I offer a contrary position.

I work in a national lab and we cannot hire people out of universities or graduate schools anymore because they are lacking a critical and fundamental understanding of mathematics, physics, and computer science. We have a serious "brain drain" in the country and I am forced to consider the possibility that turning our universities into glorified trade schools and "technology centers" is one of the several causes.

While the pace of technological achievement continues to miniaturize and speed up various devices and while computers become ever more interconnected, I ask this: what NEW ideas, whether in basic research or in technological fields, have occured since 1950? If one looks at the period from 1900 - 1950, there was an absolute explosion of ideas and knowledge (transistor, Einstein's Annus Mirabilis, quantum mechanics, aviation, jet engines and rockets, even the internet, cell phones, computational biology, etc had already been thought about). Since 1950, there has actually in my opinion been a sharp decline in the advance of new ideas and new fields of study; perhaps we are so overwhelmed by the ideas of the first half of the twentieth century that we are still exploring their implications and benefits?

Not a surprising recommendation. The original purpose of the university system was to support Wisconsin's economic growth. What that means has changed drastically in little more than a generation.