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At my university, the hierarchy was solidly packed with people who made 6-figure salaries (which was a boatload of money at the time) and yet it was never clear what most of these people actually did. From my observation, all I could tell was that they occasionally sat in offices, wrote pointless double-spaced memos to each other that few actually read, attended meetings and junkets, and organized rallies for more funding.

Each week I would collect a what was literally a ream of memos from the inbox of a student organization I was involved with. Most of these memos were from these underemployed people; single-sided-double-spaced nonsense that nobody ever read; usually verbose yet brainless politically correct nonsense like "it's wrong to discriminate against people". Duh. Meanwhile, at the beginning of most semesters, professors would apologize as we'd have to hand-copy the semester syllabus off a chalk board because their department didn't have enough money to make copies. Clearly, they did not have access to the vast array of freely running copiers in the administration wing.

At one point, a provost (to this day I still can't figure out what a "provost" actually does) took a position as an interim president of a neighboring university while keeping his position at mine. This caused a bit of a stir, but this individual assured all that his responsibilities at this other troubled institution would not interfere with his duties at ours.

Now, I do not have a problem with people making large sums of money (even in the "public" sector) if they are doing large sums of important work at a free-market-set level. If this guy was working 40+ hours a week doing important and complex things, then perhaps he did deserve his 6-figure salary. But since this individual had so much free time that he was able to accept the position as president of another institution, (a "troubled" one at that) then that suggests to me that we were not getting our money's worth out of this individual and he should have been fired, and perhaps even his position eliminated. Neither happened.

It is episodes like this that confirm what you suggest about academia being a scam. The only way to solve this problem is to de-fund it.

What I don't get is why anybody takes a Harvard degree seriously anymore.

Elizabeth Warren is just another poster child of someone who actually exemplifies the President's notion that If you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, 'Well, it must be 'cause I was just so smart.' There are a lot of smart people out there. 'It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.' Let me tell you something: If you've got a business, that--you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.

Our President wishes to confuse the real world with his insular academic experience and that of Elizabeth Warren. That is why he and people like Ms Warren are truly resentful of honestly successful people; because the honestly successful actually did earn what they have whereas the President and Ms Warren know that they did not. This is the damage that "Affirmative Action" does to the souls of the people it's supposed to help. It literally cheats them of owning their own success.

Awaiting the usual onslaught of negative votes by those who this offends, and yet will be unable to defend those votes...