Do universities also need a new business model?

This article by Mark Taylor, the head of the religion department, argues that the current organization of American research universities fails to train undergraduates, but especially graduate students, for successful careers.  According to Taylor, tenure and a professional incentive system which rewards acute specialization are the greatest reasons graduates have trouble finding jobs.

As someone considering the possiblity of a PhD, this article is thought provoking and alarming.  I have tended to be attracted to synthetic theories and inter-disciplinarian studies, so I enjoy his critiques against sub-specialization.  (Best line of the piece: “A colleague recently boasted to me that his best student was doing his dissertation on how the medieval theologian Duns Scotus used citations.”)  I must admit, however, that tenure is quite a large carrot, so I my thoughts on two-side: on one hand, I think it is a sufficient reward for the long suffering of being a graduate student and assistant professor; on the other, it can discourage professors from retiring or pursuing innovative ideas.

I also recently argued for awhile against a good friend about the merits of the American style of higher-level education.  We were discussing this from the perspective of an undergraduate, but I believe my stance holds for graduate students too: namely, our system, though imperfect, provides more resources and better education to students.  I agree with Taylor that collaboration across universities and disciplines should be encouraged and that students should be encouraged to pursue careers outside of academia.  (The corollary to this last point, Taylor’s #5, should also affect professors: too many professors are offended if a student does not pursue a career in academia and so do not encourage it.)  I also suspect that some of his arguments apply most to the humanities and some social sciences.  I haven’t recently heard about out of work graduates with PhDs in economics or mechanical engineering.  The humanities deserve more institutional and public support than they receive, but we should not mistake their problems for those of other disciplines.

What are your thoughts?