3 ms·
US higher ed already is a public service. Only 25% of students are in private colleges/universities, and ~every professor who does research is funded mostly by
by galimaufry 6y ago
US higher ed already is a public service. Only 25% of students are in private colleges/universities, and ~every professor who does research is funded mostly by government.
I believe that what's actually happening with US higher ed supply is that we stopped founding large research universities. Many of the great public schools were endowed using federal land[1] and eventually the government ran out of valuable agricultural land.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land-grant_university https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land-grant_university
- R0b0t1 6y agoThe institutions themselves are mixed and the student funding is also mixed but can lean towards private, especially if you are not a first pick for higher ed but are still capable. In non-US locations there can be no private funding option. Student tuition has replaced a lot of government funding. As we can see it has gone to administrative spending. Do you think new unis would fix that?
- specialist 6y agoI was staff (vs faculty) for a public uni. It was understood that all state funding would eventually go away, effectively making it a private uni. I'd have to look up the numbers, but state funding went from 80% in the 1970s down to 10% in the 2010s. Obviously, rising administrative overhead is due to cost disease, and misc adjacent theories, like Graeber's bullshit jobs). But I haven't seen anyone discuss the corollary of "keeping up appearances". Parents now spending ~$3,000 per credit hour (non-resident) have high expectations. Better housing, better food, better amenities, responsive office staff, etc. All that cruise ship caliber fluff needs that much more bureaucracy.