| To the Editor: Ohio needs to get serious about higher ed finances |
| Written by Bill Hale |
| Thursday, 05 July 2012 11:43 |
|
Wouldn’t it be interesting if school districts in Ohio were able to assess additional costs to their clients (students) by simply having their local school boards approve the increase. Ohio schools could then maintain and possibly even augment services to their students. Decreases in state financial assistance would be offset by elevating charges to constituents. Those parents with difficulty paying additional fees could apply for student loans for their child. Ohio youth would thus become acclimated to the “pay as you go” process that presently thrives in Ohio state colleges and universities.
The ludicrous policy of continually gouging college students and their parents is going to have to end soon. The recent drop in enrollment at BGSU could only be a precursor to future declines. Studies showing the lifetime monetary benefit of a college education may eventually reflect a marginal advantage, with student loan debt factored in Ohio’s administrators, boards of trustees, and legislators are going to have to take a serious look at what they are doing to the cost of college education in our state. Being near the top of the list of states decreasing aid to education the most is not something to be aspired to. Bill Hale Haskins |
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Comments
The fact is, what you and I argued most bitterly over regarding SB5 was your feeling that the stripping of discretion and authority from teachers about their own work conditions was one of its most attractive features. After all, they are just workers who should take orders from managers. But it is this, more than anything else, that discourages students from entering the profession and what most distinguishes American educational dysfunction from more successful school systems elsewhere in the world--where the teachers are treated as partners rather than worker drones.
Are you a complete idiot?
Why are you so dogmatically anti-worker?
I think you are just trying to take pot shots at my profession in a lame effort at discrediting the points I make. Your dream of what colleges should be are just business trade schools, but that is not what they are there for, and you would understand it if you would look at the kinds of jobs that a whole spectrum of programs at BGSU can prepare their students for. Look at the kinds of work that students in international studies, education, and the humanities are now pursuing. And academia itself is legitimate work--BG students are getting into top PhD programs around the country.
You continue to demonstrate a complete lack of integrity and insight, John. Give up.
The humanities fields do no worse than other majors. However, the undergraduate majors do not always go on to grad studies in these specific discipline. Only a relative few do, and there you need to look at the graduate programs and future career paths there. Undergrad majors in these fields often lead into other areas--laws school, work for NGOs, even areas of business, unrelated graduate studies, all of which see the skills learned in the undergrad majors as relevant.
The only aspect of SB5 that involved higher ed was the proposed liquidation of all university faculty unions statewide. University faculty unions have had negligible impact on salaries; they are mostly concerned with governance and can be credited with maintaining quality at many campuses. BGSU's had been in place less than a year, and faculty benefits and compensation packages are not on the scale of K12
My contribution to the defeat of SB5 consisted of exactly two things: 1. letters to the Sentinel and posting on the blog. 2. voting.
I suppose, John, you just resent being called out on your "idiocy." since you were the one who made the assertion that the "public" part of public ed could be zeroed out.
You are only showing your foolishness and idiocy, man.
The problem of higher ed financing has been primarily driven by the dramatic lowering of state support over the past 15 years, which remains the ONLY thing keeping public schools more affordable than private ones. It is almost an arithmetical difference. This is not something that would be changed by "ripple effects." It is driven by hostility to higher ed by tools such as yourself who really don't see it as having any use apart from turning out worker drones, and to the extent that it doesn't you don't really give it much room.
Guess what? EDUCATION is a program in need. You are a complete tool.
The math is simple. When you scale back state funding of public universities from 65% to 25% over a single generation, even cost controls such as holding salary increases below inflation cannot hold back the rising cost of education, particularly if you combine it with cutting availability and affordability of loans and grants.
Nice to know that you do not think academic research and publication are legitimate work and that you do think that the only useful purpose of universities is "cranking out workers for capitalism." And, no, I do not recall the "nuance" in your original statement.
What happened? Were you flunked in a humanities elective?
And your view of the functioning and economics of public universities is pretty close to cretinous. I doubt Dr. Mazey will be seeking your advice any time soon.
Churning out workers for (failing) capitalist industry is NOT the purpose of higher education. We have trade schools and the military for that. Get a life.
That said, the job of university teachers is to teach their field at the highest level. The job of students is to maximize the opportunities given and excel. Many students don't do this. They feel that, when they pay their tuition, it will lead to a job, and instead of working just complain and/or get drunk 4 days a week. Was this you?
What an ignoramus! He must have been overly challenged in high school to have obviously never gained anything from the humanities fields. What a loser! Have fun with this clown, Dr. Williams, he's all yours.
How completely totalitarian.
Do you know what fascism is? (I bet not - you are obviously not educated.)
Humans did not evolve to be machines of industry. Your ideas failed a long time ago, buddy.
I ask this because I wonder (based on our other conversations) if what you are seeing as waste may be due to a misunderstandin g. The question is sincere.
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