Reader comments
Despite cuts, higher education officials working to preserve quality

Finally, some truth from an administrator.
But, you know and I know, that there will not be a change in the budget costs for the administration. Faculty will simply add another hat, teach more, research less, and take a cut in salary if so be it.

The day that the admin. will cut the admin. is the day the earth will become the sun and rice will become wheat. Sorry, good rhetoric, but ... the proof will be in the pudding.

At my univ. system we will let go the older faculty and bring in the part timers. Happens everywhere.

I hope that my cherish U will stand tall and tell the politicians that to cut is to cut value, not just some person.

The lies perpetuated by the higher ed. system in this country have come full circle. "Get a few degrees, work hard, and go to work. Higher ed. is a good industry to work in." Now, the caste system of higher ed. shows its face, and faculty sit in the faculty club and cavalierly giggle while staff are discarded and sent to the soup line. It is immoral. Faculty receive pay increases every year; their workload does not,however, increase. Why not cut their all salaries (not just faculty) back a few years so that a few of these staff members could feed their families? Dave Pershing has tenure. He has nothing to worry about. His job is guaranteed ad nauseam. Cut salaries or kill the local economies in which institutions are located.

. . . is making education affordable.

As a young law student, I was able to pay my in-state tuition of $325/semester (which included a 10% grad student surcharge) by working part time. No scholarships. No student loans. No grants.

What working student today can afford tuition, let alone books, computer hardware and software, fees, testing, etc., etc?

Higher education has simply priced itself out of the market.

Nothing the legislature or universities is doing addresses the issue of way-too-many overpaid, underperforming higher education administrators, and tenured professors, together with their luxurious offices and useless, misdirected, underused research facilities.

Our kids attending major universities these days are educated primarily by non-tenured instructors and graduate assistants, anyway. Why not cut the fat entirely -- get rid of administrators, tenured professors, and the hugely expensive physical plant -- and return to actual education, in reasonable facilities, at affordable rates?

That would be actual reform.