Bruni's snark and irreverence in the opening paragraph is a quick way to identify his audience. We're grouped in with him, rolling our eyes with exasperation about the state of higher thinking, implying that we are the intellectual elite who "cherish" what others might call "baubles," if they were cultured enough to understand the metaphor. But there's a sort of self-awareness in this as well, a poking fun at ourselves for our own snobbery. We NYT readers and subscribers "can afford" to place value in such things. There's a sort of balancing act taking place between the snobs on both sides of the intellectual v. practical education debate, which eventually trickles down into the article. During the argument, we never leave the position of being the privileged cultural elite, but we are encouraged to have practical answers for questions about why "nonvocational" majors are of value.

Here we see a good example of ethos in Bruni's article, introducing his own credibility by way of citing recent developments on college campuses as reported by a well-respected professional journal.

The pathos here is appealing to an older audience, not the undergraduate student but the adult who has some life experience and can relate to the feelings a "false promise" provokes, and have a frame of reference for how the "world now" differs from the world of the past. It's another powerful reference for who Bruni's intended audience is, and helps that audience attach to the article on a more emotional level.