NEW YORK, NY – May 5 (DPI) – Readers of The Wall Street Journal last week had a largely unsympathetic message for America’s universities which, like everyone else, face a Covid-induced economic crisis.

More than 900 reader comments were attached to a lengthy report on the challenges facing higher education, and most of the comments focused on universities’ ivory-tower privilege and cloistered politics. Readers said the sheer number of institutions invited a contraction. As one popular post put it: “This is a herd much in need of thinning.”

Among the most popular comments:

Being a deplorable tradesman, with above median income, I recommend to all that will listen that there are other choices in life,  and alternatives to a college  degree. Yes we need doctors and scientist and so on. But people still need their homes, yards and appliances repaired. There are other choices. Maybe this will be a turning point in the public’s view of trade schools, and states will start to reinvest in our vocational systems.

It looks like all the leftist faculty are about to get an education on market economics, whether they want it or not.  This is a healthy thing.  Year after year, universities have been hiking tuition far over inflation, and without any thought of the financial impacts to families.  At the same time, their obsession with social justice has been prioritized over the fundamental mission of preparing kids for professional life. This is a herd in much need of thinning.

“Princeton University, one of the wealthiest in the country, with an endowment valued at $26 billion last year, announced a salary and hiring freeze.” That’s understandable: when you’re down to your last $26 billion, it’s time to start thinking about making touch choices.

The only ones I feel sorry for are the students who may be deprived of the experience of on-campus learning this Fall, and whose plans have been up-ended. I feel no remorse for the colleges, which have been living high on the hog, spending lavishly on new facilities and staff, while increasing tuition at a rate that far outpaced inflation, and made education unaffordable for all but the wealthiest and poorest families.  It’s time they had a dose of reality.