Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[mamselle]

Got it in one.

M.

[dismalist]

Artists are generally motivated by the desire to do art.

Like Mother Theresa being motivated to do good. All subject to a budget constraint.

Can't recall if I've recommended this before or not, but if I did, you apparently haven't read it yet, Dismal!

    https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674659681

;--}

M.

Shucks, you can save the cost of that item by just remembering Matthew 6:24: 

"No man can serve two masters.  Either he will love the one and hate the other, or hold to the one and despise the other.  You cannot be a slave both to God and to wealth."  Lots of other good stuff in the next few verses after that, too.

Mother Theresa's are few. We can't depend on such people. If we did, we'd all starve. Exchange lets us survive and thrive, not charity.

[secundem_artem]

Artists are generally motivated by the desire to do art.

Like Mother Theresa being motivated to do good. All subject to a budget constraint.

Can't recall if I've recommended this before or not, but if I did, you apparently haven't read it yet, Dismal!

    https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674659681

;--}

M.

Shucks, you can save the cost of that item by just remembering Matthew 6:24: 

"No man can serve two masters.  Either he will love the one and hate the other, or hold to the one and despise the other.  You cannot be a slave both to God and to wealth."  Lots of other good stuff in the next few verses after that, too.

Mother Theresa's are few. We can't depend on such people. If we did, we'd all starve. Exchange lets some of us survive and thrive, not charity.

Fixed that for you.

[dismalist]

Artists are generally motivated by the desire to do art.

Like Mother Theresa being motivated to do good. All subject to a budget constraint.

Can't recall if I've recommended this before or not, but if I did, you apparently haven't read it yet, Dismal!

    https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674659681

;--}

M.

Shucks, you can save the cost of that item by just remembering Matthew 6:24: 

"No man can serve two masters.  Either he will love the one and hate the other, or hold to the one and despise the other.  You cannot be a slave both to God and to wealth."  Lots of other good stuff in the next few verses after that, too.

Mother Theresa's are few. We can't depend on such people. If we did, we'd all starve. Exchange lets some of us survive and thrive, not charity.

Fixed that for you.

Sounds like envy.

Look at share of world population living in extreme poverty 1820 - 2018, falls from near 80% to around 10%. Speaking with Lyndon Johnson, we've never had it so good!

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-living-in-extreme-poverty-basic-needs-estimate?country=~OWID_WRL

[secundem_artem]

Artists are generally motivated by the desire to do art.

Like Mother Theresa being motivated to do good. All subject to a budget constraint.

Can't recall if I've recommended this before or not, but if I did, you apparently haven't read it yet, Dismal!

    https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674659681

;--}

M.

Shucks, you can save the cost of that item by just remembering Matthew 6:24: 

"No man can serve two masters.  Either he will love the one and hate the other, or hold to the one and despise the other.  You cannot be a slave both to God and to wealth."  Lots of other good stuff in the next few verses after that, too.

Mother Theresa's are few. We can't depend on such people. If we did, we'd all starve. Exchange lets some of us survive and thrive, not charity.

Fixed that for you.

Sounds like envy.

Look at share of world population living in extreme poverty 1820 - 2018, falls from near 80% to around 10%. Speaking with Lyndon Johnson, we've never had it so good!

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-living-in-extreme-poverty-basic-needs-estimate?country=~OWID_WRL

I'm well aware of that data.  I teach it in class.  And if you pull China out of the dataset, the numbers aren't quite so rosy.

But even if we ignore that bottom 10% and focus on the 3-4 billion people in upper and lower middle income countries, I suspect most people have no context for that.  I have a fair bit of experience working in those settings. 

Yes, they have the basic necessities of life mostly met.  But they may still live on a dirt floor and have a sheet metal roof.  They have enough to eat - if you believe a diet consisting mostly of rice, beans and tortillas is a decent diet.  They probably have a decent water source - although that probably means a single cold water tap for the entire family.  They do have health care.  If by healthcare you mean a community health worker with a 6th grade education who will have to put you on the bus for a 2 hour bus ride to the nearest clinic if you need anything more than a Tylenol.  They have jobs.  But the job may be selling the vegetables they grow since they are worth more at the market than they are for the family to eat - which brings us back to the tortillas, beans and rice.  They probably have electricity - or at least they can see the power lines that run past, but not into the village.  They don't have to cook over an open fire, so they're not choking to death on the smoke.  But all they have is a single gas ring on which to cook for a family of 6.  They can educate their kids - but the teaching skills and knowledge of the teachers may be pretty poor.  They have free healthcare in government hospitals - where the physicians never show up because they can make more money running a private practice.

