Wednesday, July 13, 2011

More Evidence of Dysfunction In California Higher Education

From the major Sacramento newspaper:
Minutes after voting to raise student tuition by 12 percent for the fall, California State University trustees on Tuesday decided the salary for a new campus president should be $100,000 greater than his predecessor's.
Sadly, this is how we roll in California. Here's the result:
It is the second increase in less than a year, making this year's tuition 23.2 percent more than last fall's: $5,472, up from $4,440. And with mandatory campus fees averaging $950, the price for a year at CSU will come to about $6,422, not counting room and board.

That's twice what it cost in 2007.
Somehow, I doubt students are getting twice the education.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

They aren't getting twice the education. The state is just running out of money to subsidize the higher education of this many students.

We *could* raise the requirements for a state subsidized college, close some campuses and keep the tuition the same. But we won't.

Raising the salary of a campus president right now is VERY bad PR at the least, though ...

A number of years back the (evil, for-profit, capitalist) company for which I work hit an industry bad spot. This isn't super unusual, as we are in a cyclic industry and times are bad every three or four years. This one was extra bad, however.

Worker-bee employees didn't get raises. We did get "forced time off" (no pay for one week per quarter, so stay home) and then we had layoffs. Management (but not the worker-bees) had pay cuts ranging from 20% (CEO) to 5% front-line managers.

*THIS* is the way to run things. You don't hand out large raises to management in the middle of a downturn. You just don't (well, many companies *do* ... but it is wrong).

-Mark Roulo

Steve USMA '85 said...

That is so darn inexpensive! $6,422 for a year? I pay about $5,000 for a semester in a Maryland State school.

PeggyU said...

Thank goodness our daughter graduated and is out of there! I will say, the president of Sac State does a bangup job at commencement time. I never heard such an inspirational speech welcoming illegal aliens and celebrating Latino accomplishment! Surely that alone merits a raise.

Ellen K said...

I didn't realize higher education meant that the faculty was literally high all the time.....