I'm a tenured professor who is almost certainly on my way out. Academics is a mess.
I don't think getting rid of tenure is the solution. Tenure is almost gone in practice if not on paper, and the effects of this have been detrimental. The current crisis of replicability is a side effect of this. Tenure is often for soft money positions one way or another: the university might guarantee you a position, but what that position looks like is a different issue. If anything tenure needs to be strengthened.
People get hung up on tenure when it's really irrelevant.
Top-heavy administration is a problem, but capping salaries isn't really the solution. What is required is self-governance, where administration is voted on by professors and staff, policies are voted on by professors and staff, etc. Basically, things need to be more democratic.
I also think research funding and public financing is to blame. Basically more state financing has to occur, or more reliable federal funding needs to happen. Grants are underfunding things, and are too unreliable and fickle.
Finally, none of this will change until employers in the private sector change and stop mindlessly demanding degrees, or demanding overly specific degrees. E.g., assuming that you can't do X unless you have a bachelors or master's in X. In some ways this is most important. Employers don't want to train employees, or do research, or even be bothered to discern actual ability or qualifications, so they treat degrees like rubber stamps, and demand that universities do their research for them for free. The bubble exists because the private sector demands the bubble. You could cut government loans, but that doesn't cut demand for the degrees.
Like a lot of things, the crisis in academics is very complex, and a lot of proposed cures are actually worse than the disease.
I think what it is going to amount to eventually probably is some hard decisions as a society whether or not we really value education and research or not (from K-12 all the way to post PhD). Many of these issues are pretty similar to healthcare in this regard, and other public services.
I don't think getting rid of tenure is the solution. Tenure is almost gone in practice if not on paper, and the effects of this have been detrimental. The current crisis of replicability is a side effect of this. Tenure is often for soft money positions one way or another: the university might guarantee you a position, but what that position looks like is a different issue. If anything tenure needs to be strengthened.
People get hung up on tenure when it's really irrelevant.
Top-heavy administration is a problem, but capping salaries isn't really the solution. What is required is self-governance, where administration is voted on by professors and staff, policies are voted on by professors and staff, etc. Basically, things need to be more democratic.
I also think research funding and public financing is to blame. Basically more state financing has to occur, or more reliable federal funding needs to happen. Grants are underfunding things, and are too unreliable and fickle.
Finally, none of this will change until employers in the private sector change and stop mindlessly demanding degrees, or demanding overly specific degrees. E.g., assuming that you can't do X unless you have a bachelors or master's in X. In some ways this is most important. Employers don't want to train employees, or do research, or even be bothered to discern actual ability or qualifications, so they treat degrees like rubber stamps, and demand that universities do their research for them for free. The bubble exists because the private sector demands the bubble. You could cut government loans, but that doesn't cut demand for the degrees.
Like a lot of things, the crisis in academics is very complex, and a lot of proposed cures are actually worse than the disease.
I think what it is going to amount to eventually probably is some hard decisions as a society whether or not we really value education and research or not (from K-12 all the way to post PhD). Many of these issues are pretty similar to healthcare in this regard, and other public services.