If you believe that your sacred marketplace has allowed people in that setting to "thrive" I'd challenge you to go live there for a month and report back to us on how well you are "thriving" in the marketplace. 

You're not wrong in that exchange in the marketplace has done miracles.  For some people.  But access to that marketplace is not always possible (e.g. Honduran sugar growers cannot complete agains US growers and their $4 billion in federal subsidies.)  The world IS a better/richer place than 50 years ago.  But that does not mean that the people who were pulled out of abject poverty are doing particularly well.  They may not be starving to death anymore, but life is still brutally hard for most of them.

Sometimes I just wish those who worship at the market would acknowledge that markets fail about as often as they succeed.  Markets pick winners and losers - and I have yet to hear anybody but the winners tell me how "fabulous" they are.

I'm not envious - hell I have enough assets that I'm down $160,000 in the markets this year and I'm still worth 7 figures.  What I want is for economists to stop playing with their regression models, get on a goddam plane and actually see what the world looks like.  Or at least read some Amartya Sen.

[/rant]  You may return to how badly our colleges have it.

[dismalist]

You're not wrong in that exchange in the marketplace has done miracles.  For some people.  But access to that marketplace is not always possible (e.g. Honduran sugar growers cannot complete against US growers and their $4 billion in federal subsidies.)  The world IS a better/richer place than 50 years ago.  But that does not mean that the people who were pulled out of abject poverty are doing particularly well.  They may not be starving to death anymore, but life is still brutally hard for most of them.

Yup, that's politics man. not exchange.

[mamselle]

I'm well aware of that data.  I teach it in class.  And if you pull China out of the dataset, the numbers aren't quite so rosy.

But even if we ignore that bottom 10% and focus on the 3-4 billion people in upper and lower middle income countries, I suspect most people have no context for that.  I have a fair bit of experience working in those settings.

Yes, they have the basic necessities of life mostly met.  But they may still live on a dirt floor and have a sheet metal roof.  They have enough to eat - if you believe a diet consisting mostly of rice, beans and tortillas is a decent diet.  They probably have a decent water source - although that probably means a single cold water tap for the entire family.  They do have health care.  If by healthcare you mean a community health worker with a 6th grade education who will have to put you on the bus for a 2 hour bus ride to the nearest clinic if you need anything more than a Tylenol.  They have jobs.  But the job may be selling the vegetables they grow since they are worth more at the market than they are for the family to eat - which brings us back to the tortillas, beans and rice.  They probably have electricity - or at least they can see the power lines that run past, but not into the village.  They don't have to cook over an open fire, so they're not choking to death on the smoke.  But all they have is a single gas ring on which to cook for a family of 6.  They can educate their kids - but the teaching skills and knowledge of the teachers may be pretty poor.  They have free healthcare in government hospitals - where the physicians never show up because they can make more money running a private practice.

If you believe that your sacred marketplace has allowed people in that setting to "thrive" I'd challenge you to go live there for a month and report back to us on how well you are "thriving" in the marketplace.

You're not wrong in that exchange in the marketplace has done miracles.  For some people.  But access to that marketplace is not always possible (e.g. Honduran sugar growers cannot complete agains US growers and their $4 billion in federal subsidies.)  The world IS a better/richer place than 50 years ago.  But that does not mean that the people who were pulled out of abject poverty are doing particularly well.  They may not be starving to death anymore, but life is still brutally hard for most of them.

Sometimes I just wish those who worship at the market would acknowledge that markets fail about as often as they succeed.  Markets pick winners and losers - and I have yet to hear anybody but the winners tell me how "fabulous" they are.

I'm not envious - hell I have enough assets that I'm down $160,000 in the markets this year and I'm still worth 7 figures.  What I want is for economists to stop playing with their regression models, get on a goddam plane and actually see what the world looks like.  Or at least read some Amartya Sen.

[/rant]  You may return to how badly our colleges have it.

Which was Harvey's point.

M.

[dismalist]

Which was Harvey's point.

M.

Exchange bad. Politics bad. Everything bad.

Revolution now!

[mamselle]

If you actually took the time to read the more nuanced article, you would see there are alternatives.

