NYT: At Public Universities, Warnings of Privatization

[Rose Siding]

Taxpayer support for public universities, measured per student, has plunged more precipitously since 2001 than at any time in two decades, and several university presidents are calling the decline a de facto privatization of the institutions that played a crucial role in the creation of the American middle class.

Graham Spanier, president of Pennsylvania State University, said this year that skyrocketing tuition was a result of what he called "public higher education's slow slide toward privatization."

Other educators have made similar assertions, some avoiding the term "privatization" but nonetheless describing a crisis that they say is transforming public universities. At an academic forum last month, John D. Wiley, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that during the years after World War II, America built the world's greatest system of public higher education.

"We're now in the process of dismantling all that," Dr. Wiley said.
.............
...At stake are institutions that carry out much of the country's public-interest research and educate nearly 80 percent of all college students, and whose scientific and technological innovation has been crucial to America's economic dominance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/education/16college.html

[lostinacause]

1. Having a strong education is critical to America's future. Recomended;

everybody should see this and do the same.

India and China are doing very well right now is Educating and training they youth. Given time if our institutions don't change their education will surpass us making it difficult for us to do the level of research and devolopment that are critical to our wellbeing.

[Joy Anne]

2. ha! Graham Spanier

won't even make public how much he pays Joe Paterno. Do away with the pro sports at public universities and tuition could be cut big time.

[intheflow]

3. This makes me so mad I don't know where to start!

The reason public universities are sinking in underfunding is because the Republican-led government has shifted so much financial burden onto the states that they are forced to cut costs for all state-funded institutions and programs.

Cuts to
Higher ed? check
Welfare programs? check
Housing assistance? check
Public transportation? check
Public tv and radio? check
Public elementary schools? check
School lunch programs? check
Museums and libraries? check
Roads and state infrastructures? check

Federal military industrial comlex? Uh... no, not that!

:grr: :grr: :grr:

[file83]

4. We all live in a Yellow Submarine, Yellow Submarine, Yellow Submarine...

We are all in this together - if the Universities sink, we ALL sink. All of it. Gone. :nuke:*POOF*

[callady]

5. On a related note IMF-Connected El-Erian to head up Harvard Fund

Pimco's El-Erian to join Harvard fund
$25 billion university fund is the U.S.' largest

By Leslie Wines, MarketWatch
Last Update: 1:14 PM ET Oct. 15, 2005  

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Pacific Investment Management Co. managing director Mohamed A. El-Erian was named by Harvard University to lead investment for its more than $25 billion endowment.

The university announced the selection late Friday on its Web site.

El-Erian, 47, previously managed more than $28 billion in emerging market debt as head of PIMCO's emerging market portfolio management team, and oversaw other bond portfolios in domestic and global fixed income.
He will join Harvard early in 2006.

El-Erian replaces Jack Meyer, who worked for the fund for 15 years and left on Sept. 30.

Harvard's university fund, famous for its sizable returns, is the largest in the U.S.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B3715BBB3-FFEC-4B22-B539-40AB20B43808%7D&siteid=google

[electron_blue]

6. Q for Pennsylvania: Why does that state pay more per student

in private universities than they pay per student at a state university?

In fact, why does state funding in Pennsylvania pay ANY tuition for private university students? I never did understand that. Move all the state funding currently going to private universities over to state universities and that will solve most of the problems (for a little while).

[cassiepriam]

7. With Repug takeover of schools, US education is doomed.

We will have to send our children overseas to be educated.