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A Look At The Recession-Proof University
The Academy
By Thomas A. Shakely, For The Bulletin
“Let’s be honest. At a research university like Penn State, education just isn’t the primary mission.”
So declared an administrator at Penn State late last year in a private meeting, explaining his view of the real purpose of Pennsylvania’s flagship land-grant university. This was his rather tenuous way of defending the lack of cost controls on tuition and fees.
What has surprised me over the years at Penn State is not so much the amount of institutional waste that exists at an ostensibly nonprofit enterprise, but how frank so much of the school’s leadership is in admitting the failure of the institution to mind its founding mission: to provide an liberal and practical education to the working-class sons and daughters of the commonwealth.
The university’s annual budget stands at more than $3.4 billion. Ten years ago, it was barely $2 billion. There are other costs, too, like the interest on the nearly $1 billion worth of debt that the university has accrued over the years, largely as a result of its unending building binge.
And while the research-minded administrator quoted above is wrong about the school’s core mission today, time looks to be on his side. According to a recent policy report by the Commonwealth Foundation, a sizable 30 percent of Penn State’s operating budget in 2006 was devoted to research expenditures.
Then factor in the costs of agricultural outreach programs, and suddenly we find out that little more than half of the entire budget is actually going toward educating the undergraduate. And Penn State’s not even the worst offender: The University of Pittsburgh, another state-related college, spent 38 percent of its budget on research in 2006.
Now, none of this would be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that colleges like Penn State and Pitt still market themselves as institutions mainly concerned with providing a rich education of both depth and breadth to young men and women at an affordable, worthwhile price.
The problem with higher education is not necessarily its indulgence on research and outreach, but fundamentally in its application of market models where they don’t belong and the absence of those models where they do belong.
Market models should not be used as an excuse to limit the ranks of tenured faculty in favor of cheaper, more interchangeable grad students. Market models should, though, be applied to departments and programs ancillary to classroom education.
Even as tenured faculty have diminished to only 35 percent of the teaching corps in higher education, schools like Penn State spend tens of millions each year on programs that not only have no relation to its mission, but fail even by their own metrics for success.
Condom giveaways dominate student health center budgets as sexually transmitted diseases burgeon. Equity departments receive more funding to “manage” diversity, effectively asserting that the undergrad is either too racist or too helpless to peacefully exist or make friends on his own.
Vital to a modern university? Let’s see the administrator try to sell that idea to any reasonable Pennsylvanian, who has watched tuition at four-year public colleges increase more than 121 percent over the past two decades while per capita income has increased by a comparably modest 33 percent.
Average state tuition at a four-year public college in Pennsylvania was $9,672 for the 2007-08 academic year. That’s more than Ohio, Delaware, Maryland or West Virginia. It’s nearly $4,500 more than the average state tuition for New Yorkers. Pennsylvania is the fourth most expensive state in the nation if you’re looking to attend a four-year public college, and Penn State in particular is the costliest land-grant university the nation.
The economics just don’t support the concept of the modern resort-style college experience that focuses more on the quantity of its services rather than the quality of its educators and graduates. College administrators are probably right in thinking their institutions are more or less recession-proof, but responsible governance of a public good like higher education should be about more than market demand.
Gov. Ed Rendell put it best in recent remarks to student leaders at Penn State: “If there’s ever been a moral imperative of controlling tuition, it’s now.”
Amen.
Thomas A. Shakely is president of The Other Half, a nonprofit for higher education reform. He can be reached at tom@tomshakely.com.
So declared an administrator at Penn State late last year in a private meeting, explaining his view of the real purpose of Pennsylvania’s flagship land-grant university. This was his rather tenuous way of defending the lack of cost controls on tuition and fees.
What has surprised me over the years at Penn State is not so much the amount of institutional waste that exists at an ostensibly nonprofit enterprise, but how frank so much of the school’s leadership is in admitting the failure of the institution to mind its founding mission: to provide an liberal and practical education to the working-class sons and daughters of the commonwealth.
The university’s annual budget stands at more than $3.4 billion. Ten years ago, it was barely $2 billion. There are other costs, too, like the interest on the nearly $1 billion worth of debt that the university has accrued over the years, largely as a result of its unending building binge.
And while the research-minded administrator quoted above is wrong about the school’s core mission today, time looks to be on his side. According to a recent policy report by the Commonwealth Foundation, a sizable 30 percent of Penn State’s operating budget in 2006 was devoted to research expenditures.
Then factor in the costs of agricultural outreach programs, and suddenly we find out that little more than half of the entire budget is actually going toward educating the undergraduate. And Penn State’s not even the worst offender: The University of Pittsburgh, another state-related college, spent 38 percent of its budget on research in 2006.
Now, none of this would be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that colleges like Penn State and Pitt still market themselves as institutions mainly concerned with providing a rich education of both depth and breadth to young men and women at an affordable, worthwhile price.
The problem with higher education is not necessarily its indulgence on research and outreach, but fundamentally in its application of market models where they don’t belong and the absence of those models where they do belong.
Market models should not be used as an excuse to limit the ranks of tenured faculty in favor of cheaper, more interchangeable grad students. Market models should, though, be applied to departments and programs ancillary to classroom education.
Even as tenured faculty have diminished to only 35 percent of the teaching corps in higher education, schools like Penn State spend tens of millions each year on programs that not only have no relation to its mission, but fail even by their own metrics for success.
Condom giveaways dominate student health center budgets as sexually transmitted diseases burgeon. Equity departments receive more funding to “manage” diversity, effectively asserting that the undergrad is either too racist or too helpless to peacefully exist or make friends on his own.
Vital to a modern university? Let’s see the administrator try to sell that idea to any reasonable Pennsylvanian, who has watched tuition at four-year public colleges increase more than 121 percent over the past two decades while per capita income has increased by a comparably modest 33 percent.
Average state tuition at a four-year public college in Pennsylvania was $9,672 for the 2007-08 academic year. That’s more than Ohio, Delaware, Maryland or West Virginia. It’s nearly $4,500 more than the average state tuition for New Yorkers. Pennsylvania is the fourth most expensive state in the nation if you’re looking to attend a four-year public college, and Penn State in particular is the costliest land-grant university the nation.
The economics just don’t support the concept of the modern resort-style college experience that focuses more on the quantity of its services rather than the quality of its educators and graduates. College administrators are probably right in thinking their institutions are more or less recession-proof, but responsible governance of a public good like higher education should be about more than market demand.
Gov. Ed Rendell put it best in recent remarks to student leaders at Penn State: “If there’s ever been a moral imperative of controlling tuition, it’s now.”
Amen.
Thomas A. Shakely is president of The Other Half, a nonprofit for higher education reform. He can be reached at tom@tomshakely.com.
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