. . . because much of the content relates both to Washington, D.C., and "outside the beltway" -- the heartland, specifically Iowa -- and because after going from Iowa to Washington via Texas and California I subsequently returned, From DC 2 Iowa.
President Bruce Harreld has shared some numbers regarding financial support the UI receives from Iowans and their elected representatives – with the conclusion that therefore "the university must increase its tuition." Bruce Harreld, "UI Must Press Forward Despite Disinvestment in Higher Education," The Daily Iowan, February 13, 2018. [Photo credit: Nick Rohlman/The Daily Iowan.]
Putting aside, as the old line has it, "I followed him all but the ‘therefore'" regarding tuition increases, the numbers cried out for more analysis. That analysis suggests the Iowa Legislature’s abandonment of higher education (while simultaneously bemoaning the shortage of skilled workers and exodus of young Iowans) is much worse than even President Harreld thinks it is. Our representatives have essentially transformed what Iowans once happily supported, and proudly called SUI -- The State University of Iowa -- into just another (at least 90%) private university.
He reports that, since 1998 (20 years ago), the total state budget has increased from $4.36 billion to $7.26 billion, while the UI’s appropriation declined from $223 million to $216 million. Meanwhile, enrollment increased from 27,871 to 33,564.
To make sense of those numbers, it is helpful to consider the impact of inflation, increase in the number of students, the appropriation per student, and the UI’s percentage share of the total state budget.
What cost you $1.00 in 1998 now sells for $1.50. You can’t meaningfully compare an appropriation of $223 million in 1998 with $216 million in 2018 – as bad as a $7 million reduction may look. You must consider inflation. A $223 million appropriation 20 years ago would be $334.9 million in 2018 dollars. The shortfall has not been $7 million, it has been nearly $120 million!
As a share of the state’s total budget the UI has dropped from 5.1% to 2.97%.
Comparing the appropriation per student for both years also requires an inflation adjustment. In 1998 the state appropriation was $8001.15 per student; this year it is $6435.47. Again, this is not merely a reduction of $1565.68; after inflation, it is a reduction from $12,016.12 -- $5580.66.
[This excerpt from the PBS Newshour, August 29, 2017, describes a program in Colorado, analogous to those in Switzerland and Germany, that is consistent with what's discussed in the column, below. With thanks to Gregory Johnson for the suggestion to embed this.]
Can Biz Leaders Save Education?
Nicholas Johnson
The Gazette, Insight, August 22, 2017, p. A6
How can we get legislative funding for all Iowans’ post-high-school education?
Aside from bemoaning tuition increases — before increasing them again — those responsible have shown little sympathy and less results: state university presidents, Board of Regents, Gov. Kim Reynolds, and legislators.
Where can we turn?
How about those who hold political power and control: the business community?
Business leaders are assuming more social and political responsibility. When many Republican leaders did a little sidestep around President Donald Trump’s seeming tolerance of neo-Nazis, CEOs of large corporations resigned from Trump’s business councils in protest. A similarly prestigious group of corporate leaders defeated the Texas legislators’ “bathroom bill.” Many business owners are making sure their employees will have health care.
Might they lobby for education appropriations as well?
An educated population benefits everyone — and business most of all. Iowa’s problem is not a shortage of jobs. It is a shortage of skilled workers (as well as entrepreneurs and a creative class). More skilled workers mean less turnover and training, improved productivity, quality control, profits, and economic growth for Iowa’s towns.
Business leaders are aware the post-World War II economic boom was driven by a college-educated workforce of veterans, paid for by the GI Bill. California and New York built comparable economic growth with decades of tuition-free higher education. Globally, business leaders in 24 countries are benefiting from employees with tuition-free college educations; 13 of those countries offer tuition-free educations to other countries’ students as well (including ours).
Historically, Iowans willingly have financed public education since the first one-room schoolhouse in 1830. By 1910, the state was one of the first with a statewide high school system, until recently ranked one of the country’s best.
After another 107 years, expanding public education from K-12 to K-14 is scarcely a premature, radical move. Rules vary, but nine states already have some form of tuition-free community college: Arkansas, California (San Francisco), Louisiana, Minnesota, New York (plus four-year college), Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Tennessee.
Expanding such a program to the three, four-year regents universities (as New York has done) might be premature. But starting with Iowa’s 15 community colleges ought to be possible. [Photo credit: Kirkwood Community College; welding classroom]
If Iowa wants to build a competitive edge in a global economy, it must first construct the educational foundation to support it. It simply can’t afford to leave qualified, willing students uneducated.
Business leaders: Legislators look to you for ideas as well as campaign contributions. You can give them a nudge, give them permission, you can insist they fund at least tuition-free public community colleges for Iowans.
