If State Universities End Their Pursuit of Prestige

From over at Marginal Revolution

Steven Pearlstein wrote an article in the Washington post: Four tough things universities should do to rein in costs

He list following items:

Cap administrative costs

Operate year-round, five days a week

More teaching, less (mediocre) research

Cheaper, better general education

I think that the why of this is that University management is to intererested in raising the prestige of the University.  

In most fields there is not a shortage of PHD's and little of the Universities' prestige comes from its professors. So if they quit you replace them, if they go to other Universities you could get the experienced professors that they replace. 

I think that the state schools being subsidized already should ignore loss of prestige to some fairly low level and educate more students at lower cost. To be concrete target 20% increase in enrollment and 50% of the current per student cost. I think if you forgo prestige it could be done.