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Monday, November 2, 2009 at 07:06AM Will the Obama administration condemn the greed of university presidents making millions while struggling students work to pay off mammoth loans to support the greed machine of academia?
Doubtful.
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Reader Comments (35)
So are football coaches......and it is sickening when you think about the fact that many of these are Public universities. I know a gal at OSU that is a VP in some made up department making over $250K per year. Realistically, I could see maybe paying her like $70k. The University President may be deserving of decent comp if they bring in a lot of donations, but I still think comp in the millions is nuts.
Where's the "Pay Czar" when you need him?
The cost of going to college has increased astronomically over the years faster than the rate of inflation. College prof salaries have not gone up that much, so where is the money?
Indoctrination costs a lot of money, you know. They have to pay those prices to get people to do it, don't you know? Unless there's something in it for them, nobody in their right mind would sell out the country and the education system for less because they have to survive somehow after they've dumbed everybody else down.
Indoctrination - sometimes I wonder about you Steph. Yes these compensation packages are far too exorbitant for an educational institution, and so are those of athletic coaches. Because of reductions in real wages and reductions in government college loan and grant programs, we are rapidly closing out higher education for non-affluent Americans.
Many of our great leaders and thinkers of the last generation received their education only because we had tuition-free public universities in some states and the GI bill. Now the children of working class and ostensibly middle class Americans cannot afford college without incurring an enormous debt upon graduation. The children of the wealthy can afford the cost of prestigious private colleges and graduate with no debt and so have the luxury of pursuing their dreams after college rather than hurrying to find a job that pays enough to cover their student loan debt.
Rather than complain about the exorbitant salaries of private college presidents, we ought to be clamoring for our politicians to provide no-interest loans to college students and substantial grants to promising students, and to increase funding for public universities. By putting millions more young people into college we will reduce unemployment as well as make our nation more competitive in the future.
Charles, you just keep on wondering about me because if you believe all that B.S. you just wrote, you'll be wondering until the day you die.
GI bill... LOL!
I received a whopping $3,844 for college which I used for rent and books. I couldn't afford a university. That was in 1983. Guess who was president when I went in, who eliminated those GI benefits. No, it wasn't Reagan; it was the knucklehead before him.
Funny how Chuck says "Rather than complain about the exorbitant salaries of private college presidents..." (slyly redirecting attention to private colleges away from Public Universities) yet is the first to complain about corporate salaries and bonuses. Talk about hypocrisy...
They are both high Public and Private.
Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with private colleges charging a lot. They're private, and can charge whatever they want. Nobody is entitled to attend; the privilege must be earned or paid for. My wife attended St Mary's in Moraga, CA. Between her GPA and her father's willingness to pay the tuition, she received a wonderful education without a lot of riffraff distracting the student body.
This is why conservatives make no sense to me...a free market dictates that a person should earn whatever another is willing to pay them. Why does Fox News or Amy care...oh, because conservatives are only conservative when it suits their needs.
Basically all you've said is that conservatives can't point out the hypocrisy of the left. I don't hear the left griping about professors' pay like they do corporations. I don't hear them griping about entertainers' pay unless it's somebody on the right like Limbaugh. In fact I don't hear them complaining about any pay except for that of businesses and corporations.
When you stop complaining about what people make in the free market then we won't have to bring up the hypocrisy. You want to set standards for others to live by then you had best be prepared to live by them yourself. NO EXCEPTIONS.
This is explains why college tuitions are so expensive and why it is bankrupting parents and students.
Yeah, I would like to know where the "Pay Czar" is too? It is unbelieveable what athletes, movie stars, and apparently University Presidents are being paid.
What can we do?
Letiticia, I personally don't care what they're paid as long as the free market says they're worth it. However, the quality of education has gone down while salaries go up precisely because there are no free market controls on colleges and universities, including the so-called private ones because most of them receive federal funds, too.
Unlike some, I don't envy others their wealth. I never have. However, those who do envy such and wish to curtail such accumulation should also submit to the curtailing to their own accumulation of the same, regardless of the method used for accumulating it. It never seems to be that way, though. They want to curb others from excesses from which they excuse themselves.
And then call hypocrite on anyone who says differently. If that doesn't work they call other names all to cover up the fact that their own avarice is showing.
The salary of a private university president is of no consequence unless that salary is being paid with my tax money. What concerns me is whether America's young people have the best education available to them regardless of their ability to pay. Access to higher education should be based on ability and motivation, not how much your daddy has given to the school. I also want America's young people to graduate from college without an enormous debt.
To get excited about the salary of a few college presidents while supporting policies that are crippling America's future by denying many of our young people access to higher education is silly.
Charles, another B.S. post by you. It doesn't even make sense but then, most of what you say is so fatuous very little of it does make sense. It's all whine and blame, whine and blame.
