320 Years of History
Gold Member
So, what if the state turns down the federal funds and says, 'No thank you?'
I suppose states would be allowed to do that. I can't see why they would. The $70B is tuition paid, not "tuition paid by students and their families." Accordingly, unless states find themselves in the enviable position of contributing less than 1/3rd of their respective "bills" for student tuitions, I can't see why they'd opt out. Also, seeing as Mr. Sander's provisions would like likely increase overall enrollment, states should be thrilled to be part of the "deal" rather than not.
After all, nobody's tuition is actually enough to pay for the true cost of educating them. That is, to say, schools that must depend entirely on the revenue from tuition really can't do much in the way of ongoing development of knowledge in general. That's the reason research is so important; it's what pays most of the bills for all that infrastructure one sees at a university/college, as well as the quest for knowledge for its own sake, even though the tuition does help do so as well. It's also what attracts donors and talented new researchers. Without it, colleges and universities will have to make due with teaching undergraduates, maybe a very few masters degree students.
These seem like counter-proposals to each other, to lower costs while at the same time using more expensive professors. Seems kind of wishful thinking.
Well, yes and no. It's doable, but to do it, one must task professors to also do more of that which generates the most income, or at least enough income, to sustain the school. I think the rationale is that the savings from not paying adjunct teachers would balance the scales. I don't know that I think it will; indeed, I suspect it won't, but I'd have to look school by school to find out. (I ain't doing that, but you can if you want to or care enough. LOL)
The thing is that adjuncts, though they are lower paid, know more than enough to educate undergraduates, which is the class of student Mr. Sanders' proposal addresses. Generally adjunct professors, sometimes called instructors, are folks who have the knowledge to teach a topic, but who are not interested in continual research and publishing the findings of their research. Quite often adjunct professors are folks who are very good classroom teachers, but lousy or unmotivated researchers.
In short there is no good way to, by a person's title at a university, tell whether they are a good teacher. Plenty of full profs are lousy classroom teachers, but excellent one-on-one teachers to their GAs. Summarily throwing out or discounting the value of adjuncts is akin to "throwing out the baby with the bathwater," or "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face."
At major/predominantly research driven universities, adjunct professors are there for a very good reason. It'd be a mistake to prohibit or restrict their use. Occasionally, I encounter clients who, despite hiring my firm, want to tell us how to execute and deliver a project and rarely does that go as well -- for both them and us -- as when the client just lets us do the job they engaged us to do. The government needs to fund education, not tell universities and colleges how to deliver it.
Sidebar:
It's somewhat different if the engagement is a staff augmentation one, for it's understood at the start that is the nature of the project, but I don't personally manage, become closely involved with (barring calamity) or sell that type of engagement. Then again, I don't much like that medicine has shifted to the consultative model. I believe in letting experts do that at which they are expert and trusting in their expert opinion and letting them lead the show in that regard so I can do other things that I need to get done and not worry about what I'm paying them to do.
A little learning is a dangerous thing
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired at first sight with what the muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take nor see the lengths behind
But more advanced behold with strange surprise,
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
-- Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism"
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired at first sight with what the muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take nor see the lengths behind
But more advanced behold with strange surprise,
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
-- Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism"
End of sidebar:
This states no noneducational spending, but what is to prevent the state from accepting $X in funding, then shifting that amount from academic expenses to athletics, then taking in the federal money to the academic activities?
Well, the answer to that question depends on how the funds -- any and all of them -- come to the school. If they come in as general funds, nothing. If they come in as grant money or "special" funds, the terms set by the provider of the money constrain how they are used.
Over time the people taxed will leave the country and take their billions with them.
They certainly can elect to do emmigrate, but the tax would have to be especially onerous for it alone to motivate such a decision...onerous enough that, in concert with other "stuff" that ticks them off, it offsets the benefits of remaining in the country. It'd take a whole lot to make that happen. Mr. Sanders' proposal is hardly going to be enough to do that. Even just dispensing with annual corporate subsidies (tax or otherwise) would be enough to pay for $70B in tuition payments for college/trade school attending citizens.
U.S. Historic Corporate Tax Rates from 1909 to 2010 (TPC | United States Historical Corporate Top Tax Rate and Bracket From 1909)
Other:
I don't get the point of the remarks about "financial need." It seems to me only right that if the nation is going to pay for college for everyone, that financial need should have nothing to do with it. That said, I don't mind if wealthy folks are made to pay their own way, but I do mind if that's not made clear and the reason(s) why similarly made clear. Presumably the reason would be because they just don't need the assistance, and I'm okay with that. It makes sense that wealthy folks accept a handout if it's given to them; they're under no obligation to "leave money on the table, as it were. I hardly expect them to "cry the blues" if they don't get one, however.