Harvard/Stanford

You don’t have to be a MAGA Republican to realize that something is terribly wrong with the academic establishment in the United States. In ‘my day’ almost everyone aspired to be a college graduate. Not everyone succeeded but most at least paid homage to the goal. 

Not so today! When a 14 year old grandchild recently announced, “And I am not going to college,” barely an eyebrow was raised. Today, everyone knows that there are multiple paths to a fulfilling life and not all of those paths run through ivy.

It was a bit eye-catching, however, when a major international defense contractor, Palantir Tech, announced that it was offering prospective employees a $100,000 signing bonus if they promised not to go to college. Stunning!

Clearly, our universities have long since abandoned their mission of educating Americans to live meaningful, examined, and productive lives. Today, major universities have become gigantic money mills, insatiably fueled by confiscatory tuition, crippling student debt, misguided donations, and government grants.

Case in point: over a decade ago we learned that now Senator Elizabeth Warren had been paid a $300,000 annual salary by Harvard University…to teach a single class. Who says teachers are underpaid?

In lieu of fulfilling their educational mission, our institutions of higher learning are now focused on so-called ‘research’. Some of that research is no doubt meaningful and promises to deliver benefits in the medium-to-long term. 

Universities should be free to pursue their research without government interference.  (Exception: when national security is involved.)

The problem comes when they expect us to pay for that research without our having any control or any ownership interest in the results! The reaction of academia to the Trump administration’s efforts to rebalance this equation tells us everything we need to know. There’s a reason why lawyers often tell their clients not to testify in court; frequently, such witnesses end up hanging themselves. And so…

Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary and former president of Harvard, and ironically, ‘one of the good guys’:

“Removal of Harvard’s 501(c)(3) status, which won’t happen because we are a nation of laws, would, if it did happen, devastate progress in medical and scientific research, the maintenance of American and Western values, opportunity for the next generation of Americans and an important magnet for the United States in the world.”

Universities value their ‘academic freedom’ and rightly so but that does not mean that they are entitled to tax payer financing. Currently, the federal government subsidizes unregulated university activity in three ways:

1. Direct grants

2. Lost tax revenue on tax deductible donations

3. The cost of publicly financed tuitions, aka Student Loans, that enable universities to squeeze more money out of their customers (students) than would be possible in a free market.

   
   

This state-of-affairs is nothing short of a human rights violation…on two scores:

1. The diversion of public funds for private purposes over which the government has no control is a form of taxation without representation. Didn’t we fight a war over that?

   
   

2. Perhaps as much as 40% of income tax revenue comes from households with annual incomes less than $250,000. Using those receipts to bail out cash rich universities amounts to a massive income redistribution scheme that further benefits the already more fortunate. In terms Robin Hood would relate to, we are robbing the lower middle class and giving the proceeds to the upper middle class. 

   
   

Is it time to fire up The Hague? 

As troubling as all this is, the self-important arrogance and sense of entitlement displayed by spokespersons for university interests is even more dazzling. According to Larry Summers (above), the withdrawal of public financing from private institutions would…

1. “Devastate progress in medical and scientific research

2. (Undermine) American and Western values

3. (Compromise) opportunity for the next generation of Americans 

4. (Sacrifice) an important magnet for the United States in the world.”

   
   

Really, Larry? That’s all? And BTW, re #4, whatever happened to ‘Truth, Justice, and the American Way’? Guess that went out of vogue after the ‘50s.

The icing on this cake came in a letter of support for Harvard University from the President and the Provost of its west coast academic rival, Stanford. 

“America’s universities are a source of great national strength, creating knowledge and driving innovation and economic growth… This strength has been built on government investment but not government control. The Supreme Court recognized this years ago when it articulated the essential freedoms of universities under the First Amendment as the ability to determine who gets to teach, what is taught, how it is taught, and who is admitted to study.”

Wow! Would you send your child to be taught by these geniuses? Yes, universities are entitled to First Amendment protections. But did the Supreme Court also state that they are entitled to tax payer funding? I think not!

I attended college in the turbulent ‘60s. Among my professors were men (sic) of genius and integrity like John Rawls, Willard van Orman Quine, Hilary Putnam, and H. Stuart Hughes. Today apparently, anyone can say anything, no matter how foolish, and be taken seriously, so long as they have the proper initials after their name.

One more time: “America’s universities are a source of great national strength, creating knowledge and driving innovation and economic growth… This strength has been built on government investment but not government control.” Let’s unpack:

First, if America’s universities really are a source of ‘great national strength, creating knowledge and driving innovation and economic growth’, then they should do just fine…without public financing.

Second, “government investment but not government control” is a politically attractive way of saying, “free money, taken from the less fortunate and given to the more fortunate, with no strings attached”.  

Civics 101: There is no such thing as ‘government investment’; there is only ‘taxpayer investment’ but that investment takes two forms: (1) actual taxes paid, (2) inflated prices driven up by government borrowing to fund deficit spending. The taxpayer pays twice and gets nothing back except a promissory note: “We’ll educate your children, provided they are in the most gifted 5% and can come up with at least $250,000 in non-deductible tuition.” How generous!

Criticizing the American economic system is a favorite pastime of  “writers and critics who prophesize with your pen” (Bob Dylan). But there is no injustice in that system greater than forced taxpayer funding of elite private institutions.

Image: René Magritte’s 1929 oil painting The Treachery of Images is housed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles.

Keep the conversation going.

1. Click here to comment on this TWS.

2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link.

3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers; click here to view out Writers’ Specs.