This is a decent, yet somewhat superficial, look at the problem of what's all wrong with American colleges. Bunch's subhead is right that college as it is today "broke the American dream." He's right that anti-intellectualism of many Republicans has played a part in this, as well as making educational levels a political bright line division.

He doesn't delve a lot into college as big business, though, and not just for-profits. He skirts at the edges of this, with things like colleges upscaling amenities to attract students, but doesn't talk about the collegiate equivalent of CEO pay. Here in Texas? Former University of Texas system chancellor Bill McRaven drew 1.5 million; current A&M system head John Sharp gets 1 million. 

 No, it's not Musk or Bezos, but it's not nothing, either. And, at big state universities, what of the role of athletics?

And, on this issue, how much are modern neoliberal Democrats to blame as well? (Bunch does talk about how "woke" on campus isn't always so good, citing the likes of Todd Gitlin, but doesn't ask if, for national Democrats, that can often serve in part as a distraction from class-based left-liberalism or beyond.)

And, as far as blaming anti-intellectual Republicans? It's interesting for Bunch to note Nixon (and all the campus protests against Vietnam), then Reagan, then Trump, and somehow skip this guy named Dubya. 

 The solutions? Not bad. That said, Bunch doesn't ask if America's weak K-12 system, compared to other developed nations, is part of why college degrees have morphed into credentialism in the first place. (It IS weak; it's not only that US teachers are both underpaid and undertrained, it's that the US doesn't have a 200-day school year and other things.)