While I think we can all agree that taxpayers have unknowingly financed the expansion of academic empires, the fact remains that higher education is the gateway to better jobs and this is the system we have. Let me remind you that when Gov. Corbett says we don’t have the money to fund education, what he really means is that he and Republican legislators have decided they’d rather use that money to subsidize big business (Marcellus Shale, anyone?) and more tax cuts:
Knowing the Pennsylvania government was waist-deep in deficit, Temple University leaders braced for a reduction of up to 6 percent in state aid this year.
Oops.
The current proposed cut stands at 25 percent. And that’s an improvement from the governor’s original 50 percent reduction.
That’s a loss of $44.6 million, enough to pay 18 months of water, gas, and electric bills at all nine of Temple’s campuses and sites.
Temple President Ann Weaver Hart has reimposed freezes on nonunion wages, administration hiring, and travel, while delaying plans to fill five top university posts. More hardship is coming as the school tries to reconcile big plans and fewer dollars.
Welcome to the South. One of the interesting things about bad schools is that the poor saps who attend them don’t know they are being cheated. That only becomes clear later when one learns how many doors are closed to those with a joke degrees from second-rate colleges.
And here’s another way to establish a monopoly on better paying and higher status jobs. It’s always been in effect, but, with the GI Bill after WWII, suddenly many people who previously couldn’t afford the better universities or any university, who couldn’t afford college or simply had to get in the work force in order to afford to live, all these bright people could go on to higher education. And they proved to be strong competition for those legacy entries into the top schools.
I noticed, a few years before I was downsized by my corporate borg, that while the many of the current officers of the corporation had come up through state schools, they were now just not looking at applications that weren’t from the top tier universities — or, in some cases, exceptions were made for officers’ alma maters. But, the first cut was not just degrees, but from where.
We got a rush of young MBA’s who were supposed to make everything shiny and profitable, older workers were downsized (or ignored), institutional memory was lost, and, well, things fell apart.
Now, limiting the slots for those wanting an education, limiting the quality of that education are ways to limit who gets the advantages of a being certified as bright and accomplished: Gut not only K-12, but start on gutting the great state schools. Then, the elites can pick and choose those who are most likely to serve them well and “assist” those to getting to the “better” schools, the acceptable schools.
What a lovely way to grease the slide of a once great nation into mediocrity.