Dumbing Down America

I found a fascinating article, "How Universities Became Hedge Funds," in the British publication, Renewal. It illustrates how many US institutions of higher learning have moved to become successful business ventures while giving a short shrift to their central mission: educating students!!

In August 2009, just one month after the state of California cut over a billion dollars from its higher education budget, the University of California (UC) lent the state $200 million (Asimov, 2009). When journalists asked the UC president, Mark Yudof, how the university could lend millions of dollars to the state while the school was raising student tuition fees 32 per cent, furloughing employees, cancelling classes, and laying off teachers, Yudof responded that when the university lends money to the state, it turns a profit, but when it spends money on salaries for teachers, the money is lost.

Welcome to the university as hedge fund. In this strange new world, institutions of higher learning care more about interest rates than educational quality...

Gosh, Milton Friedman must be rolling over in his grave with glee!!