I worked my way through college while being a parent as well. As usual you don't know what you're talking about but merely repeating the Democratic victimology party lines.
Chuck,
I'll agree with you as far as to say "private colleges should not receive federal dollars." And then it really doesn't matter what presidents or janitors make. The issue is public universities and colleges. When they receive tax dollars, then they are subject to public scrutiny.
But to assume that every 18 year old is entitled to attend college is so flawed, a submarine with a screen door has more integrity. Our declaration of Independence says in part "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Notice is doesn't say we are entitled to anything other than life, liberty and the right to pursue happiness. So, adjusting entry level requirements because of race or ethnicity utterly defiles the very essence of these rights. But that is a topic for another post.
timo,
As long as government grants are in place, "free markets" don't dictate salaries, tuition or academic freedom.
You have to get down below the 70th football coach to get below the million a year mark.
http://www.americasbestonline.net/index.php/pages/collegehighestpaidcoaches.html
The basketball coachs also have many making more than a million. Of course these two mens sports programs also bring in income to support the other sports programs for both men and women that have a hard time breaking even. However, what tone is sent when the football coach makes 4 times that of the university president? I also have a hard time with many of the idiotic programs offered by universities that pay professors high salaries and contribut nothing to the overall good of our country. At a time when we need the highest level of expertise in many critical areas if the US is to compete in the future in a global world, it makes no sense to have kids wasting time with many of these programs. I notice that many foreign students do not waste their time with these type of programs and that in the end, many of them are thus more desired by our companies than our own American students.
Charles, it's a well known fact most universities are liberal. No one denies it anymore. And yes, indoctrination.
Gary, the GI Bill is better today than it was when you used it. Johnny's getting his Masters using it and we're passing on the unused balance to our kids. But considering our entire family has given 17 years to our country, mind, body and soul, I think the benefit is appropriate.
When we joined the Army, we paid $100 a month into the GI Bill making our monthly take home salary for a family of 4 (at the time) a whopping $900!
My undergrad was paid for by the Army, and I went out of pocket for the MBA. It has paid for itself in opening options to me. I turned down a free ride to Dartmouth and it was probably due to my lack of trust, as no one in my family had gotten a degree before and nothing is ever "free." While not everyone should go to college, I can't help but think we should not help promising young people go. That is why I have 529 plans for my kid, and my sister's kids, as well as donate to the United Negro College Fund, and the American Indian College Fund. I know of one Native American gal who is a biology major whom is studying roots in the lab, with the tribal medicinal knowledge passed down from her Grandmother. That is probably the true meaning of synergy.
Mike,
I fully agree with you that if a kid shows a sincere desire to attend college by way of GPA and involvement, then they should have the opportunity to attend via loans. Public grants are nothing more than throwing money away though. If they choose to attend a private college, then it is up to the College to arrange the tuition, etc.
Amy, I'm glad the GI bill has been revised (several times since I was in) and I fully believe those who step up to defend this Country should be granted many benefits including college tuition. I work with a couple of Vietnam vets, both of whom used the GI to attain a 4 year degree; one even used his for his MBA as well.
My point is simply graduating High School does not entitle an individual the right to attend a 4 year University. If a person cannot afford the cost, they still have the opportunity to earn the education through hard work resulting in high SAT scores and a decent GPA.
The highest paid college president earns 1.6 million. I am not sure if Obama has demanded CEOs earning less than this amount. I am assuming that the fact that this is person earning the 1.6 million dollars is a black woman has nothing to do with your outrage over her salary
The only private sector people i think that should answer to the government regarding their salary are the ones who ran the company into the ground and then took bailout money. Sorry, if you take a loan you should have to answer to someone. The AIG thing was a joke.
I think the conversation centers around the idea that College Presidents make a lot of money and the cost of Tuition is increasing faster than the rate of inflation. Gordon Gee turned down a raise of over $200k per year. I really don't think accusing Amy of being a racist is constructive to the conversation.
Steph, you are right, of course, if they are doing the job they are being paid to do, then fine, I won't gripe.
From what I have seen personally and hearing on the news, most of these universities are pushing their political agenda down the kids throats and that is NOT what their job entails. I want to see students make their own political decisions and not be coarced or manipulated or even threatened.
Leticia,
The tenure system has created a lot of profs that are allowed to be independent. I don't think that is wrong. This is America after all. College is a good place to be a liberal and an idealist. Once people start paying taxes they typically grow up.
And when their education really begins. If I were those young kids in that situation I'd be yelling for my tuition back.
Then don't go to school, it seems like everywhere from Community College to the Ivys thatis what you get.
Mike, I disagree. If the professors want to push their political agenda, let it be outside the school. The students are not there to swallow someone else's standpoint on politics. They are intelligent enough to come to their own conclusions.
