Charles Krupa/AP Photo
Increasingly, many universities operate like hedge funds, looking to maximize profit centers.
The ever-increasing burden of student debt cries out for relief. President Biden, who had acted on two occasions to suspend debt payments, has the power to cancel all student debt held by the federal government (most debt) or to cancel some amount that would relieve most debtors. But as our colleague David Dayen recently reported, the Biden administration is divided on this issue.
Two arguments against debt relief are that the average student debtor is better off than the general population (most young people do not have college degrees); and that more federal support for higher education only leads to higher tuitions and proliferation of expenses.
The first argument is easily answered. College grads are better off, on average. But in terms of generational upward mobility, it is precisely those without affluent parents to pay tuition who get burdened with debt. It’s possible to target debt relief by capping it at something like $50,000, so that we don’t end up subsidizing doctors, lawyers, and business school grads who will make plenty of income to pay off six-figure debts.
The second argument must be taken seriously. One result of financial support via on-demand student loans is ever-rising tuitions. Worse, these increased university budgets have gone mostly not to instruction, but to academic bloat: proliferation of executives who do not engage in teaching, as this research report documents.
And while offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion have expanded, they are not the primary driver of costs. Admission offices have been converted into offices of “enrollment management” aimed at optimizing the mix of students whose families can pay full freight and those with very high board scores who need financial aid, in order to game the U.S. News rankings.
Increasingly, more and more universities operate like hedge funds, looking to maximize profit centers. And with executive salaries to match. Harvard has 13 people with the title vice president.
What has suffered is teaching. The number of actual professors has scarcely grown. What has grown is armies of adjuncts, often not even making minimum wage.
Executive bloat has gone hand in hand with the usurpation of the historical role of the faculty as the university’s governing body, in favor of a corporate model. When father was a lad, there were far fewer executives and the faculty governed democratically.
How to reform this and tie reform to federal aid? Herewith, the Kuttner amendment:
All universities that get any federal funding, including debt relief for their alums, must be in compliance with set ratios (these can be determined by a research study): The ratio of non-instructional outlays to spending on teaching cannot exceed X. The ratio of median pay of tenured professors to adjuncts cannot exceed Y.
Federal aid to students and student debtors should serve education, not academic bloat and the university-as-hedge fund.
