On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 10:43 PM, Sean Andrews <cultstud76 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 20:21, Chuck Loucks <lbo at hvgreens.org> wrote:
> > Doug,
> >
> > Speaking about UofM which is probably a top poster child when it comes
> to
> > outrageous tuition hikes over the last 30 years; the loss of state
> funding
> > is a dog that just does not hut when it comes to explaining those
> increases in tuition.
> > First off, if UofM is a research institution, why should the undergrads
> have to shoulder the
> > complete burden of state funding cuts? The U can always higher fewer
> tenure track profs and
> > hire more adjuncts and TA's who will teach more classes than professors
> (and often
> > times do a better job of it too if my experience is any guide.) In other
> words, the U
> > can cut back on research funding if the state cuts back (tell me
> "research" is not a
> > euphemism for corporate welfare.)
>
> Now it's clearer what you consider "research costs." So having
> tenured professors is your version of an inflated research budget?
> Leaving aside the fact that adjuncts are some of the most exploited
> labor in the country, by making this statement, you show that you
> obviously have no clue how a university works. Tenure track faculty
> might get paid more, but they also usually are responsible for a good
> chunk of the administrative labor in departments--the hiring process
> for new faculty, organizing events for the students, designing the
> curriculum and managing any changes therein. More than this, there is
> institutional memory and experience in the process which many adjuncts
> may not be able to provide--which isn't to say that they wouldn't like
> to. It would be much better for students if there were more of these
> kinds of faculty but in any case, your little scenario where things
> would be better has been happening across the board in academic labor
> for the past 20 years. I don't know the numbers for UofM, but the
> general percentage of change from teaching done by tenured faculty vs.
> that done by adjuncts is quite significant. What this means is that
> students get less face time with faculty, have faculty who are far
> more overworked and overburdened (teaching something like 5 or 6
> courses to make ends meet) and faculty who are more inconsistent--not
> necessarily by any fault of their own, but because they don't get
> hired back or move to another school where they can find more work.
> In other words, what you're advising has already been happening and
> all that it means is students get less value for their dollar. That
> there are some great adjunct professors is no reason despite what
> they're up against is no reason to make that model more
> prominent--and, in any case, since it's been especially pronounced
> over the past 20 years, it is nonsensical to claim that doing that
> would have prevented said tuition rise: it was done and tuition has
> risen.
>
> I don't know what else you mean by research costs but I really think
> you're totally talking out of your ass here. While I can see the
> point your making about Doug's analysis--and have no clear answer for
> why the costs rise so fast other than the lack of state funding--I
> don't think you are getting anywhere close to diagnosing the problem
> any better. I will note that, in the current climate, one of the main
> reasons tuition has gone up at the two universities I've been at in
> the last three years has been the decline of state funding in Virginia
> and Illinois. When you ask why students should have to pay for
> research at the university they are attending, are you assuming the
> students aren't doing the research? That they aren't part of that
> learning process and gaining something from their participation in
> that research process? If that is the case, then why are said
> students going to the school at all? For credentialing alone?
> Anyway, the category of "research" you are claiming to be so central
> to the problem seems to be tautological if it can encompass both
> tenured professors (i.e. people who are required to do research) and,
> for instance, the provision of research materials such as laboratories
> or books. If anything can be this "research" that is causing tuition
> to mysteriously spike (is there suddenly more of this "research"
> going on?) than it is a completely useless category of analysis.
>
> >
> > I'm surprised you missed the effective gentrification going on in
> higher
> > education. The families in the top of the income distribution are bidding
> up the cost
> > of higher education; the families in the top 5% of the income
> distribution have way
> > more money today than they did in 1980.
>
> I'm pretty sure this was the main point of the article--and its
> something many others have mentioned in the discussion.
>
> There are no effective controls on how
> > public universities can allocate their money, so they just raise tuition
> at
> > twice the rate of inflation.
>
> Why is this suddenly about public universities? What difference does
> it make if they are nominally public if you think it's okay to deprive
> them of public funds? What is "public" about them if there is no
> "public" money helping subsidize those costs? You sound like some
> sort of deficit hawk--which makes your complaint weird since more
> people with this mentality are actually in charge of nominally public
> institutions than ever before, making them hyper aware of where they
> can charge people more and cut services (or create a more "flexible"
> workforce.) Further, these two premises are totally separate: neither
> are proven individually and together they do nothing to support one
> another. Allocation of funds within the U is a matter of managing
> money that flows into the institution; tuition is something that comes
> from outside (at least financially) and, in many public contexts, they
> have to get permission of some kind from the legislature (even if that
> legislature is also cutting their funding) before it can be raised at
> the public institution.
>
>
> There is no valid justification for why a college
> > education at a public institution should cost what it does today.
>
> Well I don't know the numbers as well as Doug (and evidently you) but
> one justification would be that there is not a whole lot of public
> financial support so the idea that it should be less expensive because
> public only makes sense from the adolescent perspective of entitled
> libertarians--e.g. people who don't want us to raise taxes to pay for
> health care but are angry at the possibility of cutting medicare
> payments because we lack the public funds to pay for them.
>
> s
>
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-- ********************************************************* Alan P. Rudy Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work Central Michigan University 124 Anspach Hall Mt Pleasant, MI 48858 517-881-6319