UCONN Budget Cuts

Politics in Connecticut reached a new high in futility last week.  The failure of the Democrat Governor and Legislature to agree on a budget finally led some Democrats to throw up their hands and join with the Republican minority in passing a budget. Governor Dannell Malloy, however, has said that he would certainly veto the Republican budget bill.

Despite the Governor’s assurances, the usual suspects at the University of Connecticut are up in arms at the proposed cuts to UCONN in the Republican bill. It is hard to sort out the actual details but Republicans claim that their budget will cut $200 Million over two years from the State’s grant to UCONN. Officials at the University claim that the cut is more like $300 Million over two years. 

The President of the University immediately predicted doom. If the budget went through, schools in the system would be closed, programs would be curtailed, class sizes would increase, and faculty would be let go. Today in the Connecticut Post, my hometown paper, graduates of the University took out a full page ad claiming that the cuts would “decimate” the University. I quote:

President Susan Herbst said they would include closing UCONN Health and some regional campuses; ending some Division I sports; closing some academic departments and potentially some schools and colleges; enacting major reductions to all financial aid; and ending international programs, among others.

In other words, if forced to make cuts, Dr. Herbst would strike at the most needy, the lowest of the low. For example, regional campuses that serve students who can’t make it into the prestigious campus at Storrs would be cut. Small sports that actually are played by UCONN students would be cut, but mega-semi-pro businesses like basketball and football would probably go untouched.

A post I put up a few weeks ago on the salaries of top administrators at Syracuse University, a prominent private university in neighboring New York State, prompted me to check out the top salaries at state supported UCONN. Fortunately, the State provides a website that lists all the salaries and compensation of UCONN staff. There does not seem to be too much difference between Syracuse and UCONN.

The top 45 employees at UCONN all make in excess of $400000 a year, and the top 100 all make over $325000 per year. At the top, of course, is famed Woman’s Basketball coach, Geno Auriemma, who makes in excess of $2 Million a year. Most of the top earners would seem to be doctors and faculty at the UCONN medical center. Even retired basketball coach Jim Calhoun still has faculty status and made over $300000 in 2016

A few years ago I read about a business owner who found his business threatened during an economic downturn. To save his business as well as the jobs of his employees he came up with a plan that was a marvel of simplicity and fairness. He called it the 5-10-15 plan.

Here’s how it worked. The top third of wage earners in the company, including himself, took a 15% cut in pay. The middle third took a 10% cut, and the bottom third took a 5% cut in pay. In this plan, the CEO took the greatest hit. No one, not even the lowest paid clerk or janitor lost their job. Everyone shared in the pain but it was worth it because the business survived. Even the newest hires, traditionally the first to be cut, were spared.

I know it is rare to see such a plan enacted anywhere, whether in business, education, or government. When have you ever heard of a boss giving the axe to himself in any way? Even when the jobs of higher paid managers are cut, they usually bump some underling out of a job. When Susan Herbst, the President of UCONN, talked about the cuts that would decimate the University, she certainly was not talking about decimating the top 100 at the University.  

A 5-10-15 plan would work very well at the University. The Governor has asked all citizens to share the pain. During the Governor’s administration taxpayer’s have already been subjected to two large tax increases as well as increases in various fees. Students and their families at UCONN have already been asked to share the pain with increased tuition and larger class sizes.

President Herbst would do well to consider at 5-10-15 plan for her University. It would hit those at the top hardest, and those at the bottom the least. No schools need be closed or programs cancelled. The plan could even be phased in over two years to alleviate the pain.  

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Presidential Campaign Issues: Free Tuition

When Hillary Clinton was struggling to win the Democrat party nomination against upstart Bernie Sanders, she co-opted his idea of free college tuition for all. To appease Sanders supporters, she allowed the idea to become part of the Democrat Party platform on which she is now running. If she really attempts to promote this idea, it will be a disaster for higher education in the country. Connecticut with its longstanding private school tradition will be especially hard hit.

Although free college tuition is a popular idea, very few people have noticed that the Democrat platform only calls for free tuition at public or state supported schools. Inevitably such a law would drive most private institutions of higher learning in this country out of business.

Perhaps prestigious and well-endowed institutions like Yale might survive but most private schools would have to close their doors. In my home town of Fairfield, Sacred Heart University, in the midst of a massive building program, would go out of business. The University of Bridgeport would not be able to survive. Even Fairfield University, a popular Jesuit school, would be hard pressed. In the New Haven area, the University of New Haven, Quinnipiac College, and Albertus Magnus college would probably have to close their doors. Upstate, Wesleyan and Trinity would find it difficult to keep going, and the private University of Hartford would most likely fail. 

If these schools close down, where will their students go? Obamacare provides a good frame of reference. States will be mandated to provide higher education for all and bear the costs since there are no such things as Federal colleges and universities. The various states and municipalities would have to expand their facilities and staffs to cover the huge influx of new students. Or else, the various private schools will have to be taken over by the State and become public schools.

If free college tuition is such a good idea, why did Governor Malloy and the Democrat legislature fail to propose it already for Connecticut. On the contrary, budget constraints have caused Malloy to raise tuition at UCONN and other state schools throughout his term in office. Connecticut is one of the wealthier states in the country. If we can’t afford it, how can we expect poorer states to help us?

According to the Democrat platform the Federal government would somehow find the means to pay the tuition costs at these public educational institutions. Also, can there be any doubt that if the Federal government pays the tuition, it will be the boss. It will determine the amount of tuition that the states can charge in the same way that it sets medical costs in Medicare and Obamacare.

