What is as large as US investment in Iraq and Afghanistan?

[Dauphin]

but not the environment and context in which those decisions are made.

That's life!

[Sava]

Universities (including the "private" ones) depend largely on public subsidies. In times of perpetual budgetary crisis (artificially caused by the monetary system, but that is another story) they have to seek funding from private sources. What they do then is they sellout to private interests at a fraction of the investment required to build equivalent infrastructure from scratch with private money. Universities call this "partnerships", but what they're really doing is that they're using students and facilities for corporate research, effectively hijacking public funds.

Dealing with these "partnerships" requires more "management", which they pay for by cutting down on costs and quality of undergraduate education to hire managers, whom are described in newspeak as working on the "efficiency" of the education. This results in devalued undergraduate degrees, which students need to compensate for by pursuing higher education, increasing the university revenues through tuition while making themselves available as cheap labor for the hijacked research projects.

None of this explains the "free ride" comment.

All of those people have jobs that they do on a daily basis. There's nothing "free" about it.

[pchang]

A classic case (but luckily not too prevalent) is the tenured professor who has lost their drive and continues to get a paycheck while essentially mailing it in.

[Sava]

A classic case (but luckily not too prevalent) is the tenured professor who has lost their drive and continues to get a paycheck while essentially mailing it in.

oh god

they should really take education seriously... like the students:



I got news for you. Most people don't take their jobs seriously and mail it in. Why work any harder than you have to?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

because it is rewarding?

[Sava]

because it is rewarding?

just a guess, but I would say only 1% or less of people would not get up every day and go to their job if they didn't have to

[pchang]

The tenure (cannot be fired for laziness) is the rent seeking part.

[Sava]

That's a tired old talking point completely irrelevant to the issue at hand... like tort reform with medical costs. It's just an excuse to punish a group you've "othered".

[pchang]

issue at hand????? when has that ever been a requirement fora post???

[Fake Boris]

None of this explains the "free ride" comment.

All of those people have jobs that they do on a daily basis. There's nothing "free" about it.

It's a free ride because they're diverting a public institution for private profit, saving costs in the process.

[Sava]

wrt professors, seems like theyre just being a little lazy

[self biased]

i'm not sure if this is relevant, or has been brought up: in my line of work i've seen state regulations change requirements of a job to a bachelor's degree for something that pays $13 an hour.

[pchang]

what was the requirement before? No degree or a Master's degree?

[self biased]

what was the requirement before? No degree or a Master's degree?

no degree, i think.

[Al B. Sure!]

Just make college loans defaultable.