Indeed, if you don’t insist, it will never happen.
Do it for your business, your shareholders, your town, your family — or because you know it’s the right thing to do. Just do it.
_______________
Nicholas Johnson is a former university professor who maintains www.nicholasjohnson.org. Comments: mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org
I've been thinking about tuition-free Iowa universities. There are no conclusions, or proposals, at this point; just random thoughts.
Political Viability
A tuition-free college education is obviously not a politically viable idea in Iowa at this time. The state's ideologically-driven Republican governor and House of Representatives are focused on cutting taxes while providing financial incentives for business, and privatizing historic governmental functions. The Board of Regents has selected a president for the University of Iowa with a business background whom they hope can "run the University more like a business" while cutting its share of state funding even further.
But that doesn't mean there's no point in thinking about the idea, or that it would have no political support.
For starters, we're talking about Iowa's 15 community colleges as well as its three Regents' universities. Indeed, a stronger case can be made for the former than the latter. It costs less to add two years to our K-12 system than to add four. And the benefits might even be greater. As former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare John W. Gardner wrote in his little book, Excellence (1961), “The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”
Surely families that would like to send their children to college, but cannot afford the tuition, would support such a program -- especially if the child in question would become the first in the family to do so. Iowa's rural communities would have access to more and better trained trades people, entrepreneurs, members of Richard Florida's "creative class," and others necessary to the communities' sustainable growth and quality of life. (See, e.g., James Fallows, "How America is Putting Itself Back Together," The Atlantic, March 2016.)
Tuition-free college and community college would benefit all Iowans, not just some college bound wealthy elite.
Economic Analysis
Admittedly, many of the reasons to provide tuition-free college involve values other than economic -- of which more later. But what arguments might be fashioned to appeal to those who, as the saying has it, "know the price of everything and the value of nothing"?
It's not like this is a wild and crazy radical idea that has never been tried. We provided tuition-free college for returning veterans of World War II as part of the GI Bill. In Michael Moore's film, "Where to Invade Next," he shows a list of some 21 countries that are, today, offering tuition-free or incredibly cheap college (some restricted to their own citizens, but others offering the deal to all students, including Americans). [Photo of Freie Universitat of Berlin]
Presumably those countries have some data indicating an economic justification for these arrangements. The economic impact of New York's CUNY and SUNY institutions, and California's 1960-1975 "Master Plan for Higher Education" would also be worth exploring. ("The two governing boards reaffirm the long established principle that state colleges and the University of California shall be tuition free to all residents of the state.")
"Tuition-free" is not "free." Academically qualified high school graduates who cannot afford the costs of board and room, books, and the loss of what would otherwise have been earned over four years, will still be denied higher education. But those who can and do pursue more education will be able to generate more income for their employers, and themselves. Not only will they boost Iowa's economy by spending more as consumers, they will also be contributing the purchasing immediately made possible by the absence of years of paying off student loans' principal and interest.
What if the data does show that the return on this investment of public funds, in the form of jobs and profits, turns out to be many multiples of its cost? Would there be a point at which even the tax-cutting naysayers might see a proposal for tuition-free college in the way they now view the creation and maintenance of the interstate highway system?
Precedent and Incrementalism
It's important to note the distinction between (a) funding a entirely new program, and (b) an incremental increase in funding a preexisting program. To provide tuition-free college and community college education for Iowans would not be the first time public money would be used to educate the state's people. Iowa had its first one-room school in 1830, and by 1910 was one of the first states to have a statewide system of high schools.
There is not unanimous support for public education; some parents prefer private schools, or home schooling. But for some 250 years in the United States (and in other countries as well) there has been near-unanimous recognition of (a) the citizen's right to education, and (b) the desirability of, indeed society's need for, an educated citizenry. Soon the requirement was not only for citizens' access to free public education, but for their compulsory education. The 1966 "International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights" expressed the right this way: "Higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education. . .." Article 13 (2)(c).
This presidential election year has brought tuition-free higher education into the national discussion of public policy, such as it is. It's one of Senator Bernie Sanders' main talking points. Secretary Hillary Clinton, by contrast, advocates a more needs-based system. So far as I am aware, there has seldom if ever been an argument that free primary and secondary education should be limited to families in financial need, with all other parents paying full cost. If a distinction is to be made for higher education a persuasive rationale for doing so should be provided. (The one exception involves, not tuition, but the fee for a student's lunch. Those able to do so pay the cost of the meal; students of lesser means receive lunch for free, or at reduced cost -- a program subsidized by federal taxpayers.)
