Alex Usher of Higher Education Strategy Associates has spent the last week on his blog going
through an analysis of the financing of Canadian universities. His final post on the subject today
provides a convenient summary showing that while total dollars per
student has grown substantially over time, the academic operating side of the
university as a share of total budgets has declined even as academic salaries
have risen. Essentially, other
parts of the university were receiving money at a faster rate than the
operating budget. The big culprits
were scholarships, utilities and to a lesser extent central
administrations. As a result,
while per student income has grown, faculty-student ratios have fallen.
His conclusion: “Billions of dollars went into the academy in the
last twenty years, coming from students, government, and other sources.
But a disproportionate amount of that money went into non-operating areas (such
as research). And a disproportionate amount of operating money went into
areas other than academic salaries. And average faculty wages rose
substantially in real terms.”
However, Alex Usher then goes one step further and assigns
the blame for all this when he notes: “And it's worth
underlining here: virtually all of this has to do with changing priorities
within the academy, not changes in government policy. It was universities
who urged the new focus on research. It was universities which made the
decision to favour other spending categories over academic salaries. It
was the academic community as a whole which decided to pay more money to fewer
professors, rather than keep salaries stable and hire more staff. No one
made the academy do this. It's a self-inflicted wound.”
I’m not sure I agree with this. Borrowing from Oscar Wilde, the truth is rarely pure and
never simple. Yes, universities
and their academics definitely like the higher status research affords and would be complicit and
accepting of government initiatives that promote research spending and capital
projects designed to expand “research infrastructure.” They would even lobby for and promote
them. However, go back a few
decades to how this all began.
The fiscal crunch of the early 1990s in Canada meant cuts
and freezes to government operating grants for universities spawning the search
for more revenues such as higher tuition fees. As government budgets began to recover, universities began
to clamor for grant funding increases but it was not business as usual. Governments wanted to see value for
money and innovation in university practices. Universities responded by making the case for research
and innovation as economic drivers for the economy and for expensive technology
in the classrooms as ways to enhance student learning. Universities sold government a bill of goods but
governments were keen to buy.
Politicians love a photo-op and ribbon cuttings at a cyclotron are more
impressive than one for smaller class sizes.
Governments began to invest in buildings for research, research chairs
and funding for new initiatives but they also wanted universities to often
match the funding which meant more money had to come from budgets elsewhere in
the university. Academics were co-opted
by granting them higher salaries in return for cuts in department staffing and
re-allocating hires to exciting new
departments and programs.
That is what brings us to the present. Government has been helping set
university spending priorities by structuring funding incentives for
universities to respond to. It takes two to tango. Given the large proportion
of university budgets still accounted for by government funding as well as the
increasing quantity of government curriculum regulation it is only logical that
if governments want to improve the quality of the undergraduate student
experience they will have to help lead the way. Tell the universities they will only get new funding for initiatives that lower the student to faculty ratio and they will respond
accordingly. In the end, we all respond to incentives.
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Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Yep. They responded to everything that gets you a ranking in U.S.News or Times Educationnal Supplement rankings…
I don’t disagree with your sign-off point, but I found the rest of your response unconvincing. Usher’s analysis was compelling because he justified his claims with strong evidence. You demur based on several disagreements, but provide no evidence (your second last paragraph in particular).