This is a clear example of correctly identifying the symptoms but failing to understand the structural causes of Spiraling tuition. What few understand is that while everything from insurance, utilities, supplies, technology, basic services, and etc. have gone up such things as level of State Support, Endowments, investments have all gone down. In actuality, tuition increases have averaged below the rate of inflation. While salaries have remained stagnant, benefits declined, and long term prospects for improvements are dim. Consequently, as the gap between revenues and expenditures increase, more and more institutions are turning to its human resources to bridge the gap. We have undergone several rounds of extremely painful cuts here at Miami. These cuts have come after almost a 2 decades where the Institution has been made to do more things with less. Yet, even though we have cut to the bone, even though have managed to hold down the cost of education to the students (as noticed by a recent Forbes ranking whereby Miami was deemed the best value in the state among public institutions), and it has consistently ranked among the most highly ranked public institutions (Newsweek)- several different strategies are being investigated to reduce our expenditures by some $40 million over the next 5 years. One of the significant strategies being discussed would result in a major restructuring of the institution. This reorganization will result in the merging of many departments into what can only be called departmental clusters. The real savings -the elimination of several department chairs and support staff. Of interests in this reorganization is that while these structural savings might be realized, the implicit savings is to pass on more work to fewer and fewer individuals. Therefore, those support staff remaining will find that they are not do the work of 3 or 4. And faculty, graduate students, and even undergraduate students will be doing more of the things that were traditionally done by others. Some of these changes will definitely be good, others might actually be counterproductive. These counterproductive aspects of the plan would essentially pit departments (now within clusters) against each other for scarcer and scarcer institutional resources. Whereas today we note a great deal of cooperation between departments, there is a possibility that more conflict will result as academic units will be judged more in terms of such things as majors and minors, class sizes, and faculty workloads. The University, while in some ways mimics any other business, in other ways it is more like a community. Therefore, while on paper it looks good to push for measurable outcomes such associated with counting majors and minors, increasing class size and faculty workloads. Such could measures could actually destroy the very things which make Miami what it is and threaten its tradition of excellence. For example one of the things that Miami prides itself in is small class sizes, whereby students can get high quality instruction from experts in the fields. Some Universities have average class sizes of 200 to 300 for undergraduate classes. While Miami boasts that our classes typically range from 30-40. Clearly, increasing to the higher end, while producing a better bottom line, would actually destroy something quite important to Miami's tradition. Alternatively, many would argue that increasing the faculty workload would also improve the bottom line. But herein lies a major problem with this kind of thinking, having faculty teach more means that they have less time to do research, prepare for class, and perform vital National, State and local service. One way of seeing how this last point may deter from Miami's tradition of excellence, is to consider the following: At Miami, and other major institutions dedicated to excellence, there is a recognized synergy between high quality instruction and high quality research. The typical Miami faculty member spends a considerable amount of time not only keeping informed regarding innovations within their specific field of study, but actually instrumental in developing many of these innovations. Thus students, particularly undergraduates, benefit from cutting edge, dynamic, and new insights. While we consider the crisis in tuition, and other costs to education, we can ill afford to destroy the very thing which makes us at Miami what we are -excellence.
for more of my work please go to:
http://www.redroom.com/author/rodney-d-coates
The man who has no imagination has no wings.
Muhammad Ali
Rodney D. Coates
Professor
A Crisis of Spiraling Tuition
Colleges must volunteer - or be forced - to address rising
costs
By Derrick Z. Jackson
The Boston Globe
August 31, 2010
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/08/31/a_crisis_of_spiraling_tuition/
In a speech to the Urban League in July, President Obama
bemoaned the nation's drop from first in the world to 12th in
measures of college completion. This situation is
"economically indefensible'' and "morally inexcusable,'' he
said, and "all of us are going to have to roll up our sleeves
to change it.''
Graduation rates aside, the most morally inexcusable aspect
of college is the unbridled cost of getting in. It is clear
who should be first to roll up their sleeves: college
presidents. Obama should declare their tuitions and fees a
state of emergency and call a national summit to hold these
institutions accountable.
to read more, go to:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/08/31/a_crisis_of_spiraling_tuition/
_____________________________________________
Portside aims to provide material of interest
to people on the left that will help them to
interpret the world and to change it.
Submit via email: [log in to unmask]
Submit via the Web: portside.org/submit
Frequently asked questions: portside.org/faq
Subscribe: portside.org/subscribe
Unsubscribe: portside.org/unsubscribe
Account assistance: portside.org/contact
Search the archives: portside.org/archive
|