While there is squabbling over precise amounts, there is a clear majority that generally accepts that the societal benefits of free K-12 education exceed its cost to taxpayers. Counting Iowa's primary and secondary schools sources of federal, state, and local revenue, Iowa's approximately 350 school districts receive a total of about $6 billion a year of taxpayers' money. (Extrapolating to America's 50 million school age children, the national commitment would be on the order of $500 billion, or one-half trillion dollars a year).
To these numbers we would need to add what the three Regents' universities are already receiving: federal, state and local financial support in the billions (federal research projects and Pell grants; state appropriations; and local counties' inability to collect property taxes from the universities' tax-exempt property).
The point? While the cost of providing Iowans a tuition-free college education is not insignificant, the largest financial commitment to public education already exists. Tuition-free college merely adds two or four years to the 13 years of education we're already funding for K-12.
Non-Monetary Benefits
Economists called upon to do benefit-cost analyses of, say, public parks, may calculate the economic "benefits" by totaling what users are willing to spend in the per-mile costs of driving to and from the park. Most of us (including some of those economists) would argue that such calculations are almost worthless. What is the "value" to a family of a day at the beach, public library, or touring some of the Smithsonian's buildings in Washington? What mother, father, or child would measure the value of a day's conversations while fishing -- with or without a catch -- by the cost of the fishing tackle and bait?
So it is with education. It has economic value, for the society and the individual, as discussed above. But it has so much more. The before and after impact it can have on every moment of one's life is like the difference between watching a TV soap opera on an old small screen black-and-white TV, and being able to understand and enjoy a classic drama, or symphony orchestra (or NFL game) on a high definition, color, big wall screen. Intuitively (and with some supporting data) proportionately more of those with more education are likely to be healthier, happier, wiser investors, more effective parents, and otherwise get more out of day-to-day living than those with less.
From the beginning of America's public education, one of the perceived needs and driving purposes has been to prepare students for participation -- with information, intelligence, civility, morality, and a sense of responsibility -- as citizens in a self-governing democracy. That need is, if anything, even greater today than 250 years ago.
These non-monetary values are reflected in the United Nation's 1948 "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," Article 26. Like the "International Covenant," above, it declares that "(1) Everyone has the right to education. . . . [H]igher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit." But it goes on to explain that, "(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms."
Many would find these non-monetary benefits of tuition-free education as persuasive a reason for funding higher education as for primary and secondary education -- and certainly so when added to the economic benefits.
Conclusion
So, is there a conclusion after all? Not yet. However, it is my opinion that the case can be made that adding two to four years of additional education to our publicly-funded K-12 system -- updating it, as it were, from the high school requirements of an agricultural and industrial age over 100 years ago -- is well worth our exploring further.
As has been said, "When the people will lead, their leaders will follow." Regardless of the ideological orientation of Iowa's elected officials, the first step will have to be something on the order of Bernie Sanders' "political revolution." The people of Iowa will need to care, to study these issues, make higher education a priority, organize, demonstrate, and demand the benefits that tuition-free higher education has to offer for all Iowans.
A Modest Proposal to the Regents' University Presidents (brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
The University of Iowa wants "strategic communication" and is searching for someone to provide it. "The Vice President for Strategic Communication reports to the President and is the chief communication officer responsible for conveying the University’s mission, vision, and values internally and externally. ""Position Description, Vice President for Strategic Communication Search," University of Iowa.
Until we find someone to fill this post, with its lengthy and intimidating Position Description list of responsibilities, I have a modest suggestion for how we -- and the other two Regents' universities -- might "convey the University's values."
These are tough economic times.
Tuition was increased 3.2% last year, 4.2% this year, and at least one Regent is advocating increasing it 5-6% next year. Out of state tuition for our professional schools is becoming less distinguishable from that of the most expensive private schools. Our so-called "public universities" are PINO universities -- public in name only. The free higher education California once offered, the nearly free in Iowa, the $25 a semester I paid elsewhere as an undergraduate, or tuition-free programs like the GI Bill after WW II have become truly ancient history. Stacy Hupp, "Tuition Increase Likely, Regent Says,"Des Moines Register, September 18, 2009.
A "construction moratorium," that is, except for athletic facilities? Watch this space and see. "In a timeframe now measured in weeks instead of months, Iowa director of athletics Gary Barta expects work on the $47 million renovation of Carver-Hawkeye Arena to begin this fall . . . 'and we are on schedule to make that happen,' Barta said during an appearance at the Scott County I-Club dinner on Thursday." Steve Batterson, "Carver renovations on pace to begin in fall,"Quad City Times, October 3, 2009; and Tom Witosky, "Budget woes might stall U of I arena's renovation,"Des Moines Register, October 11, 2009: "The regents records . . . show that [the UI] athletic department receives $882,000 from the university general fund . . .."
