The College Money Crisis

[DGS49]

The College Money Crisis (Published 2020)

And what else you need to know today.

www.nytimes.com

The first story in today's briefing (hope you are not blocked with the paywall) is about the financial crisis on most American campuses. In typical NYT fashion, they blame a lot of it on Trump, but the broader picture is, as the "cost" of colleges has risen, the contribution of most states has gone down, while the Feds have tried to soften the blow to families with various programs, the Donald doesn't seem to have a plan for the future, when colleges are REALLY fucked financially.

Allow me to take a different tack. I have worked for many companies that faced financial crises of one kind or another (been laid off several times), and I have seen what companies do when they really have to work to survive. They:

• Go to department heads and tell them to cut every expense that is not essential,
• Cut salaries across the board,
• Eliminate whole departments sometimes,
• Lay off people who are "excess," and
• Work harder.

In my vast experience, there can be a 25% cut in most companies (staff and everything else) and within six months nobody can remember what the gone people were even doing.

Now look at today's college campuses, and identify all the things that have nothing to do with education. Every department and position with the word, "diversity," and/or "inclusion," could be eliminated immediately, with no negative impact. How many other worthless departments have been allowed to proliferate? How many professors are teaching a full course load?

Does every department pull its own weight? Biggest, of course, is athletics. Has nothing to do with education and in most colleges it is a financial loser. I have read that there are now more "administrators" on most campuses than faculty. Is that reasonable? I realize that you can't save much money by turning the lights off in a building, but how many buildings on campus are actually education-essential? The swimming pool, gym, student union?

The solution for colleges does not appear to be more money. Whatever money they get they waste. They figure out new positions and initiatives and reasons to spend it.

And keep in mind that there is ANOTHER tidal wave about to impact today's colleges, if sanity ever breaks out in Washington and the state capitals. They will be expected to shoulder at least some of the load of college loans. They cannot go along forever charging outrageous tuitions and fees, while their graduates suffer with crappy jobs, minimal incomes, and default on those loans. The colleges MUST be forced to step up, somehow, and assume some of this financial risk.

To reiterate my basic point: I have never seen or heard of any college taking stock of itself in the same way that a business would do, to ensure its economic viability. And while college is not a "business," they can't expect the public to bail them out YET AGAIN unless and until they do the sort of soul searching that every real business goes through from time to time. Cut salaries, lay people off, get serious. Then we can talk.

 

[Correll]

Ann COulter has talked about this. She said that Congress should hold public hearing demaning answers for the massive rise in tutution.

 

[Uncensored2008]

The College Money Crisis (Published 2020)

And what else you need to know today.

www.nytimes.com

The first story in today's briefing (hope you are not blocked with the paywall) is about the financial crisis on most American campuses. In typical NYT fashion, they blame a lot of it on Trump, but the broader picture is, as the "cost" of colleges has risen, the contribution of most states has gone down, while the Feds have tried to soften the blow to families with various programs, the Donald doesn't seem to have a plan for the future, when colleges are REALLY fucked financially.

Allow me to take a different tack. I have worked for many companies that faced financial crises of one kind or another (been laid off several times), and I have seen what companies do when they really have to work to survive. They:

• Go to department heads and tell them to cut every expense that is not essential,
• Cut salaries across the board,
• Eliminate whole departments sometimes,
• Lay off people who are "excess," and
• Work harder.

In my vast experience, there can be a 25% cut in most companies (staff and everything else) and within six months nobody can remember what the gone people were even doing.

Now look at today's college campuses, and identify all the things that have nothing to do with education. Every department and position with the word, "diversity," and/or "inclusion," could be eliminated immediately, with no negative impact. How many other worthless departments have been allowed to proliferate? How many professors are teaching a full course load?

Does every department pull its own weight? Biggest, of course, is athletics. Has nothing to do with education and in most colleges it is a financial loser. I have read that there are now more "administrators" on most campuses than faculty. Is that reasonable? I realize that you can't save much money by turning the lights off in a building, but how many buildings on campus are actually education-essential? The swimming pool, gym, student union?

