Earlier this month NAS covered the March 4 rallies in California and all over the country, where students protested exorbitant tuition prices due to state budget cuts to public higher education. While the problem they protested is real, the protests - several of which turned violent and many of which prevented education from taking place - were misguided. The sit-ins, strikes, picket lines, and marches were framed as class struggle, depicting the budget stringencies as an attack on “working people and people of color,” and urging students to see a conspiracy that serves the interests of “the financial institutions that caused the recession in the first place.” We at NAS believe much of the reason for expanding tuition costs is due to expanding college administration: in recent decades there has been an incredible increase of supernumerary administrative positions, including diversity officers, identity group deans, directors and staff of women’s centers, sustainability officers, residence life curriculum developers, outcomes assessors, and campus therapists of every conceivable brand. The NAS article received a comment from Dave Taylor, who asked us to clarify some statements. We replied here, explaining why dramatically expanding higher education raises costs and lowers the quality of academic rigor:
But scaling even at that modest level almost always entails some erosion of quality. The number of graded assignments dwindles; tests become mostly multiple choice and short answer; safeguards against cheating and plagiarism weaken; students who should be pushed are allowed to slack; professors fail to learn the names of every student, let alone every student’s characteristic strengths and weaknesses.
I later observed that at least one California high school compelled all its students to join in the protests, whether or not they wanted to. Then John Ellis, president of the California Association of Scholars, published an article on Minding the Campus, "How the Campuses Helped Ruin California's Economy." Erin O'Connor praises his piece on Critical Mass and concludes:
I've said it before and I will say it again: public colleges and universities exist to serve the public good, not to feed on it. But perhaps it's inevitable that the distinction would be lost. Subsidized institutions yield subsidized careers and lives--and those are by definition divorced from a clear awareness of the economic underpinnings of their privilege (and it is privilege). That lack of awareness is a dangerous thing--and produces the kind of nonsensical response to budgetary crisis that we are seeing on the campuses of California.
