Right. This was the case many years ago (at least in the US) but now universities are essentially for profit corporations run by MBAs who care nothing for the m

Right. This was the case many years ago (at least in the US) but now universities are essentially for profit corporations run by MBAs who care nothing for the mission of the institution, overloaded with administrative parasites who latch on to any profitable industry and spit platitudes about 'education' and then turn around and stab it in the back. There has been a massive shift in governance of universities; if you go to any university you will see the faculty (read: the people who actually do the work of the university and are public intellectuals) have almost zero power, a token appointment or two in the puppet university governing body, not the board which makes the real decisions. This is happening for a number of reasons, partially because the short-term corporate profit agenda has infiltrated every industry no matter how noble (see: health care. Accountants decide what treatment you get, not a doctor. Businesspeople decide which doctors and nurses are doing a good job based on profits and cost-cutting, not a standard of care), which is really a result of a cut in funding. It's essentially a result of a shift in culture; towards a culture indoctrinated into the religion of economics, valuing things only for their potential profit, using economic measures even when (especially when) they are inappropriate. Defunding art, education, health care, infrastructure, safety nets, anything with intangible or even long-term tangible value in favor of things which show up in short-term metrics. It's especially prevalent among youth. Ask a college kid what's important to him; he'll say making money, period point blank. Everything else is secondary, if it even exists. Our world is a lot more cutt-throat than it was even 50 years ago, when intellectuals and professionals were respected, and there was a healthy middle class, not a quickly disappearing one, full of people trying to tread water in it or claw their way out by tooth and nail before being "middle class" means no more than barely eking out an existence for the short years you're healthy to work at maximum productivity, but only with the permission of a high ranking member of the owning class (i.e. a 'job').