Almostgotit.com

Poor John.  He’s had a tough couple of days.

First his wife wrecked a perfectly nice party by yelling at a major donor, and ended up being banned from UT and thoroughly pilloried by UT officials on the front page of the local paper besides.

That was yesterday.

Today, Tennessee’s Governor Bredeson did an end-run around Poor John by presenting some shocking news to the papers about UT’s budget cuts, includng numbers that were three times as high (e.g., three times as bad) as those that anyone at UT had announced before. 

Don’t panic though, people, The Guvv told reporters.  We won’t make it any more expensive for your kiddies to go to school at one of the cheapest public universities in the country.  We’ll just throw some tenured professors onto the street and make the remaining ones teach twice as many students for half as much money.

My husband, also in UT admin, got the news like everyone else in town, by reading it this morning with his morning coffee. 

Cuts of 10-15% next year.  On top of this year’s cuts, and the cuts before that.   Compounded further by rising costs that keep rising even when growth is zero.

“Geesh, what a bomb,” I said.  “and he went on record talking about cutting tenured faculty, too!  How will they take it in your department, do you think?” I asked.  “Are you going to be putting out hysterical fires all day, now?”  

My husband was thoughtful, even resigned.  “No,” he said.  “Probably not.  Maybe a few months ago, it would have been that way.  But everyone sort of expects it now.”

We could have moved to Utah, where they offered us more money and where the state’s economy is one of the few “stable” ones left.  Did we make the wrong decision, I wondered again this morning, as my husband packed his bicycle panniers and donned his 20-year-old wind pants for the chilly ride to work. 

No.  I don’t know how this is all going to work out, or even if it will.  But we’ve made our decision, and I still think it was the right one.  We both do. 

My husband kissed me and went out the door to do battle with Wednesday, and I poured another cup of coffee.

I have lots to do today before we head to the mountains, where we will meet dear friends for the long Thanksgiving weekend.  The cabin is smaller this year but we have always preferred being as close as possible anyway, the better to talk and laugh and eat together.  I got out my lists.

The back door opened again.  It was my husband, and he was grinning.

“I forgot my helmet,” he said.

If we can’t support them, we need to get rid of them.

Top Tennessee economist Bill Fox, among many others, has already given us the hard numbers: sales tax collections do not ever keep up with economic growth, and thus are a terrible way to provide ongoing funding for anything, including public education. This is true even when the economy is in good shape: when it isn’t, consumer spending slows and tax collections plummet.

Dramatically.

Moreoever, the University of Tennessee, like many state universities, already receives less than 20% of its total funding from the state, even as it remains fully accountable to Nashville for every dollar it spends… including the millions that Nashville does not even provide.

Nor has UT ever done a very good job of presenting the seriousness of current and past funding cuts to the tax-paying public. A major barrier to reforming UT’s regressive funding structure is the persistant public perception that universities are rife with excess spending (or) that the whole point of a state university is to field a football team.

UT’s Development, Alumni and Communications offices are good at wearing orange but have always been too tentative about promoting UT academics, nor have they yet aimed high enough with their private fundraising goals.

So how about this: move the football team to Nashville and privatize the rest of UT — under a new name, of course. Let’s stop pretending that we can support, or that we even want, publically funded higher education.

Only a fraction of Tennessee’s taxpayers takes advantage of higher education in any case, so why should taxpayers pay for it, either? Why not reserve our tax money for other government projects (K-12 education? Public transporation?) — or even give it back to the people who earned it?

U.S. universities are still the best in the world, and one reason they are is that they are very good at raising their own money. Universities are also better than legislators at managing their own budgets and setting their own curricula, without state interference.

Why not let them?