The Education or Diploma?

In a not-too-enlightening review in the NYTBook Review today, there is a provocative question at the end:

In ''Harvard Rules,'' Bradley describes the case of Joe Green, an undergraduate disillusioned by his experience as a student representative on the committee evaluating the Core Curriculum. ''Green kept thinking about a question one of his professors had put to him: 'If you could either go here and get no diploma, or not go here and get the diploma, what would you do?' '' Bradley writes. ''It bothered Green that he couldn't easily answer the question.'' It should bother the president of Harvard, too. The answer, in the end, is the difference between a great university and a brand name.