In addition, the Federal bureaucrats will inevitably cave into activist demands that there be no admission standards. Actually, this is the case in most state universities today. In Connecticut, for example, the State promises that it's university system will provide a place for every applicant. Of course, only the top students can go to the flagship UCONN campus. Less qualified students go to a variety of less prestigious schools. Once the Federal Government takes over, such an arrangement will likely be declared discriminatory. The lesser schools are separate but not equal.

Recently the Wall Street Journal partnered with an educational think tank to rate the various colleges and universities in the country. Four Connecticut private schools were in the top 100. Yale was 5, Wesleyan was 45, Trinity was 64, and Connecticut College was 95. The University of Connecticut was a respectable 109 but none of the other Connecticut public colleges made the list.

Finally, free public school tuition will also bring centralized control of curriculum and standards. When President Obama pushed his medical care plan back in 2008, he claimed that if you liked your current plan, you could keep it. We now know how false that promise was. Under the Democrat free tuition proposal, the Alma Mater that you love will either go out of business, or descend into government directed sameness and mediocrity.

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Education Reform

Recently, my local Connecticut newspaper published a front-page report showing the differences in average SAT scores for students at various high schools throughout Fairfield county. Predictably, the report showed that students from high schools in wealthier communities scored much higher than students from schools in predominately lower class cities with large minority populations.

In Darien, a small, largely white, well to do town along Fairfield County’s so-called Gold Coast, students averaged 1799 on their combined Sat scores. Only 18 miles away in Bridgeport, Connecticut’s most populous city, the largely black and Hispanic students of Bassick High School averaged only 1024 on their combined SAT scores. Actually, the discrepancy is even worse since only a small percentage of Black and Hispanic students even take the SATs.

The newspaper was quick to draw the obvious conclusion that children in wealthier communities get better educations. But why? Is it just that wealthy community pours more resources into their schools? It is true that their buildings look nicer and more modern and have better equipment, but teachers in the inner city schools make largely the same salaries as their colleagues in wealthier towns. Moreover, the schools in Bridgeport receive over $150 million each year in State funding, largely provided by the taxation of the residents in the wealthy Gold Coast towns. The people in Darien are supporting two school systems, their own and Bridgeport’s.

I believe that the reasons for the education gap are not monetary. I also believe that they are not about race or ethnicity. For most of my life I have read articles and editorials about educational reform. No one should dare to write or talk about it without spending some time in a classroom, or at least talking to the teachers who are actually on the front lines. In my financial planning practice many of my clients were teachers in schools from all over the social and economic spectrum. I would often meet these teachers in their schools and get a pretty good idea of what was going on by talking with them, and just using my own two eyes.

I know that the good, the bad, and the ugly exist in the teaching profession just as in any other profession. However, in my experience the good, competent, and dedicated teachers far outweigh the bad. Anyone who blames the teachers for the sorry state of education in our cities has probably never been in a classroom to observe just what they have to deal with.

I know a young white woman fresh out of college with a degree in elementary education who has just started teaching first grade in a Bridgeport school made up largely of black and hispanic children. Her college degree could not have prepared her for the chaos she encountered on her first day. Every day presents a new challenge and these are only first graders. In many ways, first grade is pivotal for it is then that the mind is ready to learn how to read. If the opportunity is missed, students will fall behind and low SAT scores will inevitably result.

Sadly and significantly, the teacher told me that on Parent’s Night, only four parents showed up to hear about their child’s progress. Maybe parent is the wrong word because most of these Bridgeport first graders don’t have parents. They are being raised by grandparents some of whom are not even in their forties. Sometimes even great-grandparents are the caregivers for these children. Moreover, in most cases there are no men involved in the raising of these children.

One need only contrast this situation with the Parents’ Night at a typical white middle class school in nearby Fairfield. The parking lot will be packed with cars and the classes filled with fathers and mothers anxiously seeking news of their child’s progress or lack of it. Actually, I knew a young math teacher in Bridgeport who did not want to work in a suburban school because the parents were too involved.

No amount of money will rectify the tremendous social disaster that has taken place in American cities in the past few generations. Unwed teenage pregnancies create an almost impossible educational problem. To get an education certificate today, teachers have to take courses that would almost qualify them as master psychologists.

Just the other day the newspaper told the story of a nineteen-year-old woman who left her 3 month old child with strangers in an urban motel. Police finally tracked her down 60 miles away in another hotel room with a group of men. The future for this young woman is really bleak but it is practically hopeless for her baby who has been taken into state custody. The probability is very high that the child will be virtually uneducable by the time he goes to first grade. He will come to regard school as a prison and by the time he gets to eight grade he will likely be attacking classmates and teachers, and destroying school property. Next, the probability is also very high that he will join a street gang, become a drug addict or dealer, and eventually wind up in jail or dead on the street.

On the other hand, the Wall St. Journal recently published an op-ed by a young black woman who had just graduated from college. Her story was the familiar one of a fatherless child with a teenage, possibly addicted, mother. By the time she went to school she was completely out of bounds and disruptive in and out of class. However, her life was transformed when godmother took her away from the mother and placed her in a private school in fifth grade. She credited the school and the State of Florida’s tuition support program but I credit the godmother. Finally, the young girl had someone in her life who cared for her and took an interest in her education.

Some advocate busing Black and Hispanic children from their schools in Bridgeport to high achieving predominately white schools in towns like Darien. What good will it do if there are no parents who will ask them how they did in school today?

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