When the public votes down a school tax levy, the protocol is to threaten to eliminate sports and shutter schools. Then they hold levy elections until the public passes the levy. Then the school board goes on its merry way of ignoring the public. This model applies to higher education as fewer young Americans are enrolling because people with degrees have flooded the job market.
Cutting the DEI administrators would be a great start.
Cutting wimxn’s studies and other grievance majors is a great thing, if these majors were indeed some of those eliminated. That would get rid of the most radical teachers and students on campus. If they cut the administrators for these worthless minor majors, that too would be great news.
The money from the Big 12 will probably drop. Losing Texas and Oklahoma isn’t a good thing for their TV deal.
All of these majors are a complete waste of time. They only create uneducated, angry people who think they are better than the rest, that have no skill set in the real world. Unless one has useful skills in society, which in many ways can be gleaned through practice, and repetition, you are just taking up space.
Al Gore and John Kerry, both could have been Presidents but their education, made them more arrogant entitled and dumber. These are two morons, who were given the climate change mantle as payback for their loss in stolen elections, so that another ignoramus could become president and start and keep us in two never ending wars promoted by the military industrial complex.
Here is what THE most corrupt state in The United States--Massachusetts--did when every other state and country in the world did when Covid came in and shut everything down and bear in mind there were NO classes, not even online tutorials. All staffing levels were kept at full time status instead of putting all these former legislature members on unemployment or layoffs. All bills were being paid and when schools finally did reopen, they had to borrow money from the states "Rainy Day Fund." The UMass system is run by no other than former senate president Billy Bulger. He is the brother of former mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger. So you know, I have questioned why the UMass system even exists when their average class size is 25%--31% OF CAPACITY. Talk about graft and corruption.
Connecticut is just as bad. For a state population of 3.5 million there are a DOZEN ‘campuses’ each with its own bureaucracy. No one cuts or consolidates anything because it is a Democrat Employment Project. In the meantime, the state continues to ‘leak’ population over high taxes and the high cost of living.
The UConn system has been teetering over the financial cliff for awhile now. If it weren't for their consistently good athletics programs, I doubt anyone would go there. You are correct--UConn and the whole state of Connecticut is doing a slow burn--definitely not fast enough in my opinion.
California has more people so of course there is more corruption. Whenever there is a government entity, there is going to be corruption and that is 100% true wherever you go. When I was posting articles for the Boston Herald years ago, I said this: "These politicians are SO corrupt they don't even have the courtesy of even denying it." When my car was stolen by a local police officer and I had all the proof I needed, when I went to state AG Martha Coakley at the time, I interviewed with one of her assistants to bring charges. Her comment to me was "If you wish to prefer charges against this officer, we will bring charges against you for trespassing.'" I said, "If we can share the same jail cell, that's fine with me." I never heard from her office again.
Aug 30, 2023·edited Aug 30, 2023Liked by Don Surber
Never forget that these public university bureaucrats - and their over-paid fat-staffed senior level lackeys (along with their DEI-loving boards of Trustees) were the drivers of forcing an experimental, unsafe, ineffective clot-shot on tens of thousands of innocent tuition-paying students. They weaponized the college experience as an extension of the deep state. Now these kids are walking myocarditis cases with eroded immune systems. https://www.igor-chudov.com/p/pfizers-covid-vaccine-causes-vaids
At long last I am happy to say, universities are facing the threats to their survival that the rust belt manufacturers of the 1980's and 1990's faced. The companies that made this country a good middle class. I worked at many of them in management roles at the time. In chasing shareholder value for the benefit of their own bonuses, the senior executives destroyed their businesses which ended up in another country. May these "untouchable" public service universities suffer the same fate. May all those senior level lackeys have to go out and find a job at half the pay with lousy benefits to continue their worthless careers. We don't need them - especially the Ivy League bastards.
Chrysler Corp comes to mind when reading your comment. Having relatives in the auto industry, I witnessed this time and time again. I blame the bad decisions made by upper management; bone headed decisions. Ford's Taurus was at one time industry leader. Then the accountants decided to move in and make cost cutting a priority that was very misdirected and fatal. ie: One was to eliminate the sound proofing barrier between motor compartment and passengers. That's just one of a large number of really asinine decisions the auto industry made. Ever hear of the DEMING Award? Xenophobic Japan created it as an acknowledgement to Prof Deming, US citizen and prof that America ignored which subsequently proved fatal to the US auto industry and established Japan as an auto dynasty.
