-
Even the Europeans Rethink the Welfare State
April 21, 2013 | 4 comments
-
ObamaCare for Everyone Except Obama’s Appointees
March 8, 2013 | 3 comments
-
The Sensitive Saudis: They Want Democracy for Everyone Else
March 5, 2013 | 3 comments
-
Remember, There Is No Spending Problem!
February 26, 2013 | 1 comment
-
Another Useful Reminder that Communism was Loathsome
February 24, 2013 | 16 comments
The Spectacle Blog
If you thought that no one else was coming after your money, think again! America’s universities, already deeply on the federal dole, want an extra dose of taxpayer money. Reports Barbara Hollingsworth in the Washington Examiner:
Just before Christmas, the Carnegie Corporation of New York - a philanthropic organization set up by steel baron Andrew Carnegie, who in his day was the richest man in the world - took out a rare double-page ad in several prominent newspapers.
The ad, an open letter asking President-elect Barack Obama to put them on his economic stimulus list, was signed by the heads of 54 academic institutions, including UVA president John Casteen.
Like most investors, UVA lost $1 billion in the recent stock market meltdown due to the fact that if followed the so-called “Yale model” - shunning safe, traditional investments such as Treasury bonds to pursue much higher yields in risky hedge funds and then-popular private equity offerings.
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine also says that the commonwealth’s own worsening financial condition will force him to cut $23 million out of the $160 million UVA typically receives.
So like many of his peers, Casteen is now publicly begging for a federal bailout. Does the man have no shame?
For one thing, UVA had a $4 billion endowment as of October 31. Watching it lose $1 billion in value was no doubt a most unpleasant experience, as millions of workers with much smaller 401(k)s can attest, but when you still have about $3 billion left over, it’s survivable.
And despite the fact that UVA will receive $23 million less in state funds, the university has no plans to lay off any employees - even though payroll accounts for two-thirds of UVA’s operating budget.Besides his reported $797,048 university salary, Casteen himself also made $220,000 annually for serving as a part-time director of Wachovia Bank. He’s apparently okay with the federal government taking even more money away from single mothers and truck drivers, but won’t even consider scaling back his own lavish lifestyle.
I keep arguing that the best thing we could do is load up B-52s with $100 bills and carpet bomb America. Then at least everyone would have a chance of getting their hand on some of the loot!
Jeremiah| 1.5.09 @ 1:01PM
American academia produces highly skilled and educated workers for an increasingly knowledge based economy, not to mention 80% of all new drugs and innumberable new technologies.
How do you propose to do without it?
Scott| 1.5.09 @ 1:22PM
American academia has, through making student loans easy, in collusion with gov't, made education too expensive. Now they can suffer like the other lending institutions.
Jeremiah| 1.5.09 @ 1:38PM
Scott --
You're absolutely right.
First, however, let's keep something straight: unlike our public grade schools, our public higher education is WORLD CLASS.
I work with people from Europe all the time, and trust me, our university system is the envy of the world.
It is precisely the mobility our schools permit that keeps them strong.
For decades, government spending kept tuition low, so gifted young people -- no matter what their backgrounds -- could follow their talents and inclinations, unlike in Europe, where your educational future is determined by a test you take when you're 15.
Adult education and other non-traditional schooling also contribute greatly to our public higher education.
However, we have GOT to bring tuition down, and there is only one way of doing that.
We have to take tax dollars and spend them on universities. It's that simple. In order for America to compete, our universities (which are one of the last things we have going for us in global terms) have to remain FIRST.
Not OK, not adequate, not good enough. FIRST. The BEST. And we can only do that through massive spending.
I won't use euphemisms like "investment." We have to take YOUR tax dollars, and spend them on young people. It's really all we have in the coming decades.
The US has a choice: we can become the Brazil of the 21st Century, or we can remain the USA of the 21st Century.
Jeremiah| 1.5.09 @ 1:49PM
Remember, too. School loans are still loans. They're not hand-outs.
However, we routinely saddle students with FAR too much debt. This effects health care costs with particularly bad effects.
Every middle class child should be able to get into a publicly funded university that is on par with the best private schools in the country. This was the philosophy that built the great public institutions of the midwest and the west coast -- schools that often compete with Ivy League schools in many areas. It's the philosophy we should have going into the next century.
It's crucial that people understand that public spending on universities is fundamentally different from spending on grade schools, of which taxpayers are rightfully skeptical. This issues are entirely different: spending on universities means maintaining and improving upon institutions that are already by and large very successful.
Doug Bandow| 1.5.09 @ 3:22PM
What evidence is there that universities are going to disappear? They have no special claim to more public aid at a time when virtually every business and foundation is suffering. And an institution with a $3 billion endowment doesn't have much claim to a bail-out.
sidnee| 12.11.09 @ 12:59PM
jack wills
ugg mayfaire boots on sale