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Free the Public Universities

chronicle.com

62 pointsbenbreen26 comments

I've begun to regard statements of "decrease funding" by media reports with skepticism. Usually "cuts in spending" means "reductions in the projected growth rate of spending". I believe that absolute state funding of public universities is on the decline though in the last few years, but its important to note the levels in a historic context. If you increase spending substantially, and then proceed to decrease it in the following years, that's not the same as a steady erosion of funding over decades.

It appears as though there was a huge spike in funding around the time of the financial crisis, and now it has been dropping over the last few years back to levels closer to that of the 1990s [0]. Not sure why most articles point to the high water mark of the last 5-10 years as the benchmark for cuts.

[0] http://www.randalolson.com/2014/05/20/skyrocketing-student-e...

You don't even have to leave the first paragraph to see that there has been a real and significant decline over decades: "The University of California at Berkeley, one of the leading public research universities in the nation, now receives only about 13 percent of its budget from state appropriations, compared with about 50 percent a few decades ago."

How does that indicate that the actual amount of spending went down? That just says that the growth in the allocation from the government has not kept up with the growth from other sources.

Berkeley isn't exactly a typical state school though. It'd be interesting to see a more comprehensive dataset.

Universities that are funded by federal research grants and tuition payed for by Department of Education-guaranteed loans cannot be called privatized by any stretch of imagination. The mess that exists in the US higher-ed system mirrors the mess in the US health-care system. Providing tax breaks and public funding, and then letting the beneficiaries of that funding do whatever they see fit with it is arguably what created the mess in the first place.

Affordable Care Act co-creater Ezekiel Emanuel, MD PhD, health economist Victor Fuchs, and Peter Orszag, former OMB director all have stated that the increased state Medicaid costs caused by the ACA have lead to less funding for state funded public higher education. Thus, the ACA leads to even less funding for higher education.

Most developed countries that have universal care (eg, Canada, UK, France, ...) have high tobacco taxes to help pay for health care. The taxes help to pay for the increased health care costs of smokers while also helping smokers to quit.

Our Federal tax is $1.01.

Using taxation for behavior modification is wrong. The public is helpless and powerless in going up against the sheer horsepower government can deploy to force you to pay taxes or adopt the behavior they want you to start, quit or modify.

This idea of taxing anything we can pull out of our asses is perverted in so many ways. Tax pencils so people use less paper? Sure. Tax bank ATM transactions so people do more online? Why not. Tax anything we can imagine at any time.

I have a very fundamental problem with this idea of taxing whatever the fuck politicians can imagine because it leads to more waste, misuse and more control of the people by government.

Case in point: One of my favorites is the County of Los Angeles Business Property Tax.

What do you think this is? You think "property tax", it must be tax on a building you own.

Wrong.

This is a tax on EVERYTHING you have inside the building. Any property the business owns, is taxed. Property? Yes, your desk, stapler, photocopier, chairs, coffee machine, tables, printers, computers, projectors, etc. Even tenant improvement costs are considered "business property" and fall under this tax.

And you get taxed on this crap FOREVER!

So, you bought a desk, paid state sales tax when you did and now you get to pay the County of Los Angeles a small annual tax on that desk in perpetuity based on the value of the desk every year.

Do you have a factory full of CNC machines and sophisticated manufacturing equipment? Pay up!

Do you have a small tech company with a couple of dozen cubicles and nice computers? Pay up!

It's sick. Truly sick. We are being taxed to death from every angle. Very soon they are going to install a fart meter in every chair and find a way to tax your farts.

Where does the money go? Who knows. As I said, truly sick.

> Where does the money go? Who knows.

Here you go:

https://www.lacounty.gov/residents

This is such outrages as Parks and Rec, libraries, the Sheriff's Office, County Jail, providing basic services to 1m unincorporated LA residents, etc.

You misunderstood (and I didn't do a good job of stating my position).

I am NOT saying that taxation is wrong or that we should not pay taxes. We have to pay for the cost of running everything you listed and more.

What I am saying is that waking up every day to a new tax on something else someone pulled out of their ass is wrong. And that using taxation to influence behavior is also wrong.

One tax. That's it. Clean. Clear. Transparent. Full accountability.

Things have devolve to the point where nobody can truly understand how much money we are handing our government in the way of taxes. So many taxes, from so many angles. It ultimately means less money in your pocket and more government waste. They are not accountable for anything at all. And pecking at your money from a million little angles make that easier.

Look at the roads in California. Now they are saying we don't have enough money and have to raise taxes. Really? Where did all of that money we pay at the pump (probably the highest taxed gasoline in the nation) go? I'll be if we look it went into ridiculous pension plans and benefits. So, they've had a party on our dime and now that the roads are falling apart they are going to make us pay for it AGAIN while they all retire on the fat pensions they got with our tax money.

Government has devolved into something sick and disgusting. While we are all busy earning a living they take sweet rides on our backs. Next they are going to tax our farts just so they can throw nicer holiday parties.

Everyone who doesn't smoke subsidizes the high health care costs for those who do smoke. Thus, to not tax tobacco users to pay for their healthcare costs means an implicit tax on those of us who don't smoke.

Increasing the cost of tobacco is the best way to help smokers to quit and to stop teens from starting.