Successful budget cutting, always a bummer, requires the appearance as much as the reality of fairness. Layoffs, reductions in compensation, "a hiring freeze and a construction moratorium" from which the football coach's salary and the basketball team's construction program are exempt does not have the appearance of fairness -- regardless of the rationale that may be offered for the exemptions.
The Board of Regents has held the universities presidents' salaries level and failed to award any bonuses for last year's performance.
However, "the university presidents still could receive bonuses for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2010. . . . If U of I President Sally Mason meets her performance goals, she would be eligible for an $80,000 bonus. ISU President Greg Geoffroy could receive a $50,000 bonus, and UNI President Ben Allen is eligible for a $25,000 bonus." Brian Morelli, "No pay raises for presidents of universities,"Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 18, 2009.
Some Iowa legislators questioned the symbolism, and economics, of even holding out the possibility of such bonuses in these economic times. "Rep. Jeff Kaufmann, R-Wilton, Rep. Chris Hagenow, R-Windsor Heights, and Rep. Annette Sweeney, R-Alden, released a joint statement saying bonuses [totalling $155,000] should not remain a viable option this year . . .. 'This is hardly a pot shot,' Kaufmann said. 'It is amazing to me they continue to have these conversations out loud. It’s amazing to me they talk about tuition increases and performance bonuses of tens of thousands of dollars in the same meeting.'" Brian Morelli, "Dvorsky Backs University President Bonus Plans,"Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 29, 2009.
All of this creates a bit of a problem. Students, who are graduating with significant debt, are understandably upset about their ever-increasing tuition. University employees are understandably concerned about layoffs, and increased work for decreased pay. Legislators, no doubt reflecting their constituents' feelings, are criticizing the Regents for making bonuses possible. And the Regents would be understandably reluctant to appear to be backing down to legislators' pressure.
The public is justifiably outraged over the bank bailouts being funded with their taxpayer money -- and their great grandchildren's increased share of the national debt -- being used to pay the guys who caused the problem million-dollar bonuses.
President David Skorton once said, when some questioned whether he was being paid enough, "When the median family income in Iowa is around $45,000 and I make over $300,000, it’s hard to argue that is not a lot of money. It’s very generous." [Quoted in "Pricey Presidents Added Cost," below.] Many Iowans share his candid assessment, and probably consider bonuses on top of what is now much more than $300,000 a year to be Iowa's equivalent, with Iowa taxpayers' money, of what's going on nationally with Wall Street executives.
So what can be done? Here's an example from what was actually a much less stressful time over a year ago.
Iowa is not the only state dealing with the consequences of our Wall-Street-created economic disaster. Connecticut confronts similar pressure. Notwithstanding those stresses, Iowa's own Mike Hogan, now the very popular president of the University of Connecticut, was awarded a $100,000 bonus for his "exemplary services."
What did he do with all that money?
With no pressure on him to do so, or public objection to a bonus payment for such a popular president, he made the personal decision to not accept it.
Former UI Provost Michael Hogan, who was denied the UI presidency in 2006, this week turned down a $100,000 bonus for exemplary service as the president of the University of Connecticut. . . .
Hogan declined the $100,000 bonus because of the state and school's struggling economic situation, and he asked that the money be given to the university's graduate program, the Associated Press reports.
Lauren Sieben, "Regent: No 2nd Thoughts,"The Daily Iowan, September 26, 2008, quoted and discussed in Nicholas Johnson, "Hero Hogan; Mike Hogan Is Alive and Very, Very Well," October 1, 2008. [The third comment to this blog entry, below, comes from a "UI Emeritus" and reports that this year, "Before the board in Connecticut even discussed his evaluation (which once more was reported to be exceptional, outstanding, extraordinary), he [President Hogan] asked them not to even contemplate a raise or bonus, in light of the economy and the struggles everyone is facing."]
[Graphic credit, and see, "PresRelease" -- a combination Web page, blog, photo album and Facebook-like location that University of Connecticut President Michael J. Hogan self-describes as "my own little page where I can share items of interest, celebration, or concern with my University colleagues."]
We're not talking much money here; $155,000 will scarcely be noticed one way or the other in the multi-million-dollar cuts the University of Iowa has made, and will have to continue to make. Moreover, the presidents are not guaranteed this money anyway. The Regents left open the possibility the bonuses would not be granted next year for the same reason they were not granted this year: the economy.
So the presidents wouldn't even be giving up all that much to agree to forgo them.
But I think it would make a huge difference in appearances if they were to say, either individually or in chorus: "We don't want bonuses next year even as a possibility, regardless of how well we -- and the economy -- may do between now and then."
If Iowa values can be exhibited in Connecticut, the presidents of Iowa's universities certainly ought to be able to muster up the courage to display them here in Iowa as well.
