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| Source: Schnews |
As seen in the past few years, Universities have been led into this mentality of 'competition' or as I like to call it, exploitation. As a result, large cuts in the expenditure have been well on their way in order to achieve the greatest profitability. But maybe there's some hope if the universities pump that profit back into the system...unfortunately not. While unlike a business, a University has the ability to keep its 'customers' unconditionally for a three year minimum period. Therefore, all a University need to do is create flagship projects that look promising in the summer but far from sufficient facilities in term time. Cash-in!
So what are the long-term effects of this? Well as a result many universities have deeply slashed the funding for staff and postgraduate study, whilst also opening the floodgates for even more students. The result, even more overworked and paid less for it, is this really fair? Evidently not.
You may tell me that you really don't care as its not to do with me? This is seriously concerning if you are a student, hoping to be or even an employer. The simple fact is, the less incentives there are for students to go on and research and teach, then ultimately the quality of teaching and ground-breaking research would diminish (the dumbing down effect.) Do we really want to see failing institutions because it cannot keep its optimal potential in the market, or some of the greatest universities begin a process of dumbing down through 'cut and scrimper' tactics in order to survive?
Universities bring more benefit than its cost, so to cut and save from such subsidies may create a bit of ready cash now but overall society's weal
th will decrease.
What are these "positive factors of a publicly owned good" of which you speak - the absence of incentive to keep costs down? The inevitable restrictions or outright bans on competition?
ReplyDeleteOh, and "universities bring more benefit than they cost": so what? The only important consideration from an efficiency perspective is the relationship between the marginal benefit and the marginal cost. Absolute benefits and costs are irrelevant. For example, suppose a town would be threatened by ten-foot high waves which could cause a flood, so a wall is built so as to prevent the waves from impacting the town. The wall has benefits immensely greater than its costs, but this is not an argument for making the wall 50m high rather than 5m.
"While unlike a business, a University has the ability to keep its 'customers' unconditionally for a three year minimum period. Therefore, all a University need to do is create flagship projects that look promising in the summer but far from sufficient facilities in term time. Cash-in!" Do you really think that students are this myopic? Do you really think that students would decide where to live and study for three or more years based on a brief feeling of "Ooh! Shiny!"? Oh, and do you really think that making the market for university educations more competitive will result in *worse* outcomes for consumers? That's quite literally *centuries* of solid agreement among economists you're trying to roll back there.