PZ: These students refuse to learn.
WM: They do not share your views on the value of learning.
PZ: But they are in school, so they are on the turf of learning. They should play by house rules.
WM: Not necessarily.
PZ: So the house rules no longer emphasize the value of learning?
WM: …
Is our transformation then complete? I wondered. It was explained to me about eight years ago: undergraduates were to be taught by instructors and the content of their degrees did not matter. Professors would produce research items, ideally with profitable applications, and would train graduate students to produce additional such items. I did not believe it then but I am beginning to believe it now.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
It does sound similar to what is being allowed to happen in Australian government schools these days. Apparently, your university has no need for your undergraduates — except as fee payers — and we have no need for an educated proletariat — except for those who are truly “deserving” and take the private school route.
I sometimes think that academia is one of the most class- and status-conscious areas in existence. “You do the work–we collect the profits”–sound familiar?
One of my colleagues was on Graduate Council – a body which oversees the Graduate School – a few years ago and had a big argument with them, and lost. Apparently a corporation was funding some of its employees to do PhD’s in a technical field and their research was considered property of the company, and secret, so that the dissertations had to be signed off on but not fully read, since they contained trade secrets. I do not know the truth of this, but it is how it was explained to me and it is tenebrous.
And yes, it seems that “truly deserving” undergraduates will have to take the private school route. I used to dislike the atmosphere of private schools but now that public universities are being so heavily overtaken by corporations I am starting to revise my opinion (but not too seriously … yet).