It might help soothe the legislature. It would get the Regents out of an awkward position. It could calm the anxious and angry students -- and their parents. It might make Iowans less hostile toward what they perceive as unnecessarily generous compensation for university administrators in these times. And it would communicate to the faculty and staff a little better sense of "we're all in this together."
You want a relatively cheap strategic communications way to "convey the University's values internally and externally"?
This is my modest proposal. _______________ * Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
Yesterday this blog offered "Three Quick Fixes," December 10, 2008, for the public policy challenges involving gay marriage, foreclosures, and the declining newspaper industry.
Today's entry solves the problem of rising college tuition and graduates' debt burdens -- in response to the 4.2% tuition increase just voted by the Iowa Board of Regents.
Yesterday's Des Moines Register forcefully put the case for holding the line on tuition increases. Editorial, "Regents: Vote no on tuition hike,"Des Moines Register, December 10, 2008. But after their 90 minute discussion later that day the editorial had failed to persuade more than two members of the Board (Regents Gartner and Harkin) and tuition was ordered increased 4.2% by a vote of 6 to 2. Erin Jordan, "Regents OK 4.2% increase in tuition,"Des Moines Register, December 11, 2008.
Extensive excerpts from both the editorial and today's story by Erin Jordan are at the end of this blog entry.
Clearly, everyone involved recognizes the dilemma.
Nationally, college budgets -- expenses supported by legislative appropriations, research grants, endowment income, students' tuition and fees -- have been increasing at rates well beyond general inflation. (Why that is so is beyond the scope of this blog entry.) Now that our economy is slipping on the ice at ever increasing speed toward the glacial crevice that is total global economic collapse, colleges are not immune from the squeeze all institutions are feeling and to which they are responding. Iowa's three Regents' institutions have been asked by the Governor to make $7 million worth of cuts between now and June 30.
At the same time, our nation's long term economic recovery and global competitiveness is dependent, as much as anything, on the quality of all our educational institutions -- and the quantity of our people who have successfully attended them. But students are already graduating with debt loads that would be problematical in the best of times, and these aren't the best of times. Families that can barely, if at all, pay for their children's education now aren't going to find it any easier once parents are laid off and the tuition costs are even higher.
So here's this morning's "quick fix" -- though admittedly one that requires the participation of many more folks than can be found in Iowa:
The Fix:
o Modify the high school senior year.
o Require two years of service from every high school graduate.
o Extend public education from K-12 to K-14, utilizing community colleges.
o Recognize the public and private benefit of college by splitting the cost.
Commentary:
o High school senior year. The National Commission on the High School Senior Year, among a great many other individuals and task forces, has observed that high school seniors are not getting all the benefit they might from their last year. Those qualifying for advanced placement ("AP") classes might better be taking equivalent courses in a community college or university. Those headed for the trades might better be spending some time job shadowing. Not only would this kind of innovation improve the lives of students, it's an example of increasing benefits to students while reducing costs (fewer teachers and buildings) and the school populations to more manageable size (many experts recommend 600 as the optimum high school enrollment).
o Post-high school service. Whether we should reinstate the military draft is beyond the scope of this blog entry. But the idea of some kind of two-year service has been around for some time, and is the practice in many countries. In addition to the military it could include the Peace Corps, VISTA, and numerous other opportunities for service. The benefits, in addition to the contributions made by the young people involved, would be the "real world" work experience they would gain, the added maturity from being two years older, the sense of having both "given back" and having now earned their addition education.
o K-14. It has been well over a half-century since the minimum amount of public education thought necessary for every citizen went from sixth or eighth grade to K-12. Many today believe a four-year college education should be considered the minimum. Isn't it time we expand public education to at least K-14 -- that is, two years beyond today's high school? It's called "public" not only because it is available to all at public expense but because the entire public benefits from having everyone educated to at least that level. Those two years, the equivalent of the freshman and sophomore years of college, can be much more efficiently provided by our community college system -- cheaper for the students, their parents, and the taxpayers. Given the number and accessibility of community colleges students can save on expenses, possibly by continuing to live at home, cheaper rent if they move, and less travel expenses if they commute. The two years could be provided free of tuition -- in repayment, in part, for the two years of service. And the community colleges are already set up to provide a dual track education: two years of college prep courses for those going on, and the range of two-year associate degrees for those who will be going directly into the trades or service sectors of the economy (along with some additional basic education and skills).
o Splitting college costs. By reducing the basic college education to two years (equivalent to today's junior and senior years) from the current four it would already cut students' tuition, and resulting debt load in half. (The economics of graduate and professional degrees, and universities' major research projects, are beyond the scope of this blog entry.) The possible political reluctance to "free college education" (either the current four-year programs, or the proposed junior and senior year program) is that much of the benefit of a given individual's education goes to that individual in the form of the additional lifetime income they earn. This proposal is that half of the cost of those two years would be paid by federal taxpayers (thus reducing the fraud and administrative hassle surrounding "in-state" and "out-of-state" designations). The other half would be paid out of a revolving fund created by all graduates. It would be created by their paying a small percentage of their adjusted gross income, collected as a part of the income tax process, into the revolving fund. Thus, those who benefited the most economically over the course of their lifetimes would pay the most; those who chose public service careers that paid them less would pay less into the revolving fund.
