4 ms·

Also, the specific examples of waste I'd like to address, since I think you might have some misconceptions on how these are funded: * Climbing wall: At most un

Also, the specific examples of waste I'd like to address, since I think you might have some misconceptions on how these are funded: * Climbing wall: At most universities I've seen these types of services are usually funding through a university recreation department that gets paid via student fees... voted on by the students. I.E. students went to an actual ballot and chose to raise their fees to supply things like this. * Counseling center: I disagree this is waste. Parents tend to get angry when students throw themselves from buildings. Universities that provide psych help for their students can lessen the number of students who do this, which is helpful for retaining not only the students who would otherwise kill themselves, but the students who object to seeing a rain of their peers from the tall building on campus. It also tends to increase alumni donation rates, IIRC. * Latino center / other AA type things: These are often student funded or sometimes funded through restricted funds where some interest group gives funds to the university specifically for this purpose. This doesn't always happen, but does more than you think. And yet again, these usually increase alumni donation rates among minorities and therefore net the university more than they paid, which means the university is simply making a smart investment, doubly so if they didn't even pay for it because someone else gave them funds to build it. * Various student clubs: Again, these are typically funded by students at most universities through an activities fee their own student government put onto the thing. They voted on this, they decided to spend it where they spent it and on some campuses the administrators are in fact legally prevented from doing anything about it. * Soccer team / sport programs: I'm not really a fan of sports programs being part of a university, but from a waste perspective not all of them are revenue losers. Some universities actually find they make money of teams and inspire a lot more private donations. Universities with strong sports programs tend to raise more money from alumni. I think this doesn't work out in practice for a lot of universities so I see this as potentially one of the better cases you've brought up as waste. * Resident assistants: Actually a vastly cheaper alternative to paid university staff doing these types of tasks. This generally is a smart and low cost way to staff buildings and the opposite of waste.

yummyfajitas 17y ago
At most universities I've seen these types of services are usually funding through a university recreation department that gets paid via student fees... voted on by the students We have a better way than voting to allocate private goods than voting: a market. Rather than allowing some students to vote for other students to pay for their entertainment, we should simply require that everyone pay for their own entertainment. As for sports teams/etc, if they bring in money, keep them. Most don't. As for RAs, their services are completely unnecessary. My apartment building simply does not provide monthly pasta dinners, free light bulbs, an ice cream social at the beginning of the year, or endless spam about sorority events. Somehow I've survived.
- djcapelis 17y ago
  If your apartment building had an alumni foundation that brought in substantial revenues it would. Also RAs do paperwork and some amount of administrative tasks that universities would have to hire a clerk or someone else to do. RAs are dirt cheap and it takes surprisingly little funds to make students feel like they're being pampered and money fluttered away on them when in reality it's almost nothing. But later they go "wow the university really cared" and they write checks. Take up the market idea to the students. At most of the campuses they're the ones who control these fees and can chose to lower, raise, reallocate or toss them. Students overwhelmingly vote for certain types of fees consistently across campuses. Apparently they don't buy your market argument and frankly if they vote that stuff in that's their own choice and not much we can get riled up about. (These types of fees are typically not a large part of the overall cost of tuition. It depends on the system. A very few places are just absurd, most are pretty minor.)
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    I guarantee you that a temp to do some paperwork for a week or two would cost less than free rent for a year (the cost of an RA). As for taking the market idea to students, I advocate doing exactly that. Allow students to opt out of student activity fees (but they can't join clubs) and make sure the government doesn't subsidize them. Incidentally, a student in the 49% who voted against student fees is NOT paying student fees by choice.

yummyfajitas 17y ago

At most universities I've seen these types of services are usually funding through a university recreation department that gets paid via student fees... voted on by the students We have a better way than voting to allocate private goods than voting: a market. Rather than allowing some students to vote for other students to pay for their entertainment, we should simply require that everyone pay for their own entertainment. As for sports teams/etc, if they bring in money, keep them. Most don't. As for RAs, their services are completely unnecessary. My apartment building simply does not provide monthly pasta dinners, free light bulbs, an ice cream social at the beginning of the year, or endless spam about sorority events. Somehow I've survived.

djcapelis 17y ago
If your apartment building had an alumni foundation that brought in substantial revenues it would. Also RAs do paperwork and some amount of administrative tasks that universities would have to hire a clerk or someone else to do. RAs are dirt cheap and it takes surprisingly little funds to make students feel like they're being pampered and money fluttered away on them when in reality it's almost nothing. But later they go "wow the university really cared" and they write checks. Take up the market idea to the students. At most of the campuses they're the ones who control these fees and can chose to lower, raise, reallocate or toss them. Students overwhelmingly vote for certain types of fees consistently across campuses. Apparently they don't buy your market argument and frankly if they vote that stuff in that's their own choice and not much we can get riled up about. (These types of fees are typically not a large part of the overall cost of tuition. It depends on the system. A very few places are just absurd, most are pretty minor.)
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  I guarantee you that a temp to do some paperwork for a week or two would cost less than free rent for a year (the cost of an RA). As for taking the market idea to students, I advocate doing exactly that. Allow students to opt out of student activity fees (but they can't join clubs) and make sure the government doesn't subsidize them. Incidentally, a student in the 49% who voted against student fees is NOT paying student fees by choice.