The Vicious Cycle: A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time in the land of Oblivia, the local business academy was savoring the high-altitude giddiness of a Top 20 rating. All its happy citizens counted the days until their school would overcome their nemesis, Ucla the Ugly.

But one night an ill-wind blew, toppling the unsuspecting academy back into the 20's. Students scowled and faculty gasped. "It's the teaching!" cried some. "It's the career services!" cried others.

As the blamestorming continued, a voice cried out, "What'd you expect? It's human nature!"

A hush befell the crowd as they looked about for the speaker. Then they saw him: a strange creature with eyes glazed red and ink-jet printer goo coating his fingers.

"Pshaw, it's just some rat bastard from Más Kapital," said the school wise man.

"Listen, " said the creature. "All these rank developments—pun intended (wink, wink)—can be easily explained. Remember what happened in 2001?"

The crowd nodded gravely, their faces fallen like so many worthless portfolio valuations.

"That's right: the dot-com crash left many bright young on-paper millionaires penniless, jobless and option-less—again, pun intended (wink, wink)."

"Stop that, or we'll string you up from the nearest fake bell tower," said a small child.

"Right. Sorry. What I'm saying is, after the crash, thousands upon thousands of dot-com refugees fled to the sanctuary of business schools, like this one, yes?"

The crowd nodded in agreement.

"It became harder than ever to get into top academies. Refugees who once would have gone to higher-ranked schools had no choice but to come here." The crowd grumbled, and the rat bastard quickly added, "Not that there's anything wrong with this place."

"Get on with it... then we'll decide if you'll live."

The creature gulped. "Anyway, since tuition here costs just as much as tuition at higher elevations, the refugees demanded the same caliber of service. Their expectations were wicked huge!  But your academy simply delivered business as usual, so all those refugees gave it a bummer rating."

"Booooo, hisssss!" the crowd booed and hissed.

"But worry not, because now that your ranking has plummeted back—and now that the dot-coms are returning to life—competition to come here will dwindle. This academy will once again be home only to those with low expectations, and they'll rank it back into the teens!"

"Yay... we think," the crowd yayed and thought.

"Won't the school just fall again?" asked the wise man.

"Yes, it's a vicious cycle," said the creature. "For all eternity, the school will bounce back and forth from the teens to the twenties, like a runaway ping pong ball, or a merchandiser from the Gap."

"So what do we do?!" the crowd clamored.

"Well, since the rankings are subjective, you have to control the OBJECTIVE."

The crowd blinked silently like liberal arts students in an intro-finance class.

The creature elaborated: "Until you fundamentally change the school, the tortuous cycle will go on forever."

"Change? In what way?"

"As you were saying when I got here, improve the teaching AND the career services. And while you're at it, get more dining choices. Oh, and a study area. Not having a study area is a joke!"

The crowd stood in uffish thought for what seemed like an eternity (or 90 minutes of statistics). Then it stirred anew. "But changing stuff—that sounds like work!" said one citizen. "Yeah, hard work!" said another. "We came here for business, not work!" said a third. "And I don't want to work—I've got tenure," said the wise man.

Then someone shouted, "Hey, everyone, there's an untapped keg over here!"  The crowd cheered and ran off, trampling the rat bastard into confetti and cheese.

Years later, someone would bring up the creature in conversation, and the reaction was always swift. "He SO wasn’t a team player," they would say. "Yeah, forget him. He sucked... Hey everyone, hold on tight, here go our rankings again --- wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...." They all laughed and lived in Oblivia giddily ever after... [$]

The End...?