I remember how it was -- JR
The Problem of Higher Ed and Economic Mobility
Virginia’s top public universities are largely stratified by socioeconomic status. Consider the following statistics that appear in the new book by James V. Koch and Richard J. Cebula, Runaway College Costs: How College Governing Boards Fail to Protect their Students.
At the College of William & Mary only 13.6 percent of the student body comes from families in the bottom 60 percent of the income distribution. (Only 1.5 percent comes from the lowest income quintile.)
At the University of Mary Washington only 15 percent comes from the bottom 60 percent.
At the University of Virginia only 15 percent comes from the bottom 60 percent.
At James Madison University, only 16 percent comes from the bottom 60 percent.
Those numbers compare to an average of 47 percent from the bottom three quintiles for all public four-year institutions nationally.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It depends upon your perspective. It is widely acknowledged that academic achievement is highly correlated with socioeconomic and educational status. Parents in higher socio-economic brackets expose their children to more spoken vocabulary, emphasize reading at an earlier age, send their children to better schools, and set higher expectations for academic achievement. From one perspective it is understandable that these children would be more likely to be admitted to elite academic institutions.
But there is a growing body of thought that colleges and universities should aim to foster upward economic mobility. In this regard, individual Virginia institutions fall far short. This perspective appears to be that of Koch and Cebula.
Koch is one of the most astute critics of higher education today. In his previous book (which I highlighted in Bacon’s Rebellion), “The Impoverishment of the American College Student,” he detailed how institutions of higher education have let tuition, fees, and other costs of attendance race far ahead of the inflation rate over the past 20 years and how the usual excuse—cutbacks in state aid to public education—accounted for only a fraction of the increase.
With this new book, Koch and his co-author are delving into the question of how universities’ governance structures have allowed this to happen. Year after year, boards of trustees in universities across the country have rubber-stamped cost increases submitted by school administrators—usually unanimously, and very rarely with any debate or pushback.
But I do take issue with a perspective adopted early in the book, that there is something about elite academic institutions prioritizing enrollment of elite students. As Koch writes: “The salient public policy question is whether it is wise for states to encourage the evolution of institutions…into campuses that are effectively closed to wide swaths of these states’ citizenry.”
Drawing upon a Harvard University Opportunity Insights database, Koch publishes the “Income Mobility Rates” for public universities across the country. This index incorporates two variables: (1) the percentage of bottom income-quintile students admitted to the institution, and (2) the percentage of those students who wind up moving to the top income quintile. By this measure, certain Virginia institutions rank among the lowest in the country.
William & Mary has the lowest ranking among all institutions examined, with a Mobility Rate Index of 0.52. James Madison is 0.75, Mary Washington 0.77, and the University of Virginia 1.46. The average for all U.S. institutions is 2.28—with Old Dominion University (where Koch was formerly president) scoring 2.37. At the high end of the scale are several New York universities with Baruch College leading the nation with a 12.94 score.
Based on Koch’s data, it appears that Virginia institutions do well, if not better, than most in the second measure—helping low-income students rise into the ranks of higher income-earners. But they admit so few poor students to begin with that they still score among the lowest overall in Harvard’s mobility rankings.
Koch argues that this mobility data should be made available to members of governing boards. “These data help paint a picture that describes the extent to which their campuses are vehicles for economic mobility.”
I concur that the data is useful. The more data, the better. The better-informed board members, the better. But Koch and his colleague are making a huge unstated assumption, which they do not acknowledge in their book. That is:
It is the responsibility of individual institutions to become vehicles for economic mobility rather than of state higher-education systems.
It is a preoccupation of modern-day university administrators, steeped in egalitarian ideologies, that their individual institutions must serve all segments of the population.
Virginia has a higher education system that is geared to broad swaths of the population. It includes elite or near-elite institutions such as W&M, UVa, and Virginia Tech; large metropolitan universities such as George Mason University in Northern Virginia, ODU in Hampton Roads, and Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond; regional rural universities such as Longwood University in Southside, Radford University in Radford, and UVa-Wise in Wise County; historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) such as Norfolk State University and Virginia State University; and a statewide system of community colleges.
