CSUN University News Clippings

Editorial: Our view on the cost of education: Colleges duck tough cuts, keep hiking pay and tuition

(March 30, 2009)

USA Today

Talk about stepping up to the plate at a time of crisis. Faced with a $10.6 million state funding cut, the president of the University of Northern Iowa has, among other cuts, proposed axing its 103-year-old Division I baseball team. The move has drawn criticism, but it would save $400,000 a year that could otherwise have come out of parents’ and students’ pockets.

In another unpopular move, the Louisiana State University system might deal with a $101 million state funding shortfall in part by raising professors’ teaching hours and class sizes, and by furloughing staff. And Clemson University, which has seen $40 million in South Carolina budget cuts this year, has halted a variety of construction projects, saving $15 million.

Such reductions to athletics, academics and construction constitute acts of uncommon bravery in higher education. Too many other schools are responding to the economic crisis with a business-as-usual approach that combines half-hearted belt-tightening with over-reliance on tuition increases.

Until recently, heavy competition among applicants, and plentiful loans and home equity money, gave colleges little incentive to control spending. Why make tough choices if you can pass costs along to parents and students? That game is over, but some schools appear slow to realize it.

The University of Massachusetts, for example, plans to raise tuition and fees 15%, all the while upping next fall’s salaries for unionized professors and staff. The State University of New York is hiking tuition 14% and plans to raise union salaries.

Private-college tuitions are rising as well, and from a much higher base: Princeton’s tuition is going up 3.1%, to $35,340; Northwestern’s is rising 3.6% to $38,079. Both schools plan to continue raising salaries.

The tuition hikes, even when leavened with promised increases in financial aid for needy students, wouldn’t be so galling if tuition hadn’t already soared in the past decade — up 99% at private schools and 72% at public ones, according to the College Board. The money feeds salaries: The average admissions director earns $93,953 today, or 57% more than a decade ago, and faculty pay has risen almost 35%, to $90,055. Average household incomes rose 31% during the same period.

So where to cut? Administrative payrolls are an obvious target. Sports programs and lavish fitness centers are another. Nor should faculty workloads be sacrosanct, yet when the University of Florida proposed requiring that some professors teach two classes per semester instead of one, the school got taken to arbitration.

That’s bellyaching. Full-time professors’ classroom time has declined nationwide. Social scientists spent only 8.9 hours per week in class, 42 fewer minutes than in 1998, according to a Department of Education survey that ended in 2003. The extra time didn’t necessarily go to thinking big thoughts, either: On average, professors wrote a quarter of a book and 1.6 articles per year in 2003, making their speed back in 1998 — half a book and 3.1 articles — look hypersonic.

A layoff-stressed society isn’t going to tolerate professors and administrators who resist pay freezes and greater workloads. Times are tough all around. Fairness dictates that the ivory tower dwellers sweat as much as those toiling on the ground to pay their freight.

Publication: USA Today