We keep hearing how all problems in higher education stem from lack of money. Money, money, money! The states are putting up less money! If only they put up more money, then…
What? What would happen then? How would all the riches in the world prevent colleges from turning into cesspits of fanaticism and idiocy? Money makes things worse. I know both Concordia and Middlebury. Concordia is swimming in money. It built up half of downtown Montreal with gleaming skyscrapers. Middlebury is very rich. Yet people get screamed down, beaten up, and thrown out. How did money help?
Money makes things worse in higher ed. People who do actual teaching and research never see it anyway. Money hires us more party apparatchiks and builds palace-like quarters for them. They destroy education with their assessment practices and equity efforts that fill the campus with students who shouldn’t be in college. Then we can’t attract anybody but these unprepared students. So we need more money to pay for gimmicks like stadiums and access services that award everybody a disability so that they don’t have to study.
It’s a vicious circle where more and more and more money makes students and professors poorer and dumber.