Three years ago, President E. Gordon Gee of West Virginia University had a terrific idea—a career capper. As he neared retirement, he would embrace the “academic transformation” of public higher education and streamline his university. For too long, as Gee told anyone who would listen, public universities had tried to be everything to everyone and keep up with elite private colleges. When the coronavirus pandemic shut down American universities in 2020, Gee embraced its disruptions as a gift—a “black swan moment,” as he put it, that forced educational leaders to ask questions “rather than pretend to have answers.” And that December, he began rolling out his own plan to return WVU to an older agrarian ideal with majors that lead to partnerships with state industries and classes that allow students to graduate into jobs. This year, as WVU faced a budget deficit that administrators estimated at $45 million, Gee’s efforts to reshape his institution intensified. He spoke of investing in medical, nursing, cybersecurity, and business degrees to serve a working-class state with an aging population …