SUNY-Buffalo President Responds to Credit Crisis—Raise Tuition!

By Richard J. Bishirjian, Ph.D.
Dec 4, 2008, 09:07

Today’s InsideHigherEd.com publishes Jack Stripling’s report that SUNY-Buffalo President John Simpson calls for an increase in his institution’s tuition.  Reason, there is always opportunity in a crisis.

The State of New York, one of the most profligate big spending political entities on the political map of the United States is facing a shortfall in taxes, fees and penalties of about $2 billion.  Make that $3 to $5 billion since politicians like to hide from reality.

President Simpson points out that “Tuition and average fees at SUNY are $5,479, which is below the national average of $6,585 for four-year public universities…”  The rule of thumb to use in assessing whether in-state tuition costs reflect actual education costs is to take a look at out-of-state tuition costs.  Okay, President Simpson is probably right, tuition of $5,479 is probably 20% of what it really costs to educate a SUNY undergraduate student, the rest is subsidized by research grants, state subsidies and alumni donations.

The solution, however, especially in a financial slowdown of major proportions is not to charge more.  The solution—which no doubt never occurred to President Simpson—is to change how the university is organized. 

Much of the talk about conditions to be imposed on Detroit auto manufacturers should be applied to colleges and universities.  Antiquated work rules (tenure), regulatory costs (accreditation barriers) and bad management (John Simpson) must be replaced with new blood and new methods applicable to a global economy.

Here’s what to do:  Recognize that the actual cost of an education, the cost of books and room and board , is about 75% higher than the average middle class family is able to pay. A cost-cutting effort is now mandatory, so how might those real costs be reduced to about current SUNY tuition of about $6,000 per year?

A college degree everywhere in the United States costs too much.

That simple statement should be made by President John Simpson in every public appearance that he makes. In doing so he will be able to put administrators and staff on alert that changes must be made and John Simpson can then justify some proposals that the University community of Faculty and staff will fine unpalatable.

President Simpson should immediately institute an institutional financial review using outcomes based audits.  This will engage him in a collaborative fashion with University constituencies and enable him to discover—and publicly reveal—that some aspects of the University are underproductive while others are generating income that sustains other divisions of the University.

President Simpson should not flinch from examining ways to reform the system of academic tenure by which after seven years Faculty are given a life-time contract.

This is obviously a delicate subject with tenured Faculty and those aspiring to academic tenure, but the institution of academic tenure no longer serves the purposes it was historically intended to serve, and it protects Faculty from market influences from technologies that enable greater numbers of students to be taught at a distance. 

Now, with that said, President Simpson must ask himself whether he really believes—as he will be told by his Faculty Senate—that the net balance of tenure reform would be loss of talent.  Note that I use the term ‘tenure reform,’ not ‘abolition’ of tenure.

Academic tenure is a legal contract and those granted tenure may not have that tenure abolished without due process. Tenure can be reformed, however.

Consider, for example, that this is a great nation and talent in any industry responds to incentives. Pay people enough and they will stay, and if they leave, others will come.  There is no historical example to prove that if tenure is reformed much valued talent will leave.  Much valued talent can go anywhere in academe, so the ones complaining most are those for whom employment at SUNY-Buffalo is their only employment opportunity.

President Simpson should go immediately to the university library and pick up a copy of Richard Vedder’s Going Broke by Degree.

Vedder suggests that a voluntary two-tier compensation system makes a lot of sense.  Non-tenured Faculty will earn a substantially higher income than tenured Faculty.  Why?  The privilege of lifetime job security has value for Faculty, but little value to the institution. 

How might President Simpson reduce the total cost of attending SUNY-Buffalo as an undergraduate?

One way to approach that is to seek broad systemic reform that reaches down into the high schools of the Empire State where students of college ability are often under-challenged.  Under John Simpson’s direction, the SUNY system should develop an online core curriculum of approximately 60 academic credits that it offers to high school students via the Internet at cost—about what Yorktown University charges high school students in its Early College program--$500.

High school students completing one year of college at a distance will be admitted to SUNY-Buffalo as true Sophomores and spend only three years on campus.  As the number of high school students earning college credits at a distance increases, the number of campus berths should be reduced proportionately until at a future date SUNY-Buffalo offers solely Junior/Senior college level courses.

Admission to SUNY-Buffalo at that future date will require having earned two years of college ‘at a distance’ or by matriculation from community colleges or other four year institutions.  The time students spend on SUNY-Buffalo’s campus earning degrees will be cut by 50%, and if their first two years of college work are completed while in high school, their total college costs are also cut by close to 50%.

If tuition, room and board, books and fees at SUNY-Buffalo cost more than students, parents and taxpayers can afford, then rather than indenture them to back-breaking debt, reorganize how the SUNY system delivers its educational products.

Making the undergraduate college at SUNY-Buffalo a senior college in a process taking ten to fifteen years makes financial sense, especially in these difficult times, and good educational sense.

What about SUNY-Buffalo’s graduate divisions?  “Every boat on its own bottom,” is a good principle that is used in some of America’s best research institutions. Spin off the graduate division of SUNY into autonomous, self-governing, entities that pay HQ an annual 50% of income from research grants, and rent for use of university facilities.  Make that 60%.

Proposing that for discussion will make John Simpson an educational visionary.

While he’s the toast of the Empire State, President Simpson should make it known publicly that he is aware also that some academic Departments at SUNY-Buffalo intentionally exclude conservative scholars.  That is true in virtually all universities and colleges in America, and is the subject of an essay titled “The Antidote to Academic Orthodoxy,” by Dr. Steve Balch published by the Chronicle of Higher Education in April 2004.

Dr. Balch gives good advice, but I would like to add this thought to his.  President Simpson is old enough to recall that President Gerald Ford used a Team B approach to assessment of the Soviet Union’s military capabilities.  “Team B” was composed of outside experts who discovered serious weakness in the assessments of Team A—the intelligence Establishment.

With any top administrative position, and any tenure track position, I suggest that President Simpson establish a “Team B” approach to challenge the assumptions of the usual members of the University community that participate in these searches.  Team B reports will have no legal value, but since most upstate New Yorkers are not happy with the left-wing bias of downstate New York anyway, these reports will have great moral value and may very well shame SUNY-Buffalo Faculty into thinking more broadly about giving representation to minority views in their academic fields or specialization.

President Simpson should call for intellectual diversity!

Lastly, I think President Simpson has to ask himself—and all constituencies in the SUNY system must ask themselves—whether the absence of a Core Curriculum make sense in educational and political terms?  Since the taxpayers of New York ‘own’ SUNY, should their ownership not require a course in New York state government and the geology of the region?

And if SUNY-Buffalo—like very other college and university in America—has a civic obligation to build good citizens who are knowledgeable about American history, government, law and economics, why not require courses in American history, government and market oriented [classical] enterprise economics?