Will Higher Education Ever Change as It Should?

Writing in the Chronicle, Robert Zemsky muses about the potential for radical transformation of American higher education. Could any group of appropriate actors ever get together and work out something, systemwide, that would effective change everything? He posits three potential "dislodging events" which might be the kind of things that would motivate enough stakeholders. One possibility: "A simple rule could differentiate the strictly commercial from the educational: All dividends, interest, rents, and realized capital gains would be taxed at current rates, but the money owed the IRS would be reduced by the amount of cash an institution withdrew from its endowment to support educational and research programs. In years when the money spent exceeded the growth in the value of the endowment, a credit would be awarded to offset future taxes."