Monday, April 27, 2020


Colleges Must Cut Administrative Costs to Survive This Crisis

In 1628 the Swedish warship Vasa set sail on its maiden voyage—and promptly sank in Stockholm harbor. The ship was grotesquely top-heavy and foundered as soon as it began to take on water.

American higher education is also grotesquely top-heavy. Deans and Provosts have multiplied like rabbits. In the past forty years, the growth rate in the number of administrative staff has been five times that of professors. For a generation and more, American higher education has been sinking slowly beneath the burden of administrative costs.

Our colleges and universities, weighed down at the top, were never likely to do well in heavy weather. Now comes the coronavirus gale, wreaking economic devastation across America, and hundreds of colleges may go bankrupt. A decade’s worth of hard times may be compressed into the next two years.

We must take emergency action to save our colleges. The absolute priority is to jettison as many administrators as necessary, lest they sink their host institutions. Since administrators make spending decisions, policymakers outside of higher education must set rules that create strong incentives for colleges to chuck the bureaucrats. The bureaucrats themselves will cling to their jobs and hope the colleges somehow survive despite their dead weight. They shouldn’t be allowed to endanger the survival of our colleges and universities.

Vast numbers of administrators can’t be fired now, because colleges and universities are forced to employ them to satisfy regulatory requirements imposed by the Department of Education and the accrediting organizations. I’ve argued elsewhere that the Department of Education should declare an immediate “regulatory holiday,” to free colleges and universities to fire any employee without worrying about these external regulatory requirements. The regulatory holiday should be fast-tracked for every college on the brink of bankruptcy. Any college that declares itself in financial distress should be allowed an emergency application for a regulatory holiday, and that application should be approved within five business days.

If there are any legal challenges to the regulatory holiday, the Department of Education should also fast-track a resolution agreement with an individual college that provides an immediate plan to put the regulatory holiday into practice. This resolution agreement, which should allow maximum freedom to colleges and universities, would provide a model for every other college and university to follow.

Large numbers of administrators, especially at the large research universities, also process research grants from other branches of the federal government — the Defense Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, and more.

The federal government needs to assemble an interdepartmental committee to devise a plan to relieve universities of as many as possible of the administrative requirements required for processing research grants. It makes no sense to limit the regulatory holiday to the Department of Education, when so large a proportion of higher education administration is tied to grants from other federal departments.

Federal and state governments should consider providing substantial tax relief to all professors teaching full-time in the classroom — but not to any higher education administrators. This targeted tax relief should allow colleges and universities to hire professors at a lower salary than administrators, and thus encourage colleges and universities to shed administrative jobs rather than professorial ones.

State governments must also engage in immediate oversight to make sure that the public university systems target all necessary spending cuts so as to reduce the number of higher education administrators and preserve the number of teaching faculty. In recent years, states such as Alaska and Wyoming have responded to drastic economic downturns by imposing strict budget cuts on their higher education systems. State legislators and governors around the country should seek advice from their peers in Alaska and Wyoming about how to legislate such budget cuts. Boards of Regents, chancellors, university presidents, and deans in the public university systems should likewise seek advice from their Alaska and Wyoming peers about how to implement substantial cuts in state spending.

The Department of Education, federal departments disbursing research dollars, accrediting agencies, and state governments have all tolerated or contributed to higher education’s administrative bloat. All of them now must provide strong medicine to higher education to reduce its bloat.

Our colleges and universities will not survive this crisis without a healing purge of their bureaucracies.

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Oxford University 'replacing private school pupils with rich overseas students

The University of Oxford has been accused of “replacing” British private school pupils with wealthy overseas students who pay more fees and are seen as less politically “toxic”.

The decrease in offers to private school pupils has come at the same time as an increase in offers to overseas students, an analysis of admissions data by The Telegraph found.

Since 2014, Oxford has made 127 fewer offers to British private school students, while making 106 more offers to overseas students and 81 more to EU students. Some 178 more offers were made to British state school pupils.

While UK and EU students pay up to £9,250 per year in fees, international students generally pay at least treble this. A history degree costs £27,285 per year for overseas students, while medicine costs £34,025....

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Australia: 'The risk is in the staff room, not the classroom': Scott Morrison takes a swipe at teachers' complaining about going back to work - telling them they are no different to supermarket staff and bus drivers

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has criticised the teachers' unions for protesting the return to classrooms.

Mr Morrison has urged states to urgently reopen schools on advice from Australia's top health adviser - saying that students do not pose a risk of spreading coronavirus.

