Today’s lead editorial in the Baltimore Sun, on the need for a “comprehensive overhaul of University System of Maryland spending.”
Stanley Fish’s recent op-ed piece in the New York Times on the fiscal realities of higher education:
Posted by mgk at November 6, 2003 11:53 AMIf there is a crisis in college costs it has not been caused by price-gouging or bureaucratic incompetence on the part of universities; a better analogy would be the mass circulation magazines of the 1950’s like Collier’s and Look, which folded at the very point when they had more readers than ever. The problem was that production costs far outpaced the revenues from subscriptions and advertisers, and every new reader actually cost them money. This is just what is happening at many public universities.
Good point. Like any large corporation, state-sponsored universities claim the only solution for billons not being enough is more money.
Serious questions also have to be raised about how existing funding is being spent, especially when state universities claim to be in perpetual financial crisis (the usual budget whine of any state agency during the budget cycle).
How, for instance, can universities supported by public money complain about the need to pay tenured faculty more to keep them from jumping for a better offer--so much for the altruistic theory of pedagogical motive. A rhetorical question not requiring a question mark. How, when tenured professors earn much higher personal incomes (with health insurance) than the average $42,000 family income, than graduate student teachers, than nontenured faculty (in that order)?
Lest there be any doubt, I have some serious issues with the Baltimore Sun's version of reality--let alone Mr. Greer's.
Posted by: MGK at November 23, 2003 10:41 AM | Link to Comment