The solution for colleges does not appear to be more money. Whatever money they get they waste. They figure out new positions and initiatives and reasons to spend it.

And keep in mind that there is ANOTHER tidal wave about to impact today's colleges, if sanity ever breaks out in Washington and the state capitals. They will be expected to shoulder at least some of the load of college loans. They cannot go along forever charging outrageous tuitions and fees, while their graduates suffer with crappy jobs, minimal incomes, and default on those loans. The colleges MUST be forced to step up, somehow, and assume some of this financial risk.

To reiterate my basic point: I have never seen or heard of any college taking stock of itself in the same way that a business would do, to ensure its economic viability. And while college is not a "business," they can't expect the public to bail them out YET AGAIN unless and until they do the sort of soul searching that every real business goes through from time to time. Cut salaries, lay people off, get serious. Then we can talk.

Maybe professors can get by with 3 Lamborghini's and only a dozen Corvettes?

The reality is that the old brick and mortar colleges and universities are an anachronism. Campuses are the equivalent of a letter in the era of email. It's dumb, it's outdated.

Put classes on-line. Use top talent, I mean have Janet Yellen teach macro-economics. You only need record the class once and put it in the on line curriculum. Charge students 1/20th what the Marxist Indoctrination centers do no, give them ACTUAL EDUCATIONS, (what a concept.)

Higher education MUST be shook up, it is a failure.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Ann COulter has talked about this. She said that Congress should hold public hearing demaning answers for the massive rise in tutution.

Yale is a diploma mill. If you have the cash and the connections, you get a Yale diploma. Coursework is utterly irrelevant. Harvard has some colleges that still require coursework, but most do not. (the college of medicine does, thankfully.) Both have gone on line only, neither reduced their tuition by so much as a dime.

Consider this, the University of Phoenix licensed their MBA curriculum from Harvard. A smart move, why reinvent the wheel when there is a proven program, right? But with Covid, Harvard went 100% on line, so exactly WHAT is the difference between a UOP MBA and a Harvard MBA, other then the fact Harvard charges 19 times as much? Same education, same materials.

Consumers MUST ask questions, what do I get other than a name?

In the case of the Ivy Leagues, you get nothing - but Yale is STILL the badge of the elite - and is ALL it is.

 

[DGS49]

The Ivy league schools may be "diploma mills" but for most purposes it doesn;t matter. THey are so selective that even getting in (bullshit set-asides excluded) puts you into an elite group that will be successful throughout life. You could spend four years learning to weave baskets and the same will be true.

THAT is why the degree is so valuable, not the education itself.

On line learning will never be as good as sitting in a lecture hall of a classroom with a good instructor.

 

[Gdjjr]

What authority would "Donald" use to do something about the problem?

As for congress holding investigations they know why- the money, follow it see the agenda-

Money has become like that movie- Build It They Will Come- it's there it will be taken, spent, used, however you want to label it- it HAS to be put in circulation, no matter how nefarious the scheme.

 

[Uncensored2008]

The Ivy league schools may be "diploma mills" but for most purposes it doesn;t matter. THey are so selective that even getting in (bullshit set-asides excluded) puts you into an elite group that will be successful throughout life. You could spend four years learning to weave baskets and the same will be true.

THAT is why the degree is so valuable, not the education itself.

All true, except the illusion is slipping, the rubes are starting to question. Those who go to state schools get better educations than those in the Ivy leagues. The old guard is entirely about connections, it is a perpetuation of aristocracy. George Bush is a moron, so is Al Gore Jr. Yale boys, both of them - sons of the Aristocracy, groomed to be rulers, but not leaders, and certainly not competent.

On line learning will never be as good as sitting in a lecture hall of a classroom with a good instructor.

Like an email will never be as good as a telegram?

Nonsense, on line is SUPERIOR in every way. You can have Arthur Laffer teach a course on macro-economics that is available to everyone. Ben Carson lecture on neurosurgery, Bill Gates lecture on how to create a monopoly and cripple superior competition. The man-bunned Marxist at Yale doesn't hold a candle to the real titans.