It amounts to little more than a symbolic signboard

Via Fragments Collection #21 by Christopher Hobson.

 

From The View from the Bridge (1996) by Pierre Ryckmans (aka Simon Leys):

In principle, I do not mind the idea of a reform in Higher Education, however drastic it might be; what I do mind is the intellectual muddle and confusion. We obstinately insist on calling 'universities' institutions that correspond less and less to what is normally meant by this name.

The University increasingly resembles the cardboard theatrical props that were used on Elizabethan stage, or in Peking Opera, and on which was written in big characters: 'THIS IS A CASTLE' or 'THIS IS A FOREST'—it amounts to little more than a symbolic signboard: 'THIS IS A UNIVERSITY'.