Garbled In Transmission

Not that the bar is all that high, not that I myself am an accomplished writer even if unpaid, but yesterday's (5/15) Lori Sturdevant opinion column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune was one of her worst ever.  She claims that competence of our retiring heads of higher education in Minnesota has led to Legislative complacency:

Their good performances may be garbling their message. [University of Minnesota President Robert] Bruininks and [MnSCU Chancellor James] McCormick have to beg to be believed when they say that the GOP-proposed $411 million cut in 2012-13 higher-education funding -- 14 percent less than the forecasted base -- would leave their schools reeling.

I'll throw in with them: No other state funding pattern poses greater peril to Minnesota's future than its repeated disinvestment in higher education. Keep it up, and Minnesota 25 years from now will be a different place -- poorer, sicker, meaner.

With numerous grammatical and punctuation errors, carelessly poor word choices and a spate of non-sequiturs, it is Sturdevant's plea for more higher education funding that is garbled.  One would think someone promoting higher education would take particular care to produce a polished, erudite article.  Instead, she leads off with "If life were fair" (was) and "Minnesota still were" (was).  "Higher education" is hyphenated 4 of 12 times, all of them unnecessary. Colons introduce quotations but without explicit quotation marks it is not clear whether subsequent paragraphs are continuations of the quote or the resumption of Sturdevant's prose.  My Freshman English professors would have not have been kind had I turned in a paper like this.

Let's press through the fog and consider what I think she is saying, starting with the quoted excerpt above. First off, she uses a "forecasted base" to calculate the 14 percent devastation to come, unexplained, leaving me free to assume that this is the "what we want to spend" DFL baseline.  Second, given the over-abundance of higher education options in Minnesota, cutting back some of that excess is hardly draconian even if it means the U and MnScu carry less of the load.  In fact, healthier private competition would provide greater diversity of academic thought.

But no, without nearly unlimited funding of higher education, we shall devolve to be poorer, sicker, and meaner.  There is nothing in the article explaining or justifying "meaner" so I assume that is just DFL boilerplate.  Or was she referring to unruly public employee unions?

Sicker (more sick is proper English)?  Again, on what basis?  That only Minnesota-trained doctors can treat Minnesotans?  That Medtronic prefers to hire the Minnesota-trained, passing over graduates from Johns Hopkins? That progress stops at the border unless we pay up?  Obamacare is a far greater threat to quality health care than anything contemplated in the higher education proposals to date.  Don't forget: Governor Dayton also proposes cutting higher education.

Now, about poorer, another unsubstantiated claim.  A number of recent articles are finding that college is so expensive now that simply investing the money and starting life without that degree can be the more profitable strategy.  In many professions, while a degree may be necessary, there are far too many degree-holders to make them at all lucrative.  In many fields, the return on investment is negative.

Sturdevant of course doesn't believe that higher tax rates mean less employment and less prosperity even if they do constrain families' ability to pay for college.  Families in lower tax states like Texas and North Dakota know better.  The world is flat, or hasn't she heard?

If you read the many quotes from Bruinicks and McCormick, you see genuine understanding of the situation of their customers.  They politely, thoughtfully and sincerely appeal to our presumed better sides, asking us to think long term.  Me, I'd be upset that I was so quoted only to support a coarse, vicious and unfounded accusation that we who wish to right-size and refocus higher education are mean, just fine with others being made poor and sickly to avoid tax increases.

The truth is, the socialist policies that Lori Sturdevant holds as sacred have already begun creating the "poorer, sicker, meaner" Minnesosta she wishes to avoid.

 

Comments

[Hiram]

The per capita income for workers in Minnesota is $5000 more than workers in Texas. If Texas is doing so well economically, how come it's workers are paid so little?

[Eric]

Another local blogger has plotted a chart of tuition, the UM president's salary, and inflation.
http://captaincapitalism.blogspot.com/2011/05/robert-bruininks-is-worlds-largest.html The discussion is also worthwhile.

Hiram,
Texas has a lower cost of living as well as a large influx of under educated illegal immigrants lowering the averages.

[The Big Stink]

The beauty of Sturdevant's strain of socialism is when everything turns poorer, meaner and sicker, she'll have the rich to blame. It's a win/win for her.

[Laurie]

As a parent sending a kid to U of M next fall a 14% cut sounds like a lot to me. We can't afford the current tuition. That said, I sort of agree with the idea of right sizing the universities. Many colleges at U of M are quite selective (my kid was lucky to get in) and shouldn't downsize, but perhaps state colleges could have higher standards and cut back on enrollment a bit. It might make made underperforming students work harder in high school. I don't know how full to capacity community colleges are, but they seem like an appropriate, more cost effective setting for many students to me.

To me people who got their college educations at state universities back when they were more affordable could be paying higher taxes to keep tuition from skyrocketing for today's students. I believe students used to pay one third of the cost of their educations and it is now more than half. I think the price of govt is a handy reference guide that the state just fine in the 90's when taxes were higher.

[Speed Gibson]

1. That 14% is against DFL Nirvana, not the actual needs of the U & MnScu. 2. Higher Ed costs have been rising faster than even health care with no apparent reason other than inflated demand from easy money (loans). 3. As you've found, they finally hit a pushback point. Look at the billboards, radio, TV, internet, newspaper advertising everywhere as these schools now scramble for students.

[J. Ewing]

what you overlooked is that Ms. Sturdevant, like all socialists, wishes to be rewarded for her INTENTIONS rather than real-world outcomes. And it is a lot easier for politicians to promise a chicken in every pot and get votes than to tell people truths like they don't have a pot to, ah, chick in.

I wonder what would happen if these professors were required to put in a full day's work teaching classes, and a pay commensurate with an equivalent private sector job? Anybody want to bet that costs would go down drastically? Most universities are true ivory tower environments, where those who can't, teach, and often very little of that. Cut the fat out of the budget and stick to what's important and necessary and the 14% "cut" starts to look like a good starting point.