Scott Carlson, in a [*Chronicle* piece [paywalled]](https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Oddsmakers-of-the-College/247947) on a new book, [*The College Stress Test*](https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/college-stress-test):
> And what’s wrong with higher education, Zemsky and his co-authors write, should be clear to any longtime observer of the sector: The elite, wealthy institutions are getting bigger and richer in this "winner’s market," while underendowed colleges, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest, toil to consistently attract and retain classes of students that can cover their costs.
That's true, the [winner-take-all dynamic](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/329317/the-winner-take-all-society-by-robert-frank/) that's making an already stratified U.S. higher ed system even more so. The next sentence is nutty, though:
> Necessary innovations — like overhauling the general-education curriculum and setting up more relevant, interdisciplinary majors — are difficult to pull off because of intractable faculty members and skittish administrators, Zemsky says.
Second- and third-tier schools have been falling all over themselves to overhaul gen ed and create "more relevant" majors—neither of which have anything to do with the structural problems around enrollment, demographics, and the widening institutional wealth gap.