So, in our minimal discussion (here and here) of the categorization of human (or, at least, American) society, we mentioned and gave a slight definiton of the Educational Sector. This then lets us read this bit from University of Wisconsin–Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank (from Minnesota Magazine) with perhaps a trifle more clarity:
The top of my list of challenges is trying to figure out how to create financial stability for an institution where our long-term model has included substantial subsidies from the state, and that model is being eroded year after year. The state at the same time wants to continue to demand that we provide the same subsidy to our students, even though they aren’t providing it to us. They want the same low tuition rates for the citizens of the state because that’s good politics and good for the state. Trying to figure out how you make an institution work in the midst of those financial challenges when state dollars have fallen rapidly for the last 15 to 20 years is, to me, the biggest challenge of the big publics. If we could solve that, everything else is pretty minor in comparison.
The unfortunate requirement that education function in the language of the private sector tends to deform its mission, making it more subject to the whims of both the private and public sectors. This brings up the notion of command and support sectors, where the public and private sectors may be in the former category, while the education and health sectors would reside in the latter. The basis of compartmentalization would be the degree to which other sectors influence and deform the operationality of the sectors.
The extent of deformation is probably inversely correlated with the efficiency of the sector in accomplishing its purpose. An example might be the educational system in North Carolina, where, under the banner,
“We’re capitalists, and we have to look at what the demand is, and we have to respond to the demand.”
the higher educational system is suffering major cuts. While cutting funding is a traumatic event for most concerned, the real problem is that the cuts are under the guidance of representatives of the private and public sectors, not the educational sector. Their motivations are very different from those of the educational sector, and the chance of a disaster occurring must certainly rise as those motivations are permitted to run rampant in a sector whose goals are not identical to their own; that is, the educational sector is educating the next generation, not attempting to profit from their operations. Moving such a purpose into the private sector has not been promising, and while we may point at private colleges and universities, these subsist more on alumnae donations, foundations, endowments, as much or more as they do on tuition from students. These sources are peculiar to the educational sector as they do not fit into the modes of any other sector, with some crossover to the (undefined) health sector.
(I also have to shake my head at the thought that demand is important; this is the thought process of a private sector CEO, not an educator who is thinking of the future of the students, who, for the most part, are young and inexperienced, even if the law now sees them as ‘adults’ – if adults without drinking privileges. They may demand basket-weaving; they should take classes in foreign languages. Who should win this discussion? Strawman, you say? How about classes in Business vs classes in Ethics?)
So what? Well, how should education be funded? Perhaps the private colleges and universities are doing OK, but the public schools are under a lot of stress. The University of Wisconsin is not alone; from the same article, University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler states,
The clear cause is disinvestment in the University of Minnesota by the state. Our state appropriation was cut dramatically and those dollars were replaced with increased tuition dollars. At the same time, the institution became increasingly efficient. To illustrate, look back 10 years or so and do the following exercise: add together the state appropriation per student and the tuition paid by the student to get a total that is a very rough measure of what it costs to educate a student. That total is 11 percent lower today after accounting for inflation, showing a pretty remarkable improvement in efficiency. But the total state appropriation per student is lower today than it was at the beginning of the century. So what has changed dramatically is who pays the cost. It used to be mostly the state, and now it’s predominantly the student and her family.
It is not unreasonable to suggest that a well-educated citizenry is an asset to the State, to the public sector. Using that reasonable statement, it’s not difficult to argue that the public sector should fund the educational sector, at least in those institutions we call public universities, as a way of paying for the service of providing a well-educated citizenry.
It would be very good to find a dedicated source. The gas tax is often guaranteed to be used for upkeep of the road system; something similar, beyond political gimickry, should be developed for the Educational sector. This would permit the support status of education, which makes it a victim, to be isolated from the undue influence of the private and public sectors. However, the exact source seems to be beyond me.
