I was listening to this episode of Freakanomics Radio and it was pointed out that top tier colleges have no problem attracting students. Schools such as Harvard, Yale and UC Berkley routinely receive 50,000 applications per year and only admit 2% of them. Meanwhile most regional and community colleges, such as SIUC, SEMO and John A Logan, admit 92% of applicants and still have trouble attracting students. Makes me think they ought to spend less money on welcome centers and administrator bonuses and more money on attracting instructors and repairing infrastructure.
Very correct. Students are already having trouble with getting to class on time due to the lack of parking due to this new construction dedicated to a "good ol' boy" donor. The BOT are granting 1% raises to faculty. What about the huge increases the Faculty Union announced? Was this another scam or a devious attempt to declare a fiscal emergency like the 1973 Derge Purge to get rid of faculty? Many questions emerge about an institution now engaging in spin-doctoring, creating its own version of "Never Never Land" (a Region I University with students who have major writing problems!). SIUC has always been, and still will be, an Administrator's University, whose highly paid hierarchy, care nothing about real education, faculty, students, and the local community that will experience further economic hardship when SIUC eventually collapses and the guilty Partys move on to high paid jobs elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteIf the university focused more on offering a quality product, rather than chasing customers (students), it would eventually have increases.
ReplyDeleteWhat has not been mentioned either in the local news or student newspapers is that SIUC has a $14 million deficit. How can they raise salaries without declaring a fiscal emergency? Also, the revolving shelves in the library basement make access to books very difficult and the SIUC Foundation decides to fund a Welcome Center rather than repair an essential service. All they care about from the days of Poshard when enrollments began to decline is regarding students as "customers" to fund the lavish pay of administrators who are causing all this intellectual damage and treat "quality" with contempt.
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