One of Donald Trump’s favourite disruption tricks is to take one true thing and embed it in a welter of lies. Does the global trading system need an overhaul? Yes. Is ruining the US economy and tanking markets the way to do it? No. Should Europeans pay more for their own defence? Yes. Is trashing Nato making Europe safer? No. Is American higher education in need of reform? Yes. Is holding the country’s top colleges hostage the way to fix it? No.

So, what is? Trump’s war on the Ivy League is both punitive and premeditated. Republicans have complained about “greedy colleges” since at least the 1980s. Late last year, the conservative think-tank American Enterprise Institute laid out a plan for how to stamp out university elites who “kowtowed to pro-genocidal campus quad glampers”. Attacks on university funding and attempts to deport campus protesters are part of that goal.

That said, reasonable people — particularly those who went to elite schools or worked at them (I’ve done both) — can and should ask why the academy has come in for such treatment and what can be done to address the flaws in America’s higher education system. There are many, but I’ll point here to three: administrative bloat, cost inflation and toxic credentialism. Fix these problems and colleges will not only stop being such an easy target for conservative ire, they will also work better.