The actual piece is behind a paywall, unfortunately, but a blog post over at The Chronicle points to an extremely provocative article:
Is your administration using “the economy” as an excuse to extort more work for less pay from an already overburdened faculty?
Buying Howard Bunsis a plane ticket to your campus might be the best investment you can make right now.
Bunsis, a Michigan professor of accounting and treasurer of the AAUP, has been tracking administrator claims of fiscal crisis for several months. His conclusion, published in this issue of The Chronicle, is that at many campuses, there’s no financial crisis at all. At many schools, tuition and other revenue is up, or existing reserves could easily cushion the shortfall.
Furthermore, Bunsis observes after detailed analysis of university financial data, where cuts have to be made, they don’t need to be made to the core education function — they can be made in athletics, construction, services, and other ventures.
It bears repeating: higher education is now a giant, corrupt industry like any other. Believe otherwise at your own peril.