Knee-jerk reactions, bad.

Revolution not needed.

Just revelation.

M.

ETA: And , yes, we really should get back to the thread at hand. If there's interest, a new thread might be a better option.

[Hibush]

The Pennsylvania schools in the PASSHE system have been hammered by the demographics of local students and dropping woefully inadequate funding from the state. This year's budget offers an increase of 16% and a one-time shot of 26% of last year's state allocation. A respite from the dire financial straits for a bit, for some schools?

https://www.passhe.edu/News/Pages/Releases.aspx?q=2022-7-8-PASSHE-statement-on-state-budget

The 2022-23 state budget invests $552.5 million in PASSHE, a $75 million increase from $477.5 million in the 2021-22 fiscal year. This is the largest single-year increase PASSHE has received from the state and will benefit students by allowing the State System to hold tuition flat for the fourth consecutive year, despite inflation.

Additionally, the budget provides $125 million in one-time American Rescue Plan Act funding to support System Redesign. In total, the budget invests $677.5 million in the state-owned university system and its students.

[Wahoo Redux]

A respite from the dire financial straits for a bit, for some schools?

The 2022-23 state budget invests $552.5 million in PASSHE, a $75 million increase from $477.5 million in the 2021-22 fiscal year. This is the largest single-year increase PASSHE has received from the state and will benefit students by allowing the State System to hold tuition flat for the fourth consecutive year, despite inflation.

Additionally, the budget provides $125 million in one-time American Rescue Plan Act funding to support System Redesign. In total, the budget invests $677.5 million in the state-owned university system and its students.

I've always said America has enough wealth to save our colleges if we had the will.

[marshwiggle]

A respite from the dire financial straits for a bit, for some schools?

The 2022-23 state budget invests $552.5 million in PASSHE, a $75 million increase from $477.5 million in the 2021-22 fiscal year. This is the largest single-year increase PASSHE has received from the state and will benefit students by allowing the State System to hold tuition flat for the fourth consecutive year, despite inflation.

Additionally, the budget provides $125 million in one-time American Rescue Plan Act funding to support System Redesign. In total, the budget invests $677.5 million in the state-owned university system and its students.

I've always said America has enough wealth to save our colleges if we had the will.

While these are good for the moment, they're not sustainable indefinitely. I'd really like to hear the long term objective and analysis of how it can be financed in perpetuity.

[Hibush]

A respite from the dire financial straits for a bit, for some schools?

The 2022-23 state budget invests $552.5 million in PASSHE, a $75 million increase from $477.5 million in the 2021-22 fiscal year. This is the largest single-year increase PASSHE has received from the state and will benefit students by allowing the State System to hold tuition flat for the fourth consecutive year, despite inflation.

Additionally, the budget provides $125 million in one-time American Rescue Plan Act funding to support System Redesign. In total, the budget invests $677.5 million in the state-owned university system and its students.

I've always said America has enough wealth to save our colleges if we had the will.

While these are good for the moment, they're not sustainable indefinitely. I'd really like to hear the long term objective and analysis of how it can be financed in perpetuity.

Definitely not sustainable for even a few years. Is it a hiccup in the freefall or a turnaround towards some sustainable smaller existence?   

Re Wahoo's thought. The PA legislature has had the will to kill the colleges, not to save them. It is not a matter of them failing to prioritize educational spending despite knowing its value. It is them thinking education is bad and is something that should be minimized. The argurment for investing is different. One could also try working to change out some of the legislators; that may be the easier path even though it is often considered an impossible one.

[dismalist]

The PA legislature has had the will to kill the colleges, not to save them.

The 2022-23 state budget invests $552.5 million in PASSHE, a $75 million increase from $477.5 million in the 2021-22 fiscal year. This is the largest single-year increase PASSHE has received from the state and will benefit students by allowing the State System to hold tuition flat for the fourth consecutive year, despite inflation.

Additionally, the budget provides $125 million in one-time American Rescue Plan Act funding to support System Redesign. In total, the budget invests $677.5 million in the state-owned university system and its students.

That's a beautiful death!

[Wahoo Redux]

IHE:  Two stories in "Quick Takes" on layoffs:

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2022/07/18/layoffs-maryland-institute-college-art

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2022/07/18/second-round-layoffs-erie-cc

One on an art institute closure:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/07/18/failed-attempt-merger-kills-san-francisco-art-institute