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Here�����Ƶ�s my assessment:

Plagiarism has been around as long as research scholarship, which might be a couple of millennia or more. It will never go away, but careful checking (now employing computers) can �����Ƶ� and has �����Ƶ� kept it under control.

Violent activism is also an old problem. Free speech on campus may change public perceptions and help avoid authoritarian government. It is thus very important. Waves of activism will come and go.

Artificial intelligence can write high-quality essays but may also be used to identify AI-enhanced essays. If a student cannot read his essay in class because he cannot pronounce or define some words, AI is the likely culprit. One obvious remedy: short essay exams in which students are not allowed internet access; close proctoring would be required.

A true liberal arts education should improve a student�����Ƶ�s insight into the world and the student�����Ƶ�s place in it. One�����Ƶ�s ability to perceive and then solve or manage complex problems should rise to a higher level, resulting in a more meaningful life.

By using the internet, prospective students and their parents (i.e. consumers) can get a clear picture of any university. Transportation from school to home and back is easier now. Cost differentials for in-state versus out-of-state students are lower and for talented scholarship students may be zero.

The first three items on the list are real problems but they can be �����Ƶ� and, in the past, have been �����Ƶ� managed. The last item on the list is, on the net, not a problem but a benefit. But, now, to get to the nub of today�����Ƶ�s malaise; we must consider problem number four: losing sight of the true purpose of higher education.

Educator W.E.B. DuBois has said, �����Ƶ�The object of all true education is not to make men carpenters. It is to make carpenters men.�����Ƶ� Ignoring what many would now call sexism, DuBois puts his finger on the essence of problem number four. A big, big problem.

In the past virtually everyone saw true education as an elite activity; almost everyone acknowledged well-expressed original thinking as a sign of a superior person. Scholarship might be publicly acknowledged by the award of a professorship, or it might be initially ignored. Autodidacts such as Karl Marx or Eric Hoffer might have received acclaim only posthumously. Socrates might be murdered because he flouted society�����Ƶ�s mores. But whether in physics, politics or philosophy, a seeker of truth was considered an admirable figure.

But now �����Ƶ� not so much. If carpentry or, perhaps, pipefitting, pays as much as an English professor, why (so the thinking goes) waste time and money to acquire a bachelor�����Ƶ�s degree?

Locally we can see this philosophical chasm in the differences between Marshall University and West Virginia University, with the former emphasizing the (perhaps low-paying) arts and the latter morphing into a glorified trade school. Kudos to Brad Smith; brickbats to Gordon Gee.

DuBois was right; current �����Ƶ�practical�����Ƶ� educational thinking is wrong.