Smart, but not wise

I can't decide whether this poster is

• a. A brilliant piece of satire working on multiple levels, or
• b. depressing.

On the surface, it's a quick and easy appropriation of the Victoria University of Wellington's "It makes you think..." advertising campaign, using the existing ads as a framework for an anti-university message.

Fair enough.

At a deeper level, it could be clever demonstration of what will happen if every student receives five fewer textbooks next year. Alternatively, it's a genuine mistake, showing the desperate need for more copies of Fowler's Modern English Usage even before fees go up, and book numbers down...

So as to provide interesting and educational content to you, the reader, I tried to find some useful information about the background to the fee rise. All I could really come up with was this news story (which has a bare bottom in it) and this article, based on a leaked document and published in Salient, VUW's student magazine. The university had copies impounded at the printers and generally caused a lot more attention to be drawn to the issue than would otherwise have been the case. Oops.