[bowsamic]

Yeah it seems to me like academia is dead in basically every sense. Not just internally as you describe but also in the culture. People just don’t value learning anymore, the romantic image is fading. And now there’s no distinction being academia and industry in the sense that even vocations need a degree now, most people have an experience of university that is far removed from traditional academia, again giving it a pure economic focus. We’ll see what happens but I do feel like the last 20 years has seen a steep decline in the cultural value of academia, and as you point out, a strong professionalising of academia