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Your State University Doesn't Want You
theodp writes "According to a new survey of college admissions directors by Inside Higher Ed, the admissions strategy judged most important is the recruitment of more out-of-state and international students, who can pay significantly more at public institutions. Ten percent of those surveyed also reported admitting full-pay students with lower grades and test scores than other admitted applicants, and a majority of schools either use or plan to use controversial commission-paid agents to recruit foreign students (commission-based recruitment is barred in the U.S.). 'This isn't about globalization or increased educational diversity,' asserts USC's Jerome A. Lucido. 'They need the money.' So, should employees of a public university where the President's annual compensation exceeds $1 million receive a full state-funded pension for educating 16,000+ out-of-state students?"
It's a purposeful distortion to ask if rank-and-file *employees* should get a pension after a lifetime of service, simply because one single administrator (uni pres) has a huge paycheck. That's like asking if the front desk secretary should be allowed to have a cigarette break because the Goldman Sachs CEO is already out playing golf.
You are dead on right. In Texas, the legislature has been eating away at state support for higher education after eliminating caps on state university tuition. The legislature said with a straight face that this would not increase tuition, but it doubled over the last decade. The Texas GOP views higher education as "liberal brainwashing", so I expect the GOP controlled government to continue down this path.
Parent is insightfully addressing the misleading question in the summary:
"should employees of a public university where the President's annual compensation exceeds $1 million receive a full state-funded pension for educating 16,000+ out-of-state students?"
This appears to be a deliberate attempt to undermine the idea of providing a pension system to state employees without providing any evidence that those employees haven't earned that pension.
This rhetorical attempt to represent the compensation of a university *president* as justification for reduce compensation for the majority of university employees is logically fallacious, and seems like an attack on those employees simply because they work for a state or a state education system..
I expect better. Yes, even from Slashdot.