Founded in 1088, Bologna is the oldest university in the world, but it is quickly becoming the most infamous one, too, for the so-called Bologna process, which was inaugurated in 1999 so as to bring the European universities together through a credit-transfer system, is getting nowhere fast (“Bolognese Sauce,” April 25, 2008). The goal is laudable. The execution is deplorable. As you say, many students now anathematize the process as a “capitalist plot.” Students have already taken to the streets in France, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Croatia. They want “Bologna” revoked. The main problem all over Europe is the failure of government to persuade students and their parents that a good chunk of spending on higher education will have to come out of their pockets, as is the case in the United States, the world leader in higher education. Throughout Europe, the shift from public to private funding has been on the sly. The only way forward is outright privatization of universities, which would demand political courage that much of Europe sorely lacks.