The Star Tribune's Opinion Exchange includes perspectives on a wide range of issues in columns, commentaries and editorials.
But reader feedback isn't always commensurate with an issue's importance. The fiscal, political, and generational gravity of the national debt is likely to generate a less passionate reader response than a more personal, pop culture or social issue.
Higher education, however, is the exception. Opinion pieces on topics such as spiraling tuition, administrative bloat, adjuncts forming unions, tenure or the wisdom of studying humanities in a high-tech era often move the readership dial.
So do pieces that debate the value of higher education — despite data suggesting that those with a four-year college degree make $1.2 million more over a career than those with a high school diploma.
These themes are among those explored in "Ivory Tower," a documentary debuting locally this weekend that scans collegiate models ranging from Harvard to nearby Bunker Hill Community College to several in between, including virtual MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses).
"What we see in the film is that the business model for nonprofit universities and colleges is not sustainable if our mission as a society is to allow higher education to remain accessible to a broad swath of young people in this country, and to preserve its function as an engine of social mobility," Andrew Rossi, who directed and produced "Ivory Tower," said in an interview.
These fundamental questions concern Eric Kaler, president of the University of Minnesota, too. "The current model with appropriate support from the state and recognition of the value of an educated population is on the edge of sustainability," Kaler told me.
Kaler, who has not yet screened "Ivory Tower," and Rossi, who directed the documentary, both pointed to the same transcendent turning point: College perceived as a private rather than a public good.