Goodbye, flagship, and take elitism too

Chris Rickert:

My wife and I decided long ago that we have no intention of trying to bankroll the traditional college experience for our children.
With tuition increases far outpacing inflation, I figure four years of college for each of my three kids would cost in the neighborhood of $300,000, and this journalist and his social worker wife would never be able to afford that.
So when UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin says she wants her university to set sail from the constraints of the UW System, I say bon voyage!
Respected public universities such as UW-Madison increasingly have sought status and brand-recognition as they prey on that bizarre middle-class American fetish for higher education that assumes a student’s choice of college is possibly the most important choice of his life.