OK. That's the quick fix for today.
Now here are excerpts from the Register's editorial and Erin Jordan's story:
A growing number of layoffs and families losing their homes through foreclosure fill the news in Iowa, like the rest of the country. Add to that high student debt loads. And the expectation that the global economic crisis will only worsen in 2009, before it improves.
Yet the Iowa Board of Regents today is scheduled to vote when it meets in Cedar Falls on a proposed 4.2 percent tuition hike . . ..
The regents should vote no. . . .
What will families face if the regents vote yes?
Increases in room, board and other expenses, such as books, are only estimated at this point, but with the proposed tuition hike plus mandatory fees, the overall bill for in-state undergraduates at the U of I would jump 5.4 percent ($963) to $18,902 . . .
This editorial page has championed investing in these three jewels, which provide a good education for Iowa's young people at a relative bargain price, and economic development for the state. . . .
The country faces the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression. That justifies forgoing a tuition increase so students are not shut out of the universities just as they, the state and the nation need to prepare for the economic recovery that eventually lies ahead. . . .
[T]he governor and 2009 Legislature should look at how they can safeguard state appropriations for these great assets.
The Iowa Board of Regents on Wednesday opted for a 4.2 percent increase that supports program needs at the state's public universities after considering freezing tuition levels . . ..
The board voted 6-2 in favor of the increase . . . after a 90-minute discussion . . ..
"Given the value we provide and the transformational opportunity that education affords, this is a reasonable increase in this economic environment," Regents President David Miles said. Other states are raising tuition at rates ranging from 10 percent to 25 percent, according to the board's executive director.
Regents Michael Gartner and Ruth Harkin, who voted against the increase, wanted to freeze tuition at this year's rates because of the poor economy. . . .
Iowa Gov. Chet Culver has asked the regents to trim $7 million from university budgets for this fiscal year, which ends June 30. . . .
Under 2009-10 tuition plans approved Wednesday:
- The University of Iowa would charge resident undergraduates $5,782. Nonresident undergraduates would pay $21,156, a 7.6 percent increase from this year. . . .
But its Saturday issue contained so many stories that relate to topics followed by this blog that I've decided we can have an "Our Quick Take on This Weekend's Stories."
The folly of corporate subsidies vs. the sure path to economic development.
We often comment about the folly of injecting taxpayers' money (in the form of tax breaks, TIFs, infrastructure development, and outright bribery) onto the bottom line of for-profit businesses -- sometimes in general, such as Nicholas Johnson, "Courage, Councillors,"Iowa City Press-Citizen, October 3, 2007, and sometimes with specific examples, such as most recently, Nicholas Johnson, "Football, Skating and Corporate Welfare," January 25, 2008 (both Genencor and Burlington's sad mall experience with the disappearing developer).
A company called "Victor Plastics" has begun laying off its 420 workers, following Whirlpool's recent announcement that it is leaving North Liberty -- and its 92 local employees who will be left unemployed.
North Liberty Mayor Tom Salm "said he couldn't remember if any financial incentives were offered to Victor Plastics when it came to the community." However, "North Liberty officials offered Maytag [subsequently acquired by Whirlpool] incentives such as Tax Increment Financing [ a TIF], a tax abatement, construction of the water main and the etension of Jones Boulevard to 240th Street to locate in the community." So it's likely Victor Plastics was similarly bribed in some way.
. . . So how can we more effectively promote economic growth?
By providing the things that really do attract businesses -- as the linked blog entry, above, quotes a Genencor executive as stating its reasons for coming to Cedar Rapids, "because of its geographic location in the center of the country and its proximity to the fuel ethanol and corn sweetener manufacturing sector."
The Register editorializes this morning, Editorial, "Make Quality of Life Iowa's Edge,"Des Moines Register, Des Moines Register, January 27, 2008, p. OP1. Certainly, that's a valid suggestion. But much of quality of life, and the things that attracted Genencor, are attractions of geography over which we do not have total control.
A far more universal attraction is the well educated workforce that is dependent on things which we can control.
