The Empiricist

American private universities rely heavily on endowments. The New York Review of Books reports that the financial crisis has carved a swathe through their assets. The article is very pessimistic, mostly because universities will no longer be able to subsidise poor students.
However, this has to be good in the long run.
A dose of some “market forces medicine” could force universities to drop or cut back on courses that offer no value, to trim fat from bloated and corrupt administrations, and generally reshape the landscape to one that is more in touch with the needs of modern students.

Australia has a mostly state-run university system, preventing the same kind of fall-out. This has pros and cons. On the one hand, they’re less susceptible to market turmoil, but on the other, they’re more vulnerable to budget cuts. Another downside is that the cleansing effect of the financial crisis won’t happen in the Australian tertiary sector.