4 ms·

University employees are, unfortunately or not, consistent one party voting blocs. Cuts to them are highly unlikely.

• bee_rider 4y ago
  Why not? I'm a university employee. Grad student, so maybe skewed a bit (are we talking about more permanent administrative employees? They I guess have different interests, since they aren't transient like me). 1) I'm going to, absent some massive political shift, vote for Democrats for the rest of my life anyway. So, they don't really have to play for my vote. 2) Playing around with boring stuff like tweaking market forces around by changing how loans work is sufficiently indirect that blame can probably be dodged. 3) We're all aware that the current system is pretty bad, a new solution that at least purports to be an attempt at something better can be sold to me pretty easily. 3a) Keep in mind that, at least in the STEM departments, the instructors are there for essentially irrational reasons -- they could make much more money in industry. At least some of the motivation is to produce interesting science and help students, paycheck be damned. Changes that hurt the last while helping the first two will probably be accepted with only minimal grumbling as long as they aren't too painful.