Anthony Grafton on the Self-Destruction of KCL and British Higher Education

Here.  It's a brilliant exegesis of the toll short-term market thinking is taking on what used to be the greatest university system in the world.  (Thanks to Chris Fraser for the pointer.)

That universities at the level of King's College, London and the University of Sussex should succumb to such extraordinary stupidity is, as I've heard from many friends and readers in the U.K., very worrisome.  But it bears noting that, at least at this point, most of the major universities in Britain remain under control of the academics and scholars, not the brainless and gimmicky bureaucrats.  KCL and Sussex are outliers, and unless they reverse course, they are obviously destined to drop off the map of reputable research universities in the Anglophone world.   One reason to continue to draw attention to the misconduct by the bureaucratic elite at these institutions is to hammer home the consequences on the world stage of sacrificing scholarly values.