Students only *part* of the problem...
Ah, but Yugoslavia was a "local" initiative, to me -- the problem of foreign hubris doesn't enter in to it. But it says something about respective POV -- to me, this is an American failure, while you're placing it in a wider Balkan context. I place it in a larger American context -- and frankly, either more resources need to be given to this kind of opportunity, or the US needs to *stop* this kind of half-assed policies. The univeristy is a failure. It may be a *better* failure than other institutions where it is located, but it's still a failure.

You're right, the point of no return needs to be examined. In theory, I think it's not there yet -- and in many ways never would be. A bloodpurge, and creating a star-class faculty, would fix the issue. It'll never happen. The few committed profs are either burnt out or timid. Locals have been given no stake in the system. And the administration has no real interest or time to deal with a problem of this magnitude. Expect band-aides -- and the eventual transition to and transformation into a business school.

But the problem I see really does center around the faculty. While I'd dispute with you exactly how much one can demand from teenagers, even teenagers from the region (example 1: Otpor), that's only part of the problem. The real failure stems from the academic side of things -- the fact that very, very few faculty are committed to anything other than their next pay check (or, possibly, their own tiny empires) While I'm bitter about the administration, it's my own "class"'s betrayal of their standards that leaves me a burnt-out wreck.

The saddest thing is, I'm not sure it's all that much better at other universities.