Wow, you bring back some very good memories. W. Edwards Deming was a master of process control. American senior leaders were lucky to attend his seminars before he died.
As you state, Deming is who made the Japanese car makers the best in the industry using SPC (statistical Process Control) to attain unbeatable quality. The US wasn't interested in him because they were too busy going full steam in the 1950's and 1960's. Then, Hondas came to America in the early/mid-1970's because the Arab Oil Embargo brought a wave of fear regarding fuel efficiency and the US/Detroit car line-up was made up of gas-guzzling whales. I was pumping gas at the time of the embargo. Cars were lined up the street for blocks waiting in line to get a fill-up before we would run the underground tanks dry. People panicked when a gallon of gas went from $0.25 a gallon to $0.35 a gallon. I love the muscle car era (my brother had a '68 Camaro SS), but they didn't survive the changes in the macro environment when fuel efficient cars started to be imported - and the US didn't adopt competitive manufacturing techniques. Too little - too late. That's why the leftists had to keep bailing out Detroit and Obama came up with "Cash for Clunkers".
Toyota's first cars sold here were a complete failure. The shame of it made them institute Toyota quality control. That's why they regularly give a reliable 2-500,000 miles since I was a kid.
The earliest models from Japan for both Honda and Toyota were tin cans with motors so you are correct. As the quality was increased through Deming, it became an unparalleled standard of exceptional quality that took U S firms like Ford another 20 years to get close to duplicating.
I worked in banking 28 years. During this time banking went through a mergers and acquisitions spree. Personnel cuts occurred at every level. Other industries have done the same. Government at every level, to my knowledge, are immune to this. Yet, they supposedly work for the people. We the people have significantly less power than major shareholders.
Aug 30, 2023·edited Aug 30, 2023Liked by Don Surber
This continuous onslaught of bullshit is going to have to come an end sooner than later. I actually think there is going to be an event, planned by the D-Rats, to either cancel/delay the elections or cause a nationwide lockdown backed by the 3 letter agencies and the military, to avoid getting T into the WH. The Left knows the mood of the country and how many of them are vulnerable to charges of treason or murder or fill in the blank, and they’ll do whatever they can to keep from standing over a trap door or being tied to a post. If you think they’re just going to say ‘Hey y’all that was a blast, cya in four’ and walk away from this you’re delusional.
In a world where there really are no coincidences, if the concept of DEW’s are even a possibility, we have to look at the potential for Maui being a successful test run for the nation at large.
Get ready Folks and supply and Ammo up. We only have 14 months to figure this out!
Evidence is beginning to appear in small pieces - but never on any main stream media that I have seen. There had to be D.E.W. used. The disparity between an automobile that was so hot the aluminum rims and cylinder head melted sitting next to a grass field that didn't burn can't be explained away. Nobody has provided a convincing reason that dozens of boats moored in the bay - away from the grass fires on land - were all ablaze and burning wildly. . . not one or two. They ALL were toast.
There was a powerful external source used to start these fires in Hawaii and Canada, and it wasn't visible to the naked eye.
Did you see the picture of the ring of fire? Wildfires dont move in perfect circles. Something was done and sadly I think a lot had to do with the fact none of the natives were selling their land to outsiders at all. I hate being so cynical.
Well, the USFS (Forest Service) was paying around $200+ an hour to "fight" forest fires, so there IS an incentive to start them. To the USFS credit, their arson investigation teams are the best on planet earth. Arson fires used to be set all over the place in the 1980's. Rarely is that feat so common place today.
"This continuous onslaught of bullshit is going to have to come an end sooner than later."
While I agree, and would love to think so, but it doesn't seem to be the case.
"...there is going to be an event, planned by the D-Rats, to either cancel/delay the elections or cause a nationwide lockdown backed by the 3 letter agencies and the military, to avoid getting T into the WH."
About half the kids drop out because they aren’t mature enough to understand