This thinking is twisted. If you smoke intensely all of your life you will die a horrible death for being a moron. That is probably the worst example you could have pulled. There is no excuse for sucking smoke into your lungs. None. If you are looking for sympathy you are not going to find it here. I should not have to pay for the medical care of a smoker. A cancer patient? Absolutely. A smoker? Eat shit (or tobacco) and die.

This also reveals just how royally fucked up our politics have become.

If there's one product that should be absolutely positively banned and hyper-criminalized it is tobacco and cigarettes. Instead, crooked politicians make deals and tax them. Tax them? No!!!! Ban the shit!

Check this out:

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_...

The consequences of smoking are staggering.

So, we use taxes to try to influence behavior and pay costs? Nonsense.

No, taxes should be reserved to pay for the cost of running our government and infrastructure and NOT used for social engineering. That's perverted and it simply does not work. Another case in point: War on Drugs. What a joke.

In the case of the US, stopping the sugar subsidies and perhaps even taxing it more might be a good start.

It seems like overall a reduction in sugar consumption will be a net benefit when you take into account reduced health expenditures, considering the obesity epidemic.

The local community college here in Santa Barbara just announced a new program to make tuition and books free for students from within the local area.

http://m.keyt.com/news/santa-barbara-city-college-offers-fre...

> The program will cost 5 million for the first three years. After that the foundation will have to create an endowment of 30 million to make sure the program continues indefinitely.

I think this is great news. However, I have some questions. How much will the program cost per student (what are the fixed and variable costs)? What is the program doing to keep costs low?

A similar example is the Kalamazoo Promise:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalamazoo_Promise

Tuition has been on the rise, from what I can tell, due to excessive, frivolous and/or unchecked expenditures[1][2] with the guise of benefiting the universities and their students.

One example is the ridiculous salaries payed to the athletic staffs of these universities. Even the research universities like UC Berkley pay upwards of 5.4 million contracted salary[3]. The counter argument to this is that these sports programs pay for the research( though some believe that is more often not the case[4]) So even if I grant that this may be true, and I understand supply and demand principals of "talented" coaches, come the on, these are just sports. And many athletic department, not all , are doing a great disservice to many of the athletes who are not encourage to reap the academic benefits the schools have to offer[5], when a scant percentage even move on to Olympic or professional sports careers[6]

I think step 0 of this article's intended plan should be to look at spending, and have accountability, remove internal bureaucracy and reduce some of the ridiculous salaries (coaches, presidents, etc) and determine what a fair tuition looks like.

[1]http://www.texaspolicy.com/blog/detail/more-outrageous-spend...

[2]http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-uc-spending-201...

[3] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6sm-b1X...

[4]http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2014/dec/22/ji...

[5]http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/college/2014/06/01/Do-col...

[6]http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/estimated-proba...

Coach pay at major conference schools is not a cost that students see. For instance, the Pac 12 has a 12 year, $3 billion TV deal. $250 million per year over 12 schools is $20 million per school. And they also have things like ticket revenue (tens of millions for football alone).

http://www.bruinsnation.com/2011/5/4/2153940/breaking-down-t...

I think it's a bad joke that they are called amateur student athletes, but it isn't costing other students money.

Right... so... if the coach is payed say less, than... could the students see a decrease in their tuition bill as the funds for the coach have freed up? Now, I am terrible at evaluating worth, especially for things as potentially complex as leading a sports team (was success due to the athletes? strategies? leadership? etc. Similarly for failure), but if Nick Saban is making 7.09 per year at Alabama, with a student population of 36k, the full salary divided by the population would be about $196 per year, which I am sure a student would love to see. (obviously my math is assuming full salary liquidation which is not realistic).

Finances for Div 1: http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

Most athletic depts are subsized and this is just division 1. There are obviously a few winners here, but mostly losers and definitely a net loss.

Having been around that environment, it's just amazing how much money is being thrown around. The whole athletic budget is a giant slush fund, but they're just taking the lead from the university as a whole.

Two questions only: Who pays? That is, whose money funds these programs?

Only people that read headlines and don't read the article have to pay.

tl;dr; "We want less oversight. But keep those checks coming!"

I don't think that's a fair reading. I think it's reasonable to suggest that state governments ease up on the beauracracy in light of the decline in funding.

State governments have reduced funding by about 10% per student, and increased them in general (the number of students went up significantly).

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/higher-education/rep...

The fact that costs are out of control (notice the 200% increase in tuition) suggests more oversight is needed, not less.

That report makes some interesting points about the increasing role of student loan debt covering the rise in tuition. They don't really suggest what universities should do though, it's more state-level reform: standardize admissions and credit transfer, bring primary and secondary education up to par... How do you propose getting costs under control?

Interestingly, the OP (the chronicle) states that the cut in state funding per student is 25% since 2000 vs 10% over 2003--2012 (citing dept of Ed). I wonder where the writer for the chronicle got their data? I still think the OP makes some valid points.

Increasing the # of students per class, increasing reliance on cheap adjuncts, reducing amenities, lowering pay/benefits, firing unneeded administrators. (Last one is a biggie.)

More generally, I could favor a plan which gives the universities "freedom". Specifically, we cap tuition + fees, eliminate most regulations on university behavior, and reduce funding. We should also make a policy that if there is significant student lobbying for more funding, the college president is fired. (That reduces the motivation to run a Washington Monument strategy [1].)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument_Syndrome

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