In a recent column at Real Clear Politics, Froma Harrop pointed out that big change is needed in higher ed.

Higher Ed Needs Major Disruption

There’s been much talk on the campaign trail about helping students pay for college and not enough about exactly what they’re buying. It’s ludicrous that student debt has passed $1 trillion and that nearly 20 percent of the undergraduates who borrowed for college are in default on their student loans.

Where is the money going? It’s going to multimillion-dollar pay packages for college presidents, country-club campus amenities and, increasingly, an expanding army of administrators tasked with micromanaging the drinking habits, sex lives and sensitivities of people who in any other American context would be considered adults.

Happily, there exists an alternative to four bankrupting years on campus. There’s almost no learning, be it liberal arts or STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), that can’t be had free — or close to it — online. MOOCs (massive open online courses) are perfectly suited to disrupt the campus model.

As suggested above, expense isn’t the only thing powering this revolution. It’s the sense that the people running the universities have lost their minds. Either that or they’ll say almost anything to get protesting students off their backs. (In doing so, they’re also softly egging the students on to say absurd things that could haunt them when prospective employers Google their names.)