you speak as if it has to be either or.. from the inside looking out, I can say its both. To deny that the modern (US) university is driven by customer satisfac

you speak as if it has to be either or.. from the inside looking out, I can say its both. To deny that the modern (US) university is driven by customer satisfaction and B-school world views is hard to defend if you know how universities function. To say that the financial aid market and sheer number of mediocre Unis teaching mediocre students doesn't perpetuate the institution is also going to be hard to defend. But they are not independent and certainly not contradictory. If there was no demand, there would be no market.. and what the demand is for is not education but a diploma. And the larger markets insist of college degrees for the most mediocre of jobs, and have off-loaded training to be subsidized, ultimately by the students getting a degree (and then complain because they are not being 'taught' skills necessary for the workplace).