIX hold the views that they do in regards to the lack of competition in higher ed. That view is very, very, very false.

From my inside vantage, I stand in awe of how many great institutes of higher education have withstood political efforts to starve them.

Many people honestly have no real understanding of how important giant land/sea grant institutions are to their state economies and how necessary it is to cherish and preserve those that you have. After all, not every state has one. People have no real understanding of the influence that these schools have on the local economies and how they are magnets for businesses looking to relocate. Many have no real understanding of the technological advances that were created first on college campuses, before finding their way onto the private sector.

I'll give you an example of how poorly informed people are. For example, there is stiff competition among the big research programs. Very stiff. Competition for everything needed to survive in this current political landscape. Specifically, competition exists for faculty, grants, students, donations, publications ... everything.

For many (if not most) the only knowledge possessed of higher education is that which was learned as a student. Having been on both sides of the podium now ... I know that the student perspective is myopic and misleading.

That is why Higher Education needs to educate the general public about its function. Specifically, the large public research institutions (R1s for lack of a better descriptor) need to do more than just produce fluff commercials during football games. Schools need to lobby. I know that they already do that, but they need to do a better job and they need to deliver their message to the voting public. And they need to expose politicians who are motivated against them by for-profit schools that funnel money into the pockets of politicians.

The more the general public know about Academic life at the big power house schools ... the more it will be able to appreciate Academia's value and relate to the problems that institutions, their faculty, and their students must face. Most of which are self-inflicting wounds from the very states that they serve so well.