5 ms·

Something similar happened back in the late 1960's. Eisenhower had pumped tons of funding into universities to help us catch up to the Soviets after Sputnik. T

Something similar happened back in the late 1960's. Eisenhower had pumped tons of funding into universities to help us catch up to the Soviets after Sputnik. This was primarily for what is now called STEM but benefited each university as whole. Fast forward to the late-1960's and the costs of the Vietnam War plus social programs under Johnson led to huge cuts in funding to universities. To make up the shortfall, admissions rates at many schools, including the Ivy League, went north of 50%. Coupled with the fact that being in college was an exemption from the draft meant that total enrollment skyrocketed. This whole situation was made to clear to me when I was in high school and attended a UPenn information session. The rep from UPenn asked "are there any UPenn alumni in the room?" and numerous parents who graduated from the late 1960s to the early 1970s stood up. I remember thinking "Wow! Admissions rates at UPenn now are below 10% so these parents must have really been sharp!". Finding out about the funding cuts and admissions rates changing drove home that an institution's reputation can change dramatically over the years; sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst. It also highlighted how outside incentives can dramatically change the internal processes of a large school/company etc.

Loughla 7y ago
State and federal funding can be tied to increases in enrollment, 100%. My current institution was founded on the principal that 33% of funding came from the feds, the state, and tuition. Now, it is 5% federal (excluding PELL grants), 11% state, and the remaining amount is tuition and PELL grants. Our incentive is to get as many students as we can, otherwise we close the doors. If you want higher education to stop its sleazy processes, we need to fund it appropriately via tax dollars. It's a lot like people who want abstinence education, in my opinion. You can want people to do the right thing all you want, but at the end of the day, people are going to bang, so you need to set them up with the birth control they need. You can want institutions of higher education to act altruistically all you want, while cutting funding, but at the end of the day, they're going to do what they have to in order to keep the doors open.

Loughla 7y ago

State and federal funding can be tied to increases in enrollment, 100%. My current institution was founded on the principal that 33% of funding came from the feds, the state, and tuition. Now, it is 5% federal (excluding PELL grants), 11% state, and the remaining amount is tuition and PELL grants. Our incentive is to get as many students as we can, otherwise we close the doors. If you want higher education to stop its sleazy processes, we need to fund it appropriately via tax dollars. It's a lot like people who want abstinence education, in my opinion. You can want people to do the right thing all you want, but at the end of the day, people are going to bang, so you need to set them up with the birth control they need. You can want institutions of higher education to act altruistically all you want, while cutting funding, but at the end of the day, they're going to do what they have to in order to keep the doors open.