For a lawyer, Kyle Carson cuts to the core of the answer with an unusual economy of words: "So what should Iowa do? Pay them more."
And just how bad is it? Consider the recent report on "affordable housing":
The report said about 13 percent of people in the study area work in industries with entry-level wages of less than $15,000 annually, and another 40 percent work in industries with entry-level wages between $15,000 and $20,000. Almost 30 percent of all households in the study area have incomes less than $25,000.
The analysis determined that to afford a median-priced home in the area -- $162,000 -- a household income would have to earn about $53,150 and and not have much additional debt. The study said only 389 units were sold in 2006 that were valued at $100,000 or less, equaling about 15 percent of the total transactions that year.
When was the last time you heard a boss say, "I'm feeling guilty about exploiting you guys with these low wages, seeing your kids go hungry, and without health care or new shoes, so starting next Monday everybody gets a 50% wage hike." It's not likely to happen.
A single person, out of work and desperately needing a job, is not in a very strong bargaining position when confronting a potential employer in front of him -- with 700 people standing in line behind that job applicant, all equally anxious to win one of five new job positions.
That's why they invented unions and "collective bargaining." "For the union makes us strong," is the old union song lyric; at least strong enough to get something more than the minimum wage for long hours at backbreaking work in unsafe working conditions.
Without unions professionals wages are driven down to those of skilled trades people; wages for skilled tradespeople that should be at union levels are driven down to those of unskilled labor; unskilled labor get paid what the working poor earn elsewhere -- and those in every pay category leave Iowa.
That being the case, I find it remarkable that neither Kyle Carson nor any other member of the Commission -- nor for that matter the Governor, members of the legislature, media, education leaders -- seem willing to mention, even as an "option," the possibility of Iowa becoming a little more labor union friendly. Nowhere in today's stories does the word "union" even appear.
In researching an op ed four years ago I discovered that Iowa was then 43rd of the 50 U.S. states in wages; that our State's anti-union "right to work" laws put us in a minority of states that included the solid South: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina; that from 1950 until now, anti-union bashing has driven union membership nationally from 35 percent to 13 percent of the workforce, and even less in Iowa.
With corporate campaign contributions going to Democrats and Republicans alike, the disparity between the income of CEOs and hourly workers has gone from 42:1 in 1980 to 531:1 in 2000. Two million workers recently fired for the sake of profits and executive bonuses don’t even have that.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration reports 70 percent of its investigations involve things management knew, or ought to have known, would cause serious injury or death. Nearly 6000 workers a year are killed, more than 5 million injured.
Even the most minimal efforts to help the working class and working poor are successfully resisted by Iowa businesses and their legislative representatives, most recently the "fair share" proposal (that those who get the benefits of union negotiations, while refusing to join the union, should at least pay their "fair share" of the costs for those union activities from which they personally enjoy increased wages and benefits). I could not get our local school board to support a "project labor agreement" for its new school construction projects. Nicholas Johnson, "Make School Projects Labor-Friendly,"Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 15, 2003, p. A11 (with an appended list of sources). And see State29, "Viva La Slave Labor, Child Labor," January 26, 2008.
A mere three days later [Jan. 30] and we find the following in The Daily Iowan:
Union membership rates were down in Iowa and 29 other states in 2007, according to a recent report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics.
. . .
[U]nion membership in Iowa is below the national average for a second-consecutive year.
Jennifer Sherer, a labor educator at the UI Labor Center, said . . . "We're losing higher-paying jobs and gaining lower-paying jobs," . . ..
Sherer also attributed the low rates to employers who make it difficult for new unions to form by using threats and intimidation. The law protecting unionization has not been strongly enforced, she said.
"We need political changes to make it possible for people [to form new unions]," she said.
Of course, Iowans and their governments have the political right to continue our anti-labor traditions and reputation. It's just that it's a little self-defeating and hypocritical to continue to do so while simultaneously complaining about the disappearance of the workforce needed to attract the businesses we think we need to promote genuine economic growth.
News From the West Bank
For many Iowans "The University of Iowa" is the athletic program (especially football and basketball) and/or "The Hospital" (UIHC) on the West side of the Iowa River.
And that's certainly where a lot of the news comes from.
And the lack of news. "No news is good news"? Well, not always. It's now over three months since an alleged sexual assault by alleged football players, and there's still not a peep from the University or the Johnson County Attorney as to what the hell's going on (or not).
Meanwhile, there have been enough Iowa football players in trouble with the law recently to make up a full team (11 or more). So we can be grateful (or not) that at least one more has gotten off light -- with the substitution of a "deferred judgment" and "probation" for a two-year prison term for theft -- essentially no penalty at all. (I simply don't know if that is ballpark-standard under these circumstances, or if the fact that this wide receiver "was ranked first in the country among freshmen in receptions and second in yards" played any role in the sentence.) Lee Hermiston, "Ex-Hawk Granted a Deferred Judgment,"Iowa City Press-Citizen, January 26, 2008, p. A1.
