Extravagance without Accountability

Harrisburg, Pa.—Of all the myths that the higher education establishment has perpetuated, perhaps none is more pervasive, or contributes as much to the preservation of the status quo, as the notion that the blame for tuition hikes lay somewhere other than the central offices of universities. On March 20th students here rallied at the capitol to get the Pennsylvania assembly to increase funding of Penn State campuses and, so the idealistic youth hope, lower tuition.

Eleven days later, the Harrisburg Patriot reported that “The former executive assistant for Judy Hample, chancellor of the 14 state-owned universities, pleaded guilty to stealing more than a half-million dollars worth of jewelry and handbags from Hample’s state-provided home.”

“She was hired by Hample on March 25, 2002, and fired from the $72,148-a-year position on July 14 last year after her arrest,” Patriot staff writer Pete Shellem reported. The protesting students at the Capitol would have been in high school contemplating college at the time that Hample hired Karen A. Madden.

“Hample said she became suspicious because Madden, who had a key to the home in the 2900 block of North Front Street, said she was concerned when she saw Hample’s car there,” Shellem reported. “The car was parked in the garage, Hample said.”

“As Hample, 58, prepared to leave on her trip later that evening, she couldn’t find one of her favorite watches, a $2,500 Gold Invicta with a Pave diamond face.” By the way, $2,500 is about the average cost for a semester in a four-year public university, Front Street is about the best address in the city and Hample, according to Shellem, makes $327,718 a year.

“It is true that state spending [on higher education] has fallen,” Ohio University economist Richard Vedder said at a forum in Washington, D. C., earlier last month. “Maybe the political processes in the states are doing the right thing.” Dr. Vedder is also a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he spoke on March 13.

It should be noted that, even as states are putting the brakes on college subsidies, the federal government is moving to increase its support. Margaret Spellings, the U. S. Secretary of Education, has moved to raise the amount the feds confer in Pell grants and the new Democratic Congress is trying to increase the funding of rural colleges by about a half a billion dollars in earmarks.

“The ‘country clubbing’ of the university is all being financed with this,” Dr. Vedder said. “Who knows where the money goes—athletic programs, climbing walls?”

“You can’t have a university without a climbing wall anymore.” Even some of Dr. Vedder’s more liberal colleagues acknowledged the odd trend of university finances growing with tuition hikes.

“There is a difference between the amount charged and what is being thrown back to students,” Ron Ehrenberg of Cornell noted in the AEI forum. “At the same time that tuition has soared, so have endowments.”

“Cornell has a $4 billion endowment.” Dr. Ehrenberg is the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics at Cornell.

If you would like to comment on this article, please e-mail mal.kline@academia.org

“The former executive assistant for Judy Hample, chancellor of the 14 state-owned universities, pleaded guilty to stealing more than a half-million dollars worth of jewelry and handbags from Hample’s state-provided home.”

This person with the $320,000 plus ANNUAL SALARY has a STATE PROVIDED HOME?????

“This person with the $320,000 plus ANNUAL SALARY has a STATE PROVIDED HOME?????”

Yes, and likely votes for democrats and spouts the popular academic party line about the wonders of socialism. The hypocrisy is astounding. I have no doubt that as Universities continue to price themselves higher and higher people are going to start looking for alternatives. For example, if you wanted to be a software engineer I would bet that those Freepers who know this topic could put together an online course, predicated on practical experience, that would trump anything you’d get at a four year University. Yes, I know the mantra about ‘learning how to think’, and being ‘exposed to different ways of thinking’ that Universities sell as the reason why you have to go to a University to be a ‘thinking’ person. The problem is that many, if not most Universities have ceased to be forums for open minded thought. They teach one way of thinking, and God forbid that you should challenge it. Just look at the treatment of the Duke Lacrosse players by the feminist and leftist faculty there. Atrocious.

As a computer programmer/network engineer of 25 years with degrees only in economics and philosophy, I am a prime example of the fact that what I learned in college has had very little to do with my success on the job.

College is entirely unnecessary except perhaps in the hard sciences where access to labs and top quality talent is very important. Four years (or more) for liberal arts degrees is a total waste of time and probably contributes more to an entitlement and childish mindset than anybody realizes.

University tuition is an example of regressive taxation.

A university education *is* expensive. But not nearly as expensive as the cost of tuition. The tuition scam works like this. The students that pay the full tuition(i.e. rich students) fund the poorer students(through university grants). At the same time the high tuition cost allows the university to exhaust all sources of external funding for students(pell grants, stafford loans etc...) which means more money for the school, courtesy of your tax dollars.
Even if the university is ostensibly “private”.

I disagree. Despite all of the leftist rigamorole a university education, especially a liberal arts education, really does prepare you for the “life of the mind” as windbag professors call it.

As someone who majored in liberal arts and works in a technical field, I can’t count the times that knowing how to parse an argument, think “creatively” and express myself through writing has helped me in relation to my peers.

You need to talk to college kids today - Rush interviewed one yesterday. Most are not being taught or encouraged to think, creatively or otherwise. In fact, they are being penalized anytime they think other than the professor wishes.

Kids in K-12 education have creativity removed by the use of chemical substances, prescription and otherwise and it isn’t often found again in college.

I enjoyed my 4 years at college - intellectually I did find interesting challenges - but that was 30 years ago. I wonder if I would think the same at most colleges today.

“As someone who majored in liberal arts and works in a technical field, I can’t count the times that knowing how to parse an argument, think “creatively” and express myself through writing has helped me in relation to my peers.”

Sorry, but forty years ago high-school either provided you with those skills (and it was reflected in your SAT scores) or you never did very well in college when you got there, if you got there.

Every one of the skills you noted should have been acquired before college, where upon you were then supposed to be provided an opportunity to apply them to a specialized academic endeavor.

Don’t feel bad, most major colleges spend million$ on remedial English grammar and composition, to which the composition side is worthless (graded most frequently today on construction alone and not content) if critical thinking skills have not already been established.

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