[lbo-talk] Disappoint With #125

Chuck Loucks lbo at hvgreens.org
Tue Mar 9 20:30:18 PST 2010


The articles I've read on why tuition goes up point out that the indirect costs (overhead) of doing research are often not paid for with research grants. The money has to come from somewhere, so it comes from the people who can least resist the raid on their pocketbooks.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Sean Andrews" <cultstud76 at gmail.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 10:55 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Disappoint With #125


> On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 21:36, Chuck Loucks <lbo at hvgreens.org> wrote:
>> I would suggest that the reason for increased costs at 2 X CPI_U is due
>> to increase staffing at Universities. UofM has dramaticly increased its
>> staffing levels in the last 30 years. So what are these staffers doing?
>> How about supporting research functions.
>
> I can't comment on the rest of your post, but I think you're barking
> up the wrong tree here. I don't know how you're counting it, but if
> you consider hiring six adjuncts instead of two tenure track profs an
> increase in staffing then you're looking at the wrong set of numbers.
> It is a lot cheaper to hire the six than the two--and a lot more
> flexible which the corporate CEOs in charge of these institutions love
> to tout. On the other hand, if we are just talking about non-faculty
> staff I would be surprised if there has been some 800% increase (or
> what ever # Doug cites in the article) in their number since the
> midcentury boom in research funding in higher education. If there is
> new funding supporting research staff, I'd be very surprised if it was
> directly tuition funded--more likely its outside grants etc. But in
> any case, what you're talking about seems way too anecdotal to pass
> the sniff test.
>
> s
>
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