. . . Build it and they will come -- and pay.
Nonetheless, our emphasis on athletics continues.
Former UI women's athletic director Christine Grant describes the Carver-Hawkeye Arena, built some 20 years ago at a cost of $18 million, as "one of the best in the country."
And yet UI Athletics Director Gary Barta, acknowledging that it's "still a great place" believes "we need to update" -- something women's basketball coach Lisa Bluder refers to as "a face lift."
The renovations he has in mind as an "update," and she calls "a face lift," are already projected to cost $40 million -- more than twice what it cost to build the entire structure initially -- costs Barta represents will be paid with "athletic gifts and earnings" thereby warranting his already having gone ahead with the hiring of a couple of architecture firms and having set a completion date of 2010.
And what will we get for our $40 million? A practice area, elevators, air conditioning, plus "premium seating, club seating rooms and renovating and expanding office space." Brian Morelli, "UI pushing forward with renovations,"Iowa City Press-Citizen, January 26, 2008, p. A5; Brian Morelli, "Still a Hawk stronghold; 25 years in Carver-Hawkeye Arena,"Iowa City Press-Citizen, January 26, 2008, p. A1 Far be it from me to suggest that the "scheduling" problems for practices could be resolved with the space available in the Field House, near-by recreation building, and additional facilities scheduled for construction on both the East and West side of the River. I don't know enough to document that.
But $40 million does sound like a pretty expensive "face lift."
Which is just one more reason why it might make sense to completely divest the athletic program/s from the University -- something that is already in progress with regard to their funding -- formalizing the independence that already exists once they are raising their own funds and making the decisions as to how to spend them. For a description of how that might work, see Nicholas Johnson, "Colleges and Universities" in "Athletics and Academics," September 30, 2006. That way, like any other business in "the marketplace," so long as their expenditures do not adversely affect others or otherwise violate the law there would be little basis for comments by others -- like this one.
And, Finally, What's Driving the Emphasis on School Safety?
As usual, Bob Patton's pictures on January 25 -- titled "Safety in Numbers-Crunching" -- are worth more than a blogger's many words (as in Nicholas Johnson, "The Limits of Duct Tape," January 9, 2008):
The Regents have concluded their Halloween meeting, October 31. Are we all better off than we were two days ago?
The newspapers' coverage of the event is relatively sketchy. If you really want to know what all they considered, and had proposed to them on the agenda, check out this Regents' site.
Michael Gartner (and Rose Vasquez) are entitled to credit for their willingness to take a couple of unpopular stands that -- whatever may be your personal preference on the merits -- were research-based and principled. Both voted against the arming of campus police and against raising tuition by 3.2% (rather than the proposed 2%).
Gartner pointed out that putting more guns on campus was a non-solution in search of a non-existent problem -- one that held far more potential for negative than positive impact on an academic institution. The primary problems, he noted, relate to the abuse of alcohol -- a matter local voters might keep in mind when voting on the proposed ordinance November 6.
Aside from the weapons escalation -- in my view, a cheap, pandering response to public demands "something be done" -- I thought the overall security policy document was constructive in its range and detail, going well beyond the arming controversy.
Incidentally, if any Regents, or staff, are reading this: the reproduction of "Weapon-Related Data/University of Iowa" only provides the odd-numbered pages of the document. As a result, some very interesting descriptions of crime scenes and arrests leave a curious reader hanging.
The biggest disappointment for me was the naming policy.
Prior to the policy, during the Wellmark fiasco, there seemed to be a presumption that corporate naming was inappropriate, though chaos reigned and we had no declared specific standards as policy. Now we have simply embodied the chaos and absence of standards into policy, with a suggestion that corporate naming might not be so bad after all.
As I wrote yesterday (and on numerous occasions before) I think we have an even bigger issue that needs to be addressed, and one from which the naming decisions would easily flow, and that is the extent to which we want the University to be a part of, contributor to, and partner with, America's corporate culture generally -- as distinguished from an alternative, an academic, educational oasis through which students briefly travel on their way to corporate America.
That rather major issue aside, I would also repeat my plea that if we are going to take the former path -- which we appear to have chosen when we came to that "fork in the road" -- that we start "haggling over price," especially with regard to an ongoing payment -- as any corporation would expect to pay (rather than a one-time, lump sum for advertising that goes on forever). If we're going "marketplace," let's go marketplace and find out what a reasonable, monthly or annual commercial rate would be for advertising a corporate name in such a prominent way.
