Posted on 08/30/2023 6:25:24 AM PDT by The_Media_never_lie
When the public votes down a school tax levy, the protocol is for the school superintendent to threaten to eliminate sports and shutter schools. Then the school boards hold levy elections until the public finally passes one. Then the school board and its superintendent go on their merry way and back to ignoring the public.
Where do you think Mel Brooks came up with the idea of Sheriff Bart holding himself hostage in Blazing Saddles?
The Sheriff Bart model applies to higher education, which faces cutbacks as fewer young Americans are enrolling in college because people with degrees have flooded the job market.
E. Gordon Gee, president of West Virginia University, is following the Sheriff Bart playbook by stripping away $45 million worth of programs — including the entire world languages program — as he overspent the budget and must trim just under 4% of the school’s $1.2 billion budget.
A 4% cut should be easy-peasy. Businesses do it all the time. But college administrators literally live in ivy-covered towers. They expect a bailout.
(Excerpt) Read more at donsurber.substack.com ...
Gee has 11 assistant provosts. previous presidents had 1 or 2.
Women’s studies department has 5 fulltime faculty & 7 students - Not cut!
You can get a BA in Epsorts, etc at WVU - Just what the world needs more couch potatoes! Not cut!
Cuts in STEM, elimination of graduate education in Math. Math is merely the foundation of all the STEM.
What serious university doesn’t have a foreign language department? WVU apparently!
Well, it’s not all Gee, this occurred on the WVU Board of Governor’s watch! They should resign in disgrace also!
Goes to show who they really care about, doesn’t it?
>Why has the increase of college tuition consistently outpaced inflation?<
Because someone else was paying for it?
It also reminds me of a good/slimy car salesman selling a more expensive car because you can get a longer loan period. Look, the monthly payments will be about the same. See, you can afford it.
I am a university graduate years in the past.
Public universities should now be abandoned. They now produce mostly educated idiots who can’t deal with the real world.
America is becoming uncivilized, violent and unable to govern itself. Universities are largely to blame. They are now nothing but propaganda mills and ruthless prisons of censorship. Today’s universities are no longer any place to discover the truth.
WVU is a breeding ground for alcoholism and e-thots.
The end.
College tuition and health care are two industries where costs have skyrocketed over the decades.
In both cases the user does not usually pay the bill—a government financed or insured third party does....
You can get a BA in Epsorts, etc at WVU...
Both effing ridiculous studies. But as you said, not cut. Instead math and foreign languages cut. Ridiculous.
And therein lies one very large budget problem.
I work in higher education at the community college level. I have gone five or six years without a raise at times when budgets are cut. When a college is told to cut 5% or whatever the number is from their budget first off, they raise tuition or increase fees. Then they look for professors with high salaries and decide will eliminating their program hurt us enrollment wise. Those professors will be asked, are you planning on retiring soon? Some get the hint and some don’t and are terminated. In my particular department, ten years ago we had ten employees, and we had budget cuts and we were cut to four employees and given the others job duties with minimal or no pay increases.
All departments will have operating budgets slashed and then told do not let services to the students suffer. Then they will cut staff literally into the bone where you have staff members doing two and three jobs, their own and others who have been terminated. They will stop all perks and travel for staff and faculty, but not administration. And finally when everyone else has bloodied they will pick one—ONE person in administration and terminate them. Administration cares about administration and the students, faculty and staff are after thoughts.
Well, SOMEONE is making out well.
mr. mm was a victim of such policies at one time, to yeah, I get it. The average joe is the one who takes the fall
Because as several have already mentioned, there are no market pressures on BigEd that would force them to control costs. Their customers (students) must pay whatever bloated tuition and fees that are demanded. Since student loans are readily available, BigEd gets paid whatever is asked. And since BigEd gets whatever is asked, they assume that they are not overcharging.
That’s because these state legislator idiots let the fat decide what needs to be cut in academia. And fat never wants to cut itself.
education is big business...
I work for a university and cuts are part of life. We have so many open positions that we are normally not affected but the issue can become departments with little turnover. So the university lays off some people and then all your in-demand people like programmers leave, including the ones that do payroll. It’s worse when people decide to retire in large numbers because you lose hundreds of years of institutional knowledge that you relied on because they have been there 25-40 years.
At this institution one doesn’t mention retirement unless you have already made plans and will pull the trigger. If administration gets wind you are thinking about it they will put a bullseye on your back and carrot and stick you out the door so the next person in your position can go back to starting salary for that position.
A lot of the old guard faculty are now gone, I have been here thirty years. Those that are left, around five or six are planning on retirement after the spring semester leaving one faculty member with over thirty years experience. You are right a lot of experience goes with them and it is not easily replaced. We are struggling to retain new faculty and staff because of salaries not being competitive. Many nursing, welding, HVAC instructors work a year or less and go back into the private sector because they can earn far more money. Staff positions which were rarely open unless layoffs were happening are now vacant or filled briefly in some cases because applicants are told the salary being offered and decline the job or take it and then move on to a job with a higher salary.
I told them 6 months ago and they keep asking me “When are you retiring?” End of September. We don’t have money to hire my position until I am gone (Jan 1) and maybe not then. There is no backup for me. They gave me all the crap 25 years ago that no one wanted to do. Now no one knows how to do it and no one wants to learn.
My guess that I will right back to work at least until I start Social Security. My cousin works for a university in WV and she wants me to try to get on there (Bluefield)
All our HVAC/Welding/Electricians/Plumbing companies have resorted to Apprenticeships because the community college just collapsed with that same issue.
In the staff positions the new hires can’t or won’t learn the job and when it doesn’t get done out come the excuses. At my institution I have: Answered phones on switchboard, taught classes, given the GED exam, entered grades, registered students, done some IT work, anything possible to do in a library and now it’s director.
I may or may not retire next year I haven’t decided, but am growing weary of the whiney new hires in faculty and staff and the students acting like brats and there is no commitment to educating the students, just enrollment numbers, revenue and a race to the bottom. I have my time in, and could in reality retire and file for disability and get it and draw it until I reach social security retirement age. I have told a couple of close faculty friends I am considering retirement and they have kept it quiet otherwise I would be harassed and harangued by administration.
How did you avoid having a pension? I’m going to living on pension and any work I can get until 66 & 10.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.