Profressors need to stick with the curriculum, period.
What subjects are these students doing? I did maths, there wasn't any politics involved in that.
Just looked it up, seems like you only choose a major after 2 years. But I wonder how much of this "indoctrination" stuff applies to science students? (of course, they'll be getting "indoctrinated" in astronomy, geology and biology!)
The thing I don't like about charging students so much for education is that inevitably students will demand the courses which improve their earning potential the most. This is not the sole aim of education, in my opinion it would be a very sad direction for it to go in. Training (which really is something that should improve earning potential) is not the same as education. For example, subjects such as theology will get squeezed.
Jez,
The thing about Colleges is a lot of professors take a perverse joy in exerting their perceived authority over their students, bullying them into compliance, regardless the topic of the class.
Just after rotating to an active reserve status, I began taking core classes at a local Junior College. During the first day, my macro economics professor announced that he was a socialist who despised capitalism and would teach his class from the perspective of socialism being the preferred economic system.
Most of the students were either stunned and without response, or didn't care because they had no concept of the fact that the entire western world was engaged in a cold war with a country that represented his very ideology. I wasn't one of them. After about 8 minutes into his diatribe, I stood up and waited. When asked if I had something to say, I indicated I had just finished active duty in the United States Navy defending capitalism, and if he was opposed to the idea of a free market, the Soviet Union was accepting citizens. Of course, at 21, I was not nearly as eloquent, and probably used a few four letter expletives.
The point is Professor Patrick was not an exception to the rule, but the rule personified. This ideology is laden throughout the University system and expressed by mediocre students who, to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam war, hung out at the local coffee shops securing positions as student teachers, earning their PhD, and then finally being tenured, all the while speaking out against the war, smoking dope and loving anything that crawled by. But their ability to protest wasn't enough for them, so using their influence as mighty professors, sought to influence the future of our nation utilizing their positions to steer the minds of our youth. Read How to Ruin the United States of America by Ben Stein and Phil Demuth.
More often than not, college graduates, feeling enlightened and fulfilled with a sense of accomplishment for doing the hardest thing their simple lives have ever done, attempt to spread the doctrine of socialism and secularism that their fertile minds absorbed without question or challenge. The ones who successfully land a job soon discover that giving away their hard earned income in the form of taxes and entitlements is not quite as appealing as they once preached, and soon come to appreciate the conservative ideology, while the remainder of grads continue on their journey to change the success of our nation into utter failure.
During the heightened political atmosphere during Vietnam I can believe that sort of thing went on a lot, but less so now. By the way, did you stick with Patrick's class? I don't expect you did, if I'd just got back from a war I wouldn't want to read economics from the enemy's point of view either.
Side issue: to me socialism and communism are very different. Are the words used interchangeably in America?
But I still think that at the best universities (typically they have shorter terms) and in difficult subjects, there simply isn't time for all this, and furthermore lecturers over here teach grudgingly, considering it an unwelcome distraction from research. Given that attitude many of them can barely be bothered to prepare sensible material on the subject at hand, let alone concoct a program of indoctrination on top of that.
I've met a number of American academics, and I think they were all conservative, certainly they were fiscally.
The problem is Jez, those professors are still teaching.
And those taught during the 70's are now in positions of leadership. I did stay in the class; supply side economics. My intent when I stood up was to stop him from bashing the country that provided his existance.
A common mistake is to confuse Socialism, the economic system, with Communism, the political system. Apples and Oranges."My intent when I stood up was to stop him from bashing the country that provided his existance."
Did it work? :)
I'm interested in what his class was like. Surely there just isn't any socialist perspective on supply side economics, they're just at odds with each other. OK, he can announce upfront that he prefers socialism, what is there to gain from repeating that? Would he produce case studies which show SS failing?
(I'm just about old enough to remember the recessions of the 80s, which resulted from the failure of monetarism).
His class was actually decent. Though it was almost 27 years ago, I still remember the fundamentals of supply side economics which explains my point perfectly though. Though the class was about Economics, he used his status to promote his own personal belief structure. He explained that he never purchased new clothing, rather visiting the Good Will and Salvation Army stores, buying second hand socks and underwear. Thinking back now, he was a quite a screwball.
As an avocation, he opened a small store in town selling used golf clubs. He would visit garage sales and purchase sets of clubs, bags and carts for a few dollars, then sell them for large profits. He spent most of his time next door at the corner watering hole and would post a sign on the door telling his would-be patrons to find him at LeBeau's.
Years after attending his class, I bought a set of McGregor Jimmy Demerit blades for $75.00, and looked for a replacement iron of another set. I estimate he had over 50,000 clubs in that small shop, and about 500 golf bags stuffed in a storage room. He was certainly dualistic in thought.