The system serves every Virginian who wants to enter college. It is a preoccupation of modern-day university administrators, steeped in egalitarian ideologies, that their individual institutions must serve all segments of the population.
To be sure, an institution like W&M or UVa should be welcoming to all races, ethnicities, and socio-economic classes—and, arguably, should aggressively recruit academically qualified members of under-represented groups. But, I would argue, it is not their job to create avenues of economic mobility for academically under-qualified individuals who would displace students—as it happens in Virginia, mostly students of Asian origin—who would benefit more from the challenging academic experience.
Where I would agree with Koch and Cebula, however, is that elite institutions (on average) have increased their tuition, fees, and other costs more aggressively than other institutions simply because they can. Their brand names give them the market power to do so. As a consequence, even adjusting for financial aid, the higher costs create an obstacle for lower-income students who otherwise might qualify to attend. For that, governing boards should be called to account.
Koch and Cebula have a lot more to say in their book. University governance is a huge issue. Indeed, with the controversies roiling UVa, W&M, the Virginia Military Institute, and Washington & Lee (a private university) here in the Old Dominion, one might suggest that governance issues have never been more important.
https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2020/11/the-problem-of-higher-ed-and-economic-mobility/
Freeloader UYale University has fancy dining halls. They pay no property tax. Local restaurants struggle to compete, but their tax burden makes that hard.
"We basically pay one-third of our rent in taxes!" complains Matt West, manager of Koon Thai Restaurant. "Yale is a money-making machine."
It is. Many colleges are. Yale has a $31 billion endowment. Harvard's is $40 billion. My alma mater, Princeton, has $26 billion.
Yet, these schools also get government handouts and tax breaks. How government rips-off taxpayers and students by subsidizing colleges is the subject of my video this week.
Yale owns about a quarter of the town of New Haven, Connecticut, but the school pays little property tax. It even has a golf course that's half tax-exempt.
Politicians tried to tax the school, but they cannot.
"It's written into the Constitution," complains New Haven Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers. "They just don't have to pay."
Now the city is ticketing more cars to try to cover its budget shortfall.
Everyone else pays more because colleges get tax breaks, government grants, and government loans.
"De-fund universities!" says Inez Stepman, senior policy analyst at the Independent Women's Forum. "Their entire business model is dependent on the taxpayer."
I push back: "You make it sound like it's all government money. But people pay their own way."
She corrects me: "Without that lifeblood of those federal student loans, very few universities would be able to operate. They are dependent on that federal interference."
They're dependent because they've raised their prices so much. When I went to college, my tuition was $1,950. Now, Princeton charges $53,890.
After government increased subsidies, colleges raised tuition prices at four times the rate of inflation.
They spend the money not just on golf courses and fancy foods. They build new stadiums, first-class swimming pools, media rooms and some even offer students housekeeping.
Why not spend? Colleges know they will get more money from taxpayers. The federal government is now America's biggest largest provider of student aid.
"There is no check on the cost of a college degree," says Stepman. "If students had to walk into Wells Fargo for those loans, Wells Fargo would look at whether or not those loans would be paid back. The federal government doesn't ask any of those questions."
So, money is thrown at students who don't benefit. Today, almost half the students given loans don't graduate in six years.
Instead, says Stepman, they have "$50 or $60 or $80,000 in debt, without the degree to show for it."
Taxpayers lose. Students lose. The winners are bloated colleges.
Colleges say they deserve every loan and tax break because they make "wiser citizens."
"They're not," says Stepman. "They're making citizens who hate their country."
I push back again. "Most colleges educate rather than indoctrinate."
"I wish that were true," replies Stepman. "I was part of the College Republicans... registering voters. I actually had a professor walk up and spit on me. Another called us the 'Nazi Youth.' These are professors!"
