The Chronicle of Higher Education is a newspaper for educators, by educators. Not too long ago, an issue of this paper came across my desk with an interesting story in it: a college professor had waited until the 11th hour to prepare her materials for a lecture she was to give the next day, and frantically consulted the Internet for help. She might have consulted her own knowledge, but she didn’t really have any to speak of.

The lecture she ended up giving was, in large part, based on what she could find on Wikipedia. That is an interesting choice of source, because anyone who’s been a college student during the time of Wikipedia’s prominence has been told that Wikipedia–a website written and edited by the public–is unfit for academia. Most professors do not tolerate it when their students include it as a cited source in their work. It is also interesting that an academic professional could get paid to deliver a lecture derived from such a source, which the students easily could have consulted themselves and gotten the same information without taking the class.

While it is astonishing that today’s exorbitant tuition rates could be paying for something that could just as well be gotten for free, the university was apparently not offended by this particular element of the professor’s conduct. Instead, the university was offended that the professor had posted the details of her troubles on her Facebook account. Her list of friends who could view those details included some of her own students, giving them access to the less desirable information about the nature of their expensive education. It was her carelessness in getting found out, rather than the behavior that was found out in the first place, that put her in hot water.

I doubt the sort of unprofessional conduct this teacher participated in is shared by the majority of college professors. But the ones who do, for the most part, are probably more savvy about keeping it quiet than this particular professor, and the colleges they work for are almost certainly complicit in that silence. What might the odds be that your own education comes partly from sources you were told weren’t good enough, and which you yourself could have accessed without having to pay excessive class fees? This particularly rankles me, as my own college hiked its tuition by an impressive amount just last month. (I’m anxious to see the major improvement in goods and services that the extra money will get me, as I’m sure everyone here is.)

We are also left to speculate as to the Chronicle’s motive for bringing this particular story to their audience of educators. It doesn’t seem to be here as an example of a teacher who badly failed in her duty both to her students and to her institution. It seems to be here as a cautionary tale: if you’re going to bilk somebody into paying for an education that isn’t worth its weight in computer pixels, try not to tell them about it.