But Mr Morrison’s insistence that classrooms are safe has drawn mixed reactions, with some unions threatening to stand firm against returning to normal operations.

In some states, teachers' unions have continued to urge families not to send children to school.

'I mean, we’ve got people who are going to work in supermarkets every day,' Mr Morrison told Sky News.

'We’ve got people who are doing jobs all over the community, driving buses, and they’re doing great work and they’re turning up to work to do those things.'

Mr Morrison said the risk for teachers was 'not in the classroom; their risk is in the staffroom'.

There is mounting evidence to back the medical advice that children are less prone to catching and spreading COVID-19.

Chief medical officer Brendan Murphy said NSW Health has done a large study including testing children with no virus symptoms and found no evidence they were transmitting the disease.

'This is quite different from influenza, where we know they are sometimes super-spreaders and can spread the virus,' he told reporters on Friday.

'Most children who have contracted the virus in Australia have contracted it in the family home ... not contracted it in the school environment.'

The health advice says appropriate workplace safety measures should be taken to protect teachers, including cleaning door handles, desks, computers, hand-rails and playground equipment several times a day.

The advice also says classroom furniture should leave as much space between students as possible and children should be encouraged to keep 1.5m apart from others when entering classrooms or during break times.

Teachers have been told to keep 1.5m apart from each other in staff rooms, but Scott Morrison said the measure does not apply to students in classrooms.

'The four square metre rule and the 1.5m distancing between students during classroom activities is not appropriate and not required. I can't be more clear than that,' he told reporters.

Mr Morrison also emphasised there was no requirement for minimum floor space per person, unlike other enclosed areas such as shops.

However, unions have slammed the Prime Minister's advice as contradictory, and are adamant social distancing measures are vital to ensure the safety of their members.

In a statement, the Australian Education Union said the social distancing guidelines 'provide little clarity about how governments are going to ensure a safe working environment for teachers, principals and support staff'.

'It is still not clear how governments expect schools to manage social distancing for adults. It is contradictory to have one set of rules for adults outside of the school gate and another inside,' the union's federal president Correna Haythorpe said.

They also hold concerns the requirements around regular cleaning and making sure soap or hand sanitiser is freely available are not being met.

Queensland Teachers Union president Kevin Bates indicated he was open to observing the government's notion to gradually reopen classrooms, but more information was needed on why schools are exempt from the 4sqm rule.

The QTU will consult with the state government and examine the findings of the NSW study on Monday. 

The Queensland government will review its decision to close classrooms to all students other than those from families of essential workers and vulnerable children on May 15.

In Victoria, all students are encouraged to learn from home for term two, but schools will remain open for vulnerable children and children of essential workers.

AEU Victorian president Meredith Peace slammed Mr Scott Morrison's directive.

'It is ­bizarre that the Prime Minister has been ­telling us for six weeks how important social distancing is but today he has basically said that it no longer matters for students or teachers,' she said, The Australian reports.

'Throughout this pandemic we’ve been worried that many seem to be neglecting the health and safety of teachers, and these comments only reinforce that. While we’re as keen as anyone to return to normal life, including a return to school, we must plan that return carefully to ensure the ­safety of both staff and students.' 

In a full-page newspaper advertisement published on Friday, the State School Teachers' Union of WA urged parents too keep their children home if possible - against the government's advice.

The union made reference to physical distancing guidelines issued by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, claiming they can be adhered to when schools have limited numbers 'but not when they are full'.

Education Minister Sue Ellery condemned the advertisement as 'misleading'. 'The AHPPC advice has been from the beginning, and is now, that because of the low risk of transmission, schools are safe for staff and students and should stay open,' she told 6PR radio.

'There is reference to distancing but it's about very specific things.'

In Western Australia, classes will open for all government school students from Wednesday but attendance will not be enforced.

SSTUWA president Pat Byrne later issued a statement claiming the union's position was 'consistent with the state government's approach'.

'Teachers support the managed return of face-to-face teaching, as part of an approach which is consistent with the gradual easing of school distancing requirements by government,' it said.

'Support them by keeping your kids home if you can - then we can make schools as safe as possible until we can all be back at school together.'

NSW schools are due to return for one day a week from May 11, the third week of term two, with a gradual progression to full-time learning as restrictions are eased.

South Australian students will ­return to school next week.

The school debate runs alongside other government initiatives to relax COVID-19 restrictions.

On Friday, the national cabinet ­released ten principles to make workplaces safe, and is focusing on strategies to get people back playing sport.

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