I think your post comes from a non-academic viewpoint.
A research prof’s concerns are about research, their scientific progeny (phd students and postdocs) and pressures to succeed in the related publish or perish/grant writing games. In this context the blog makes perfect sense and I agree with it. However, you write:
>Athletes getting easy courses
A prof doesn’t care about athletic admissions (those are undergrads anyways?).
>there are ridiculous projects, bias, and people getting paid in “non-standard” ways.
I am not sure what you mean about “ridiculous projects”? The university generally doesn’t control or fund a PI. Funding is nearly always external (in the US).
>Backroom deals with private industry and government.
I am not exactly sure whose research or publications this affects but I bet the number is tiny. This is not a concern I’ve actually ever seen play out in real life (again, I am sure you can find news where it happened, but it just doesn’t reflect the lived life of most PIs).
>Universities should work more with private industry like they used to many years ago, government money should be poured into research more openly,
I mean, I don’t think PIs are against working with industry, but industry usually wants IP, doesn’t want to publish, and wants RoI. The government funding process is already pretty open (at least NSF/NIH) but of course can be improved.
>tuition needs to rise, then they can hire the best from private industry that are also excellent teachers or researchers.
Most PIs are funded effectively from research grant overhead. Tuition is usually a smaller budget line. Increasing tuition will both not overall increase budget by much and add hardship to students. I do agree that more gov funding would be nice.
>To do that, administrations and staff will need to be gutted
I don’t think this follows from your previous statements but I do agree there is an explosion in administrative overhead that should be curtailed.