In Lawrence Summers as Martin Luther, Arnold Kling compares modern academia to the Catholic Church prior to Reformation:
When the Harvard Faculty conducted its Diet of Worms and voted “no confidence” in its President, Lawrence Summers, perhaps this was equivalent to excommunicating Martin Luther.The Catholic Church in 1500 was a debased, corrupt monopoly. It collected onerous taxes, which people paid because they believed that there was no alternative if they wanted a decent afterlife. However, inwardly people seethed at the amount that the clergy extracted and the debauched uses to which the funds were put.
Colleges and universities are in a similar position today. They may not use “a thousand cunning devices,” but they certainly extract onerous tuitions, taxpayer support, and alumni contributions. Parents pay because they fear that to do otherwise would condemn their children to a hell of low-status occupations and spouses.