BY JOHN K. WILSON
I have a letter to the editor in tomorrow’s Chicago Tribune, in response to a July 11 editorial by the Tribune which glorified the University of Illinois while urging lawmakers to exert more control over other colleges to force them to cut costs and programs.
I wrote:
The Tribune Editorial Board advises more micromanagement of public colleges by politicians, creating “niches” (a euphemism for cutting programs), and reducing resources for higher education, in its July 11 editorial. And then it praises my alma mater, the University of Illinois, which has taken exactly the opposite approach. What areas of study has the University of Illinois eliminated to focus on its specialties?
Niches hurt universities by reducing enrollment, because students don’t like having choices taken away. How can colleges adequately educate students about philosophy or physics without having programs? And where will students go if they have to leave their colleges to pursue these interests?
This is the typical double standard toward the flagship university: it’s given all the power, all the money, all the freedom while other colleges are condemned for failing to achieve an imitation they’re never given the resources to make possible. Even the privilege of speaking to the Tribune Editorial Board is reserved only for the president of the University of Illinois.
As I wrote:
Perhaps the Tribune Editorial Board ought to listen to the presidents (and faculty and students) of other universities before condemning them to the foul fate of having politicians determine their education. Higher education in Illinois has suffered for years under the dysfunctional rule of Gov. Bruce Rauner. It’s time to give all Illinois public colleges the opportunity and the resources to do what the University of Illinois accomplishes.
Writing letters to the editor and making comments on articles is an important part of the public debate, which too often we cede to the other side which is eager to de-fund colleges, cut programs, end tenure, and ban academic freedom.
Well said and done. “Rationalized campuses,” as used by the Trib to gesture towards a neoliberal vision of education, is a particularly ugly and misleading term that we should challenge at every step.
This is an important topic and the author makes a good point concerning the breadth of curriculum necessary to the concept of a university. And without a doubt his identification of political interference or state presumption into university academic matters can create educational distortions, or counter-productive results. There is another matter, however, that the author may not be addressing and that is the topic of Illinois university organization. Like nearly all such state systems, they are not typically as efficient as they can and should be, especially in matters of physical plant and expenses; in redundancies sustained as effective jobs programs; in labor market distortions and financial reporting and transparency. If such a system were “benchmarked” to a private sector analogue (say, a telephone company; an energy supply network; a transportation and logistics enterprise or a banking system) they certainly would be found in an almost unimaginable state of economic disequilibrium, sustained only by the cost and regulatory assumptions that attend higher education. But all that said, in my view there is indeed a profound value emanating from such fine universities as Illinois, and in many ways it thrives if given a consideration outside traditional cost-benefit calculus, or line-item budgeting under the kinds of mismanagement that the state of Illinois has suffered for decades. There may indeed be no better “investment” (as Rockefeller said of his, in the University of Chicago) that a local state society can make. That does however come with much obligation and responsibility to sound management and stewardship, no different than a high functioning private enterprise, but no less than a vital social necessity. Last, as for Governor Rauner, it is too easy to look at his tenure for UI’s challenges: they were set in motion and “wired” over years upon years of Springfield incompetence and corruption at the Illinois House of Representatives and Senate leadership level. It is there especially where not just the UI system but the entire state has been hijacked by incumbency, and special interest consolidation around the Speaker and President. Don’t expect much change if the unfortunate DNC candidate prevails: UI may get a bigger cheque, but there wlll be no offset in aggregate state expenses, nor reform such that taxpayers are left effectively sovereign. The state of Illinois is effectively bankrupt from Springfield (and Chicago) fiscal incompetence and will at some point be forced into a “Chapter 11” work out. This is where other states such as Alabama, Florida, Texas, Indiana, Wisconsin, and a dozen others, have an inherent state higher education competitive advantage, and one that is set to endure. As for UI, it is a fine university; it excels in science and engineering among others(especially in Urbana) and is a crown jewel of the State. Perhaps that, along with the University President’s ambitions, will provide a part of necessary State of Illinois reform motivation.
I’m sure that many universities need more efficiency and transparency (and I think shared governance is an essential part of cost-cutting), although I don’t see much evidence that private companies are any better. And I think more centralized control and political domination will make the problem worse. As for Gov. Rauner, it seems clear that he is the primary cause of the financial crisis that deeply harmed Illinois colleges (the U of I survived it better than any other college). Illinois is not doomed to bankruptcy, it needs to tax the wealthy at a rate similar to neighboring states, and that would largely solve the problem.
Mr. Wilson, I like your posts generally and agree with you about UI, but you lost me when you suggest that simply “taxing the wealthy” will provide a financial solution to the State’s (or any State’s) budget mismanagement. Cost rationalization comes first, then a smart financing plan. In that regard, lowering taxes, not raising them, would attract more business, free small business to expand and hire and actually, from among other incentives such as an investment tax credit, increase state revenue. It also would expand its capital base and its wage levels stemming from higher industrial productivity. In America, there is no “wealthy” to tax, sufficient to overcome fiscal incompetence. It is merely an ideological plea from the political class, intended to incite class envy and contention. It also only winds up taxing the middle class, as the tax code does not allow them to compensate for lower net margin income, as the “wealthy” can. Raising taxes on wealth causes it to flee (like students are to out of state universities), or provides it with an incentive to more fully utilize the tax code in which case they are left revenue neutral or even advantaged. Moreover, as for the UI system, they are more than capable of financing expansion, student funding and curriculum breadth through its own balance sheet management including raising debt and equity which may also call into question whether it should be de-linked from the State of Illinois and corporatized or privatized from a governance perspective. Illinois is otherwise already technically bankrupt, with junk credit status. The City of Chicago is headed in the same direction. Last, you probably appreciate that UIUC was founded as an agricultural school, and sits in the Great Corn Basin. Its farming sector is among the largest suppliers to world food product production, but its farming constituency is highly sensitive to swings in commodity prices, and any changes in its cost base, including yet more taxes. Their wealth is still Illinois’ wealth and UI’s. Illinois corporate tax rates should actually be zero if increased revenue is sought. The question is, whose revenue? Rauner understand this, but Illinois has been hijacked by the State House and Senate incumbency–utterly corrupt, and in my view responsible for Constitutional tort violations, among others. Otherwise America is not a country; it is a market, and one of our greatest market successes is higher education: our universities are without peers. Their ability to market finance is natural, but there is a gap in their management capabilities as they are run by the Academy, or for example in California’s case, by political actors. Regards.