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I have a hard time believing this. I teach at a community college in Minnesota. Our state funding per student has been halved in the last 20 years. Salaries

I have a hard time believing this. I teach at a community college in Minnesota. Our state funding per student has been halved in the last 20 years. Salaries are not exorbitant. We went almost 5 years without a pay raise. We aren't frivolously spending money. We raise tuition because the bills have to be paid. The money isn't coming from the state. There's really only one way to raise the needed money and that is tuition increases. I wonder how it can be determined that tuition wouldn't have increased as much as it has in the absence of eussidized loans. Would salaries be even lower than what they are? Would administration not have increased as much?

dsp1234 10y ago
Have you considered that state funding has been lowered due to the fact that federal loans to students have increased? We aren't frivolously spending money. We raise tuition because the bills have to be paid. The ballooning of the 'administration' staff at my wife's university over the last 20 or so years is the same type of staff explosion seen at larger public companies. Except that those companies are responsible to share holders, and thus constrict when profits cannot be maintained. Whereas the University can forgo layoffs by increasing tuition, and know that the federal (and private) loan system will fill the gap. I cannot remember there ever being even a 2% layoff of staff at the university, let alone something you'd see from MS/IBM/etc.
- mathattack 10y ago
  Universities do it more softly. They don't lay off tenured faculty, but they do fill more open positions with adjuncts and grad students rather than tenure-track professors.
- yequalsx 10y ago
  I think you have cause/effect backwards. Funding per student decreases because it's easy for politicians to say we increased funding by x% without mentioning that the number of credit hours has increased by (x+y)%. The politicians can then claim that universities are being wasteful and bloated because despite increases in funding tuition is going up.
  - metaphorm 10y ago
    it's not just one thing. here's like 5 different factors that all result in tuition increases 1. state budgets for universities are cut for political reasons not having much of anything to do with the university itself. budget shortfalls must be made up from other sources, primarily from tuition increases. 2. increased student enrollment due to increasing economic and social pressure for people to get a college degree. more students requires more facilities and more staff, which requires more funding. 3. natural aging of physical plant of university facilities, combined with other long-term maintenance costs (pensions, for example) that have historically been underfunded and now need more funding. 4. a price spiral relationship between availability of student lending and tuition costs. tuition costs increase so student lending amounts increase so tuition costs increase etc. 5. real actual greed. this isn't universally true but it can't be dismissed. some universities will just raise tuition simply because they can.
- fredgrott 10y ago
  State support of Colleges GOES DOWN per student as the number of students increase..the actual number to watch is the increases in enrollment... Increasing Fed subsidies tends to de-fund Colleges at the State budget level..its very counter-in-thinking as the more Fed subsidies the greater the student enrollments.. Thus if the Fed decreases student subsidies student enrollments will decrease and thus serve to reverse de-funding colleges at the State level.. ITS NOT ANY INDIVIDUAL BUDGET ITEM FOLKS..that is an illusion
_cal 10y ago
I attended both state school and community college. The federal money available to me while attending both places was considerably different, e.g. while I was at state school easily double the money was available.
aaron-lebo 10y ago
> community college Community colleges are not representative of bigger colleges. They aren't supported as much (as you say), and tuition is drastically cheaper.
twblalock 10y ago
State funding decreases (or lack of necessary increases) are easy for legislators to justify, because the students can just get loans. This was pretty obvious over the past 10 years in the University of California system -- every time state funding was cut or tuition was raised, the availability of financial aid, including loans, was used to defend the decision.
ocschwar 10y ago
A lot of the bloat in the 4 year colleges comes specifically from administrative bloat on the dorms and student-life side. Not so much the luxury dorms, though they are a problem, but the sheer number of deans and vice deans getting hired. At a community college, you won't see any of this.
jandrese 10y ago
How much of it is due to things like the Health Insurance costs skyrocketing at a rate considerably faster than inflation? Or pension liabilities becoming a burden as more of the older staff retire? These kinds of insidious costs can really eat out the foundation of any business, even when they previously weren't a big deal (when the workforce was young and healthy).
- Kevguy 10y ago
  In my experience working at a community college 20-25 years ago, no one got a pension, so no long-term liability. This may be different at universities.
yummyfajitas 10y ago
Salaries are not exorbitant. We went almost 5 years without a pay raise. How many qualified people - currently working as PTLs or postdocs - would happily take your place for 10% less money? [1] If the answer is 10+ (from what I recall of the academic job market, that seems accurate within STEM, outside of STEM it might be 100+) then you are frivolously spending money. [1] Gerald Epstein elaborates on this argument, though he of course applies it to finance rather than education. https://promarket.org/rents-high-cost-high-finance-qa-gerald-epstein/ https://promarket.org/rents-high-cost-high-finance-qa-gerald...
- locopati 10y ago
  Hey! Let's race to the bottom - everyone's a winner!
- yequalsx 10y ago
  It depends on your philosophy of morality and what constitutes frivolity. If one considers lowest cost the end all and be all then perhaps my college system is being frivolous. Fortunately there are enough people who do not have such a crude view. Certain cocoa farms in Africa have decided to do away with frivolous salaries by using slave labor. I am certainly not a slave but the point ought to be clear nonetheless. That we can find someone willing to do a job for x% less is not evidence that the current wage us frivolous. Woe would be the lives of most of humanity if your view were widely accepted. We don't need a race to the bottom in this area.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    By "frivolity", I mean spending which is not necessary to provide satisfactory service. Bringing up slavery is a bit confusing. Why not just bring up Hitler? I understand that you want to keep collecting your paycheck while the next guy on the totem pole makes $12,000/year as a PTL. Similarly, the Donald wants to build a giant wall of ice guarded by rapers, bastards, criminals and political exhiles to prevent unskilled white men from losing their rents (while keeping the Mexicans in poverty). I guess that in my morality, rent seekers are evil and Trump is a bad person for appealing to them. You seem to disagree.
nkurz 10y ago
Salaries are not exorbitant. Given that this is a global audience, and that even within the US the salary disparity across regions and industries is tremendous, could you be more specific than "not exorbitant"? My guess, from having a parent who taught at a likely even lower paying institution in rural Wisconsin, is that real numbers would make your case better than a euphemism to which people will attach their own expectations.

