Naomi Schaefer Riley is the author of “The Faculty Lounges: And Other Reasons Why You Won’t Get the College Education You Pay For.”

We have been following the unionization process for the Northwestern University football team; she has as well. In the New York Post, she has the following analysis (hat-tip Instapundit).

…In other words, despite the fact that Division I athletes are making oodles of money for their schools, their interests are not being served by coaches or administrators. Athletes’ academics and future career prospects are being sacrificed for a few more points on the field.

But athletes are not alone. Regular students are also contributing to the university’s bottom line through tuition payments and the spigot of federal financial aid — yet their interests are not being served, either.

In exchange for their eye-popping tuition checks, students are getting a dizzying array of pointless classes that don’t prepare them for the real world. Colleges have gotten more and more esoteric in what they teach, more specialized to the point of being useless to anything but . . . academia.

As parents and students open those fat admissions envelopes from the colleges of their dreams this month, it is worth thinking about how far the reality of college life is from the ideal of a protective environment, run by people who want nothing more than to gently mold their children’s intellect and give them the best possible prospects for the future.

…[A]dministrators and faculty seem more interested in quantity than quality. The vastly increased number of different courses and majors — in 2012 there were more than 1,500 academic programs that students could choose for a major, up by more than a quarter from a decade earlier — makes it impossible for employers to distinguish among candidates.

For that matter, so does grade inflation. A recent study of 200 colleges and universities in the Teachers College Record found that more than 40 percent of all grades awarded were in the A range. Administrators may be making their customers happy in the short term, but grade inflation makes students ill prepared for the real world.

The best of the college athletes may go on to well-paying careers in the pros. And the best students (or the ones who have parents who can guide them) may end up with well-paying jobs that will allow them to repay their student loans.

But the message to every other student is clear: You’re on your own.