"It's offensive," she adds, "that we take dollars out of mechanics' pockets and put them into the pockets of, largely, middle-class and upper-middle-class students."
It is offensive.
But that's what America does.
Unfortunately, Biden wants to do even more of it.
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2020/11/11/freeloader-u-n2579843
Austraia: Queensland Teachers’ Union member quits over ‘progressive’ agendaA longtime member and delegate has quit the Queensland Teachers’ Union, saying it has become a puppet of the Labor Party and more interested in progressive agendas.
Brisbane manual arts teacher David Frarricciardi, 42, said he was offended at some of the behaviour he witnessed as delegate on the QTU state council for six years, and a school union rep for 12 years.
Frarricciardi said QTU claims of political impartiality were laughable.
“During my six years at the centre of the union I saw war-room-style call centres established in the lead-up to state and federal elections, where volunteers would sit and cold-call QTU members in marginal electorates and pressure them to vote for the Labor candidates,” he said.
Frarricciardi said the union-funded demographic studies to support the election “war rooms”.
“A straw that broke the camel’s back for me came when I was when as a rep I rang my organiser for assistance and was told that she was too busy with the election campaign to call me back,” he said. “True story.”
The QTU is one of the state’s most powerful unions with 46,724 members. It is influential in shaping government policy, and in recent years has supported progressive social agendas in schools. This had upset many members, Frarricciardi said.
QTU president Kevin Bates would not comment on Frarricciardi’s specific claims, but rejected suggestions the union was in bed with the ALP. “We are not affiliated with any political party and never have been,” he said.
Bates said the QTU did an impartial assessment of education policies before the election. It did not recommend a Labor vote.
“We then left it to our members to decide,” he said.
However Frarricciardi said he had seen pro-Labor bias first hand.
He said he became especially concerned at a state council meeting when he learned the QTU executive was ready to support candidates who “share our views”. “In other words, they wanted to support Labor candidates,” Frarricciardi said.
At one meeting while debating possible funding options Frarricciardi said he openly advocated supporting candidates who were pro-education and not necessarily pro-Labor, and tried to amend a motion accordingly.
“However I was shouted down by a prominent member of the executive (also a Labor Party figure), who said, ‘You will never find a Queensland teacher who would be stupid enough to vote Tory.’ ”
Frarricciardi was disturbed by another “unpleasant episode” showing the QTU in a bad light. It happened when then education minister John-Paul Langbroek addressed an annual conference.
Unionists were determined not to let Langbroek’s voice be heard. “All the lights in the room at the convention centre were ordered to be changed to green, and delegates were told to hold up signs saying, ‘We want Gonski,’ while hissing at each of the minister’s statements.”
Frarricciardi said he was not aligned to any political party. He simply wanted the union to focus on teachers, without championing political and social causes.
“I joined (the QTU) entirely out of fear, yes fear,” he said. “We were told that we needed the might and strength of the QTU to protect us. “There were bad people out to get us and without the QTU in our corner we would not stand a chance.”
“But what else has crept in? “If you want your boy to wear a skirt to school, or your daughter to use the boys’ toilet, then the QTU is the organisation to call.
“I asked a number of times what some of these progressive agendas had to do with my rights at work. “I also asked why my union dues paid to send two of the QTU executive members to Paris to speak on how Queensland schools are embracing LGBTQ.’’
Frarricciardi said the QTU was happiest when pushing “rather odd” left-wing agendas. He said many QTU members agreed with him.
Frarricciardi had intended to start his own union, but when he saw the breakaway Teachers’ Professional Association of Queensland was recently set up, he joined that instead.
Here I declare that the TPAQ is a sister union to the Nurses’ Professional Association of Queensland, to which I sometimes give advice as a media consultant.
Frarricciardi said he would urge the TPAQ to concentrate only on industrial matters such as workloads, class sizes, reporting requirements, playground duties and after-school meetings.
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My other blogs: Main ones below
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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