Comment by bunnyrooroo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bunnyrooroo | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Hello,

I actually live in Alaska. I'm quite concerned about how the NY Times portrayed this.

While I don't agree with all of the cuts to the University or the budget as a whole, the way this is being portrayed is interesting.

If veto holds, and the cuts to the University take effect, Alaska will still spend 3 times as much per student than the average state. Yes, you heard that correct, Alaska will still contribute 3 times as much in state funding, per student, to their college students than the average state in the lower 48. Going to college for in state residents is one of the lowest tuition rates in the nation for a state school.

Secondly, it didn't get mentioned that Alaska has one University system. There are an amazing amount of redundancies in the system that could eliminated for greater efficiencies and savings.

Lastly, it rarely gets mentioned that the UA system has a huge amount of administrative overhead costs. I attended the UA system and there always seems to be quadruple the administrative staff to actually teaching/research going on.

The last thing I would say is that the State legislatures did a very poor job of overspending while oil prices were good and then when the price of oil dropped, boom!, we had a deficit.

Better fiscal restraint and spending prior to the price of oil dropping would have saved a lot of his heartache.

Not to mention that Alaska is dependent on oil for its current existence and once fossil fuel use is eliminated, this state will lose 75% of its residents.

Just my two cents.

Another interpretation of your exact data is that this great amount of funding paid off, it educated you and attracted talented people to University of Alaska.

UA is a decent University System, but not more than that.

In fact, a few months ago, the University of Alaska Anchorage lost accreditation for their teacher program. Yes, you read that correctly. The largest University in Alaska lost their accreditation for a program that is one of the most needed in the state.

Getting people to teach in Alaska is a major issue for obvious reasons, and the largest university in the state did such a poor job that they lost their ability to graduate licensed teachers.

>the largest university in the state did such a poor job that they lost their ability to graduate licensed teachers.

Maybe you can help me understand this, but how is the solution to cut funding further by 41%?

I actually don't agree with the severity if the cut, but the University System in Alaska is known for overspending and the massive amount of administrative jobs that don't go into the education of young minds.

I wouldn't blindly apply it to this situation, but I can at least see the logic of just stopping doing something that isn't working.

For the specific situation, maybe a program that paid off student loans for anyone with some period of service (lots of teachers outside of AK) would be a better way to spend the money than unconditionally throwing it at a failing program?

If you can't graduate teachers spending many times more than lower 48 colleges, more money isn't going to fix the problem.

Competitive pressures are required.

What is that an interpretation of the data?

Thanks for providing this information.

Without it, the move seems pretty extreme. Knowing that 3x is being spent puts things in a much different light.

I wish NYT had reported more evenly. I feel sort of like they tried to skew people's thinking, beyond the pale.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com