Perhaps ... the system is the result of organizational dynamics and some basic rules that some exploit and others get exploited by.
Apparently you are missing the irony in such critical theory, post-structuralism, marxism, etc. having been so vigorously theorized that it's application was overlooked! The "system" here is quite late to blame itself and the brazen approach to doing so is a bit humurous.
Are you seeking to divide academia into smaller parts; innocent ones and guilty others? Where have we seen that before?
Face it, the entire system probably needs an overhaul but isn't governed by some sort of "evil overmind". Small regulatory or incentive-based changes or movements like unionization will probably cause the system to re-adjust.
I guess it's just textbook components of neo-liberalism: priorities which lead to bloated administration and marketing initiatives.
I agree unionizing is a good solution. One would think the experts would have acted sooner; that's all. The trajectory has been obvious for a very long time.
To clarify, the shoemaker's customers in your analogy (the students) have been wearing worse shoes for much longer.
There is a sense that liberal academics assume, which purports that they carry the torch of revolution or something like this. The notion, however, lives only in the academic professorial abstract and fails to materialize outside of it. This torch is an academic torch, not a proletariat torch, not a working class torch. This is a bourjois torch.
Does this refer to political attitudes typically associated with faculty?
academia
And this to decisions made by university administrators?
If so, then no, I don't expect one to apply to the other.
By academia I mean the whole thing.
The faculty has maintained these these acclaimed leftist views for many decades, sat back and drank Kool-Aid while the administration took on the bloat. They were too busy climbing the ladder and forgot to critique it; no better than than the rest of the average neo-liberals.
Student debt swallowed at least 2 generations whole while the faculty did nothing. They didn't have to. But, they'll be the first to commend a proletariat revolution which remains a safe enough distance from their job. I cannot help notice the hypocrisy here.