I personally have also developed a more negative view of colleges and universities over the last decade, and my reason is simple: I increasingly find these institutions to be dishonest. A lot of the research coming out of them does not aim at truth, whether because it is politicized or for more venal reasons. The social justice messaging they wrap themselves in is often insincere. Their public accountings of the reasons for their internal actions are often implausible. They lie about the role that race plays in their admissions and hiring practices. And sometimes, especially at the graduate level, they confer degrees whose value they know will not justify the time and money that students invest to get them.
The most recent debacle at Harvard, in which large swathes of academia seem to have conveniently forgotten what the term “plagiarism” means so they don’t have to admit that Claudine Gay engaged in it, is only the latest example of the lying that is endemic on campus.