dsp1234 10y ago

Have you considered that state funding has been lowered due to the fact that federal loans to students have increased? We aren't frivolously spending money. We raise tuition because the bills have to be paid. The ballooning of the 'administration' staff at my wife's university over the last 20 or so years is the same type of staff explosion seen at larger public companies. Except that those companies are responsible to share holders, and thus constrict when profits cannot be maintained. Whereas the University can forgo layoffs by increasing tuition, and know that the federal (and private) loan system will fill the gap. I cannot remember there ever being even a 2% layoff of staff at the university, let alone something you'd see from MS/IBM/etc.

mathattack 10y ago
Universities do it more softly. They don't lay off tenured faculty, but they do fill more open positions with adjuncts and grad students rather than tenure-track professors.
yequalsx 10y ago
I think you have cause/effect backwards. Funding per student decreases because it's easy for politicians to say we increased funding by x% without mentioning that the number of credit hours has increased by (x+y)%. The politicians can then claim that universities are being wasteful and bloated because despite increases in funding tuition is going up.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  it's not just one thing. here's like 5 different factors that all result in tuition increases 1. state budgets for universities are cut for political reasons not having much of anything to do with the university itself. budget shortfalls must be made up from other sources, primarily from tuition increases. 2. increased student enrollment due to increasing economic and social pressure for people to get a college degree. more students requires more facilities and more staff, which requires more funding. 3. natural aging of physical plant of university facilities, combined with other long-term maintenance costs (pensions, for example) that have historically been underfunded and now need more funding. 4. a price spiral relationship between availability of student lending and tuition costs. tuition costs increase so student lending amounts increase so tuition costs increase etc. 5. real actual greed. this isn't universally true but it can't be dismissed. some universities will just raise tuition simply because they can.
fredgrott 10y ago
State support of Colleges GOES DOWN per student as the number of students increase..the actual number to watch is the increases in enrollment... Increasing Fed subsidies tends to de-fund Colleges at the State budget level..its very counter-in-thinking as the more Fed subsidies the greater the student enrollments.. Thus if the Fed decreases student subsidies student enrollments will decrease and thus serve to reverse de-funding colleges at the State level.. ITS NOT ANY INDIVIDUAL BUDGET ITEM FOLKS..that is an illusion

