Costs

American colleges and universities spend billions of dollars a year from state, federal, and private sources. The following articles identify ways to cut costs and ensure that public investment in higher education provides value to students, taxpayers, and society.


Tuition Waivers Challenged

CHAPEL HILL – A report released by the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy today challenges the merits of the tuition waiver program at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, while shedding light on academic and administrative concerns at the school.


A dickens of a protest at UNC

What if the petty, snarling villain in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol were Bob Cratchit? What if Ebenezer Scrooge had tried from the beginning to help the hobbling young Tim, but Bob threw his money back in his face? What if the other Cratchits sat mute in fear of Bob as he said, “Bah! You don’t believe as I do, Mr. Scrooge! Sometimes you criticize my work! To me your money is tainted!”

Here’s what: You would have the situation now playing out at UNC-Chapel Hill.



The Top 10 Nuttiest Campus Events in N.C. for 2004

Professors agree that conservatives are dumb; UNC-CH warmly welcomes “Sexuality Studies” and “Latina/o Studies” but balks (barks?) at Western Civilization; a lecturer discriminates; Duke holds a pro-terrorism conference; the School of the Arts does an “Enron” dance; and UNC-CH bravely takes rights and money from a three-member Christian group.


Nothing different between Pope Foundation and other UNC donors

CHAPEL HILL – One of the main criticisms being leveled against a proposed Western Civilization program at UNC-Chapel Hill is that the program would possibly be funded by a conservative philanthropy.

UNC-Chapel Hill leaders approached the John W. Pope Foundation about funding the proposed program. If the Foundation agrees, it could mean a $12 million donation for the school.


University Presidents Are Cashing In, While Students And Professors Get Messed Over

Professional and daily newspapers have recently let us know that 42 presidents of private universities and 17 presidents of public ones now make more than $500,000. In fact, seven presidents of private universities made more than $800,000 in the 2003 fiscal year, and the outside earnings of some of these (via payments made to them because they are corporate directors, for example) gave them total earnings of a million dollars or more. (Judith Rodin of Penn is said to have made $893,213 in university compensation and about $404,000 as a director of five corporations (for a total of nearly 1.3 million dollars. Boy, financially speaking, Rodin must be the original Thinker, eh?).


Looking at UNC administration salaries

As the changing of the guard approaches in the General Assembly, it is important to reevaluate the direction in which the University of North Carolina system is headed. One issue that the legislators may face deals with the level of administrative salaries.



Liberals lose it again

CHAPEL HILL – What a great day, Monday, to be in Chapel Hill!

There was a nice fall crisp in the air, people were still gloating about a possible bowl game, and the radicals on campus were pretending to be me. Well, they were at least passing themselves off as representatives from my office.


The Overselling of Higher Education

This talk has had a long gestation period – 24 years to be precise. In the fall of 1980, I was hired by a small, nonselective college to teach a number of courses – Business Law, Principles of Economics, and an upper-level course in Political Economy. An experience in the latter class one fall day was, as Senator Kerry would say, “seared” into my memory. I had asked the students to read a few pages from Hayek’s The Mirage of Social Justice, expecting that they would do the reading and come to class prepared for some discussion.

Sadly, I found out that the students a) had not bothered to read the assignment, or b) didn’t understand grasp anything from it and c) were not the least bit bothered by their inability to answer any of the questions I posed. After much embarrassing silence, one young fellow put up his hand, and I eagerly called on him. He said, “Couldn’t you, like, just tell us the main point?”