Mr Obama stressed the importance of early childhood schooling, better value university education, and equal opportunities in the workplace for women.
"Choosing between and among important and valued university assets is terrible, but our priority in the face of hard choices will always be the university's core teaching and research mission," he wrote.
Poor-value university courses, architectural practices demanding they work for free and sexual and racial discrimination were the other issues highlighted by respondents to the survey carried out by the Architects' Journal.
Rather than call out this corruption and reassert the primacy of academic values, university presidents duck responsibility and cravenly feed the nation's basketball "addiction".
In this second installment of answers, the panelists respond to questions about choosing between a private university and a more affordable state school, and the value of universities that are not in the Ivy League.
If a school's logo can be confused with a university's, or if it is capable of diluting its value, the universities often demand changes.
Specialists in education financing nevertheless say that many opportunities exist to extract better value from universities and colleges.
The value that universities now place on creative thinking across subjects could be embedded much earlier, and using a medium that reflects forms and influences from many cultures.
Such a widespread perception of the value of universities derives in no small part from very pragmatic realities: a college education yields significant rewards.
This framework and this ethos are not likely to change any time soon, especially if academics don't make more strenuous efforts to bring a more adequate understanding of the value of universities to bear in public debate.
