I don’t agree that the article was written to incite a flow of letters to the editor - it represents Mitch Daniel’s view of education and the end goal of educational institutions, which is to foster real life success for students of potential. Purdue is pretty hands-on with that approach - they don’t happy grade but they do take student success seriously. They’ve pioneered a lot of interesting programs, including one that tries to ensure that each student finds a mentor and another that uses data analyses on admissions data vs freshman response to assigned coursework to highlight which new students are at risk of failure so they can get more personal contact from a professor. A lot of what they do is based on research for “what works” for students. I think Daniels is truly interested in maximizing the efficiency of his university. I don’t agree with everything he does or says but I think he states his case clearly - he thinks universities should work for any students who have potential for success and are willing to put the work in to succeed and those are the students he most wants to admit.