College faculty compensation & rising college costs - analysis of a moron

Do college faculty work hard enough? What an intriguing question? So in a counterpoint, the Phactor asks, who is David Levy and why is he such a moron? The issue Levy wants to discuss is that “college costs have risen faster than inflation for three decades”. Without question this is true, and as educational costs rise, this becomes a real concern. Now here is where Levy jumps onto the crazy, stupid bus, and rides out of town. He tells us the cost increases are the result of “outmoded employment policies that overcompensate faculty for inefficient teaching schedules”. Well, here’s something the Phactor knows a great deal about, and that is faculty compensation over the past three decades. Now it is true the Phactor’s salary has gone up, but so has the cost of living, and as ridiculous as it seems, and when you figure cost of living that into the equation, over compensation becomes sort of a bad joke.
Now here’s why Levy is a complete moron. The Phactor is pure faculty, well-connected without question; he works with deans, VPs, and the President regularly, and he knows why the cost of college education has gone up faster than inflation, but Levy doesn’t and he was a high ranking administrator. So if he doesn’t know what the Phactor knows he’s one really dense admin, which given his conclusion – faculty are overcompensated, seems very realistic.
Let’s use my own public institution as an example. In 1978, Lincolnland subsidized 68% of the cost of higher education. Tuition covered the rest. Now over the past 34 years, the state has gradually withdrawn support, and at present the state pays for about 23% of the cost of a college education. OK, did you get that David? 68% down to 23%, so tuition had to make up the difference, and of course there were real cost of living increases to cover too. That’s part one.  Actually when you factor in the diminished support, the university is operating more efficiently now than 30 years ago, but do we get any thanks here?
Part two is unfunded mandates. In the process of cutting costs, the state decides it doesn’t want to pay for something it wants, and then it simply mandates that the university covers the cost after the state cut its support. So again tuition has to cover the difference.  You would not believe how many millions of dollars this costs.
Now David is this so hard to understand? The brilliance of this is "educational plan" is that no one ever passed a bill saying the state of Lincolnland is going to cut support for public education and pass the costs on to students and their families; they just gradually did it. Clever, but the true brilliance is that the very politicians who did this then jumped on the band wagon of dunning the universities for increasing tuition faster than inflation! Yes, they blame the university too. Is Levy just a political tool?  Some blunt implement?
So Levy is a moron because he presumes to write authoritatively about something he apparently knows nothing about. He also probably doesn’t know that faculty at our institution work about 55 hrs/week in comparison to our official 37.5 hr work week. Yes, we have an outmoded compensation system that pays no overtime.  Mrs. Phactor claims the Phactor has never taken a vacation in his whole career, and there’s Levy saying we take all these vacations, a week here, a week there, a month between semesters, and three months in the summer. This moron has never done research, let alone field research. And those breaks at Christmas and mid-semester, and the other 3 months of the year, are not vacations; it’s when we do our research, and train students to do research.
But here’s the Phactor, blogging away, for free, and there’s Levy publishing his moronic and insulting analysis in the WashPo.  It speaks poorly of the publication too.  And people wonder why we get so annoyed by people by Levy. Oh yes, we had a president who told it like it was, publicly, loudly, and it cost him his job!

How to run a university - cutting costs one paper towel at a time

The Phactor's Scot ancestry makes him very frugal, and no one dislikes waste and inefficiency more.  But at times you have to wonder if the people in charge have any idea at all about how the university works.  In times such as these it's understandable that all units seek ways to cut costs and improve efficiencies.  So kudos to the physical plant for finding a problem and solving it.  Things like paper towels cost a big organization a lot of money what with bathrooms existing in nearly every building and use of them is free, a big employee and student perk.  But in examining the usage data, two buildings were using paper towels at a rate far above the rest, and both were science buildings housing biology, geology, and chemistry.  Physicists in both theory and practice apparently are not messy.  Where could all those towels be going?  Imagine their surprise to discover that laboratories have sinks because people in those labs have to wash things.  So the physical plant decides to cut its costs by simply deciding that sinks other than those in bathrooms are not their responsibility.  Just as the water, electricity, heat, and trash in places other than bathrooms are not their responsibility either.  So does this negate the need for sinks and paper towels in labs?  No.  So now each departmental unit will be buying paper towels, losing the economy of scale, and the physical plant gets to pin a medal on itself for a brilliant cost saving measure.  What they fail to grasp is that academic departments do not get the tuition they earn.  So where will this money come from?  Instead of purchasing educational supplies, the dept will be buying paper towels most likely at a higher cost than the physical plant.  Brilliant, no?  An astute observer will note that not only did not the university save anything, it probably ends up spending more because all one unit did was shift the cost to another unit.  Ah, but now that a dept is spending its "own" money, we will become aware of the wastage and use fewer paper towels.  Yes, let that water you spilled evaporate, it's cheaper than paper towels.  Such are the ridiculous antics at a state university, but they get their marching orders and lessons from the great state of Lincolnland itself.  Our governor has figured out that the university retirement system is a ponzi scheme that is using employees contributions to cover its obligations to retirees, conveniently eliminating the state's obligation to make employer contributions, so now they appear to be deciding that the universities should cover the employer contributions, which will be the biggest unfunded mandate ever.  So if the money is not coming from the state, where will it come from?  Anyone?  Anyone?  Oh, yes, tuition, which has risen far faster than the cost of living because of the withdrawal of state support, and who then is sharply critical of public universities as a result?  Why the very politicians who created the situation!  This mandate would cost each and every student about $1200 more tuition every year, about a 14% increase, passed on to students and their families because the state is loath to raise taxes.  The Phactor also figures the employee contribution would increase as well, thus taking an even bigger bite out of our largely stagnant salaries.  Mrs. Phactor will not be happy about that, and she has threatened to pull the plug.  Yes, this is not empty threat Lincolnland.  The Phactor will be forced to retire, take his money and run for cover.  The whole thinking in our state is just brilliant.  Of course, tea party conservatives would like to nuke public education/indoctrination mills completely.  So the stakes go up!  Hey, you, don't use a paper towel to blow  your nose; carry your own tissues.  My job is at stake!

How a university works - paper towels

Paper towels are one of those useful things especially in lavatories and laboratories, all of which have sinks. So of course you think sinks-paper towels, they just sort of go together, but then the VP for the physical plant whose building service workers (i.e. custodians) distribute paper towels decides that one way to save money and cut costs is to only supply paper towels to those sinks in lavatories. The laboratories are on their own. So academic departments with sink-containing laboratories will now be forced to buy their own paper towels if they want to use them at all, and darned if science isn't messy. So how does this save the university money, especially when you figure in the economy of scale? All the physical plant did was shift the cost burden to the academic units of the university. So does the central administration decide to provide those academic units that use sink-containing laboratories with more money in support of education to buy paper towels? Duh! Of course, not. Oh, and then the VP for Finance, another towering intellect, says, "And we don't want the cost passed on to the students." Now where the hell does this fool think the money is going to come from if not from lab fees? Our department budget hasn't been increased in ages, and indirect cost money from grants goes to support research activities and research infastructure. Paper towels get used in largely teaching labs. And why doesn't the university want costs passed along this way? Well, maybe because that is exactly what the university does everytime the state cuts its support to the university; it raises tuition and fees. So do as we say, not as we do, a primary administrative directive. This is the kind of frustrating, small-time, nonsensical thinking that high-powered, or even medium-powered academics have to put up with all the time. You just want to scream. And this was just about paper towels. But at least one VP will probably get a raise, probably worth more than the cost savings in paper towels, for their cost-cutting effort.