Where's the Money At?

~ Laura

Where’ s the money flowing to in American education? (Thanks to Jeremy S for these links)

It’s going to summer houses for administrators and star faculty. NYC Gives Its Stars Loans for Summer Homes

It’s going to golden parachutes for administrators who take advantage of graduate students and adjuncts.  CUNY’s Leader’s Retirement Comes With Paid Sabaticcal and Teaching Job.  His retirement salary? $490,000.

It’s going towards hot tubs in dorms. In Student Housing, Luxury Overshadowing Studying

It’s not going to poor kids in inner city schools. Budget Cuts Reach Bone For Philadelphia Schools.  

Published by Laura

8 thoughts on “Where's the Money At?”

  1. Different sources, though.

    If a private contractor can provide better housing for the same cost as the university, why should students choose to pay more for worse accomodations? Perhaps universities should focus on education, rather than running dorms. Or they could contract out student housing to residential specialists.

    Like

  3. “If a private contractor can provide better housing for the same cost as the university, why should students choose to pay more for worse accommodations? ”

    As the article alludes to, because the availability of luxury goods (hot tubs, pools, tv rooms) might fuel the partying/play in school, at the expensive of learning. Your question is the ultimate end point of the trajectory in education — trending from an exclusive environment for learning (both in the bad and good senses of the word exclusive) to a fee for service.

    Laura linked to an article a while ago, exploring the economics of the customer base in college and the trends it was likely to produce (the main point, if I remember correctly, was that the college “customers” were likely to chose amenities over education for a variety of reasons (including the short term benefits v the long term benefits, the inability to take advantage of the educational opportunity v the hot tub). That math produces an incentive for schools to prioritize student services over other investments, especially for schools that have to attract students rather than turn them away.

    Like

  4. This is what the military did — gave contracts to private corporations to run base housing — and the results have been awesome! Everything works, and the housing is clean and actually stylish and practical. And they also managed to get the waiting lists down. Landscaping, fitness centers — a million times better than what the government could ever do.
    And have you seen this?
    http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2013/06/forget_moocslets_use_mooa.html

    Like

  5. We didn’t have hot tubs or tv rooms in the Dark Ages, but we still managed to party. I have a naturally Puritanical bent myself, but I don’t think mold-free premises with working plumbing induce frivolity.

    One big attraction of fraternities/sororities seems to be actual houses off-campus? I have no experience, having missed the whole frat scene, myself. Some students might prefer safe, off-campus, non-fraternity housing to a frat or on-campus housing, if given a choice. Supplying adult housing might cut into the fraternity scene.

    Do universities kick students out for damaging dorm rooms these days? Landlords do. While theoretically living in university housing might lead to learning, does it?

    You see, I’m hearing stories from friends whose children are currently living in college dorms about things like rampant partying and hallways smelling of pot. That doesn’t strike me as academic in the least. I do not see the sense of paying high room fees to a university for my kid to have to step over vomit and inhale second hand pot smoke.

    Like

  6. My college could better be described as a real estate holding company and health care institution that happens to operate a college. There is no way they are going to outsource housing. On the contrary, it’s one of their core competencies. Education will get outsourced before housing does. Now that I think about it, maybe it already has. Isn’t that what adjuncts are?

    Like

  7. After five years in an inexpensive, scrupulously maintained college-owned rental, we did about 11 months living in a privately-owned student rental managed by what I used to call Muppet Baby Property Managers. The price was OK, the location was OK, but they left us with intermittent heat between Thanksgiving and Christmas last year. They were all very sweet and cute and young (I suspect it was the first real job for most of them), but not at all systematic about making sure that repairs were actually done. Also, a lot of their repair people were moonlighting, so they didn’t have large blocks of time available to see projects through. Before the five years in the college-owned rental, we also did four years in residence in a new college dormitory. Our apartment was very nice, but the college maintenance staff was slow and also had no follow-through.

    I feel like there’s a lot of variation in the skill level of property managers, both for-profit and not-for-profit.

    Like

Comments are closed.