The Big Crunch is an essay published in 1994 by Dr. David Goostein, then Vice-Provost of Caltech, in relation to testimony to the US Congress about education. Central to his argument is that a century of exponential growth in US academia came to an end in the 1970s which led to a fundamental change in the character of US academia with increased competition for positions and grants, which has the potential to lead to increased academic dishonesty. Another aspect of this issue is how the overall acaemic process seen as a "mining and sorting operation" led to widespread scientific iliteracy in the USA.

Essay online:
  http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html