_cal 10y ago

I attended both state school and community college. The federal money available to me while attending both places was considerably different, e.g. while I was at state school easily double the money was available.

aaron-lebo 10y ago

> community college Community colleges are not representative of bigger colleges. They aren't supported as much (as you say), and tuition is drastically cheaper.

twblalock 10y ago

State funding decreases (or lack of necessary increases) are easy for legislators to justify, because the students can just get loans. This was pretty obvious over the past 10 years in the University of California system -- every time state funding was cut or tuition was raised, the availability of financial aid, including loans, was used to defend the decision.

ocschwar 10y ago

A lot of the bloat in the 4 year colleges comes specifically from administrative bloat on the dorms and student-life side. Not so much the luxury dorms, though they are a problem, but the sheer number of deans and vice deans getting hired. At a community college, you won't see any of this.

jandrese 10y ago

How much of it is due to things like the Health Insurance costs skyrocketing at a rate considerably faster than inflation? Or pension liabilities becoming a burden as more of the older staff retire? These kinds of insidious costs can really eat out the foundation of any business, even when they previously weren't a big deal (when the workforce was young and healthy).

Kevguy 10y ago
In my experience working at a community college 20-25 years ago, no one got a pension, so no long-term liability. This may be different at universities.

yummyfajitas 10y ago

Salaries are not exorbitant. We went almost 5 years without a pay raise. How many qualified people - currently working as PTLs or postdocs - would happily take your place for 10% less money? [1] If the answer is 10+ (from what I recall of the academic job market, that seems accurate within STEM, outside of STEM it might be 100+) then you are frivolously spending money. [1] Gerald Epstein elaborates on this argument, though he of course applies it to finance rather than education. https://promarket.org/rents-high-cost-high-finance-qa-gerald-epstein/ https://promarket.org/rents-high-cost-high-finance-qa-gerald...

locopati 10y ago
Hey! Let's race to the bottom - everyone's a winner!
yequalsx 10y ago
It depends on your philosophy of morality and what constitutes frivolity. If one considers lowest cost the end all and be all then perhaps my college system is being frivolous. Fortunately there are enough people who do not have such a crude view. Certain cocoa farms in Africa have decided to do away with frivolous salaries by using slave labor. I am certainly not a slave but the point ought to be clear nonetheless. That we can find someone willing to do a job for x% less is not evidence that the current wage us frivolous. Woe would be the lives of most of humanity if your view were widely accepted. We don't need a race to the bottom in this area.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  By "frivolity", I mean spending which is not necessary to provide satisfactory service. Bringing up slavery is a bit confusing. Why not just bring up Hitler? I understand that you want to keep collecting your paycheck while the next guy on the totem pole makes $12,000/year as a PTL. Similarly, the Donald wants to build a giant wall of ice guarded by rapers, bastards, criminals and political exhiles to prevent unskilled white men from losing their rents (while keeping the Mexicans in poverty). I guess that in my morality, rent seekers are evil and Trump is a bad person for appealing to them. You seem to disagree.

nkurz 10y ago

Salaries are not exorbitant. Given that this is a global audience, and that even within the US the salary disparity across regions and industries is tremendous, could you be more specific than "not exorbitant"? My guess, from having a parent who taught at a likely even lower paying institution in rural Wisconsin, is that real numbers would make your case better than a euphemism to which people will attach their own expectations.