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States have withdrawn money from higher education for two reasons:
1. The first is that the cost of health care has been driving state medicaid expenditures higher and higher. That money has to come from somewhere. States find it is politically more acceptable to slowly withdraw funding from colleges than it is to deny people healthcare.
2. A reluctance to increase taxes. For example, the state of Alaska has no income tax at all. In fact, they pay you out of the Alaska Permanent Fund (derived from oil revenues) to live there. Permanent fund checks have been dwindling though because the price of oil has been low now for about a decade and shows little sign of increasing. The recent governor there chose defunding and collapsing most of the state's college system so that he could increase Permanent Fund checks to Alaskans. This is an extreme example, but most people are not willing to support higher taxes to adequately fund higher education.
I have a sense of a gloom about public colleges and universities. I think many will ultimately be either forced to massively cut programs or totally close their doors. Tuition will continue is awful spiral upwards.
"Maybe" if colleges and Universities would cut back on their building programs wanting to be bigger and better they would have more funds.
"Maybe" if colleges and universities would start requiring full time/tenured professors to teach a full load each quarter/semester they would require less teachers giving them more funds.
"Maybe" if colleges and universities would drop their money losing sports programs including basketball and football where only a few actually turn a profit, they would have more funds.
"Maybe" if colleges and universities would cut back on their bloated administrative staffs they would have more funds.
You can't be working class and a millionaire those two things are mutually exclusive.
Wrong-o, Bucky!
Throughout the USA you can easily find plumbers and electricians who grew up poor, never went to college (might not even have finished high school), and through hard work, intelligence, and good life choices now own multi-million-dollar-revenue businesses, houses, vacation homes, and large retirement accounts, investment accounts, and savings. For someone in that position to amass more than a million dollars in assets by age 50 is not that unusual.
These people will retain their working-class attitudes and tastes all their lives.
Throughout the USA you can easily find plumbers and electricians who grew up poor, never went to college (might not even have finished high school), and through hard work, intelligence, and good life choices now own multi-million-dollar-revenue businesses, houses, vacation homes, and large retirement accounts, investment accounts, and savings. For someone in that position to amass more than a million dollars in assets by age 50 is not that unusual.
These people will retain their working-class attitudes and tastes all their lives.
The correct term for those people is labor aristocrat. You can't be a millionaire and working class period.
Yes, and that is why employers are now embracing distant learners and on-line degrees. Because they know those graduates can learn without hand holding and are able to simply dig into the material and figure it out.
Do you have a link to some data that supports this?
"Maybe" if colleges and Universities would cut back on their building programs wanting to be bigger and better they would have more funds.
"Maybe" if colleges and universities would start requiring full time/tenured professors to teach a full load each quarter/semester they would require less teachers giving them more funds.
"Maybe" if colleges and universities would drop their money losing sports programs including basketball and football where only a few actually turn a profit, they would have more funds.
"Maybe" if colleges and universities would cut back on their bloated administrative staffs they would have more funds.
Sorry no sympathy here!
FWIW, many full-time professors don’t make a whole lot of money. Those that do tend to bring in revenue for the university with their research. Many schools rely heavily on adjuncts. That is not really an issue.
Further, Title IX requires schools to offer men’s and women’s sports. If schools drop all sports that don’t generate revenue, they wouldn’t have any women’s sports and would not be eligible to receive any government funds. For most schools, it is a matter of offering a large array of sports or none at all.
I believe you. I graduated from a high school on the wrong side of the railroad tracks, so to speak. There were 660 in my graduating class. Twelve of us went to college. Those of us who did go to college were woefully unprepared compared to students from normal high schools, let alone affluent ones.
I believe the push dates back to the Civil Rights era.
Yes, of course. Blame the people who bear not even a remote resemblance to you. The usual scapegoats. Too bad the South lost the war.
FWIW, many full-time professors don’t make a whole lot of money. Those that do tend to bring in revenue for the university with their research. Many schools rely heavily on adjuncts. That is not really an issue.
But many do, I know first hand. A percentage don't even teach a full load.
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Further, Title IX requires schools to offer men’s and women’s sports. If schools drop all sports that don’t generate revenue, they wouldn’t have any women’s sports and would not be eligible to receive any government funds. For most schools, it is a matter of offering a large array of sports or none at all.
The fact is, few schools have a positive cash flow from any sports, men or women. In most schools it is a big money pit.
In your response you failed to justify the endless building projects or the bloated administrative costs. If the Feds would make student loans just like any other loan (credit worthiness, ability to repay, etc.) the madness would dramatically either disappear or at least slow down.
"Maybe" if colleges and Universities would cut back on their building programs wanting to be bigger and better they would have more funds.
Depends on whether you are talking public or private colleges. Private schools do fund capital construction from tuition dollars, among other sources of funding. Public schools are funded through the state capital budgets, so technically construction has little impact on the cost of attendance.
There are some exceptions. Construction of student housing and student centers is usually bond financed and paid from housing fees or usage fees for the union. Athletic facilities are funded in many ways.
My point is that it is very simplistic to say that construction increases student costs, because the real answer to that is that it only sometimes does so.
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"Maybe" if colleges and universities would start requiring full time/tenured professors to teach a full load each quarter/semester they would require less teachers giving them more funds.
Depends on the type of school. Community colleges have FT faculty teaching a full load. Research universities have a different focus. Their mandate is research as well as teaching, so to have FT faculty at these places teach 5 classes a term would be contrary to their mission. Also, at this type of university the research faculty are required to obtain grant funding to support their research. Those faculty actually bring more money into the institution than they cost.
Finally, a FT faculty member costs much more, typically 2-4 times as much, as a PT adjunct faculty member. The cheapest way to teach classes is to hire a bunch of adjuncts. There are reasons why this is not. Great idea either, most universities balance FT and PT faculty.
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"Maybe" if colleges and universities would drop their money losing sports programs including basketball and football where only a few actually turn a profit, they would have more funds.
Not much of a comment from me. I don’t know much about collegiate sports funding. Ramen Addict is correct about Title IX requirements.
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"Maybe" if colleges and universities would cut back on their bloated administrative staffs they would have more funds.
Sorry no sympathy here!
Full disclosure, I am one of those administrators. Sure, there are some positions that could be done away with in any college. But the vast majority of administrators are doing jobs required by regulatory reasons, or simply necessary to get bills paid and students enrolled.
A version of my job exists in the private sector, and it pays about 20% more than I make. I choose to work at a college for a few reasons, including benefits and job security.
All in all, your complaints about how colleges are run are very common, and very misinformed.
If the Feds would make student loans just like any other loan (credit worthiness, ability to repay, etc.) the madness would dramatically either disappear or at least slow down.
Or as I've proposed elsewhere, make the schools financial guarantors for, say, 20% of each student's loan. If they have some of their own skin in the game, my guess is they'd be a lot more selective about how many seats to offer in the vanity/grievance fields and how much to charge for a degree in said fields. As it stands they get to keep 100% of those funds no matter how well- or ill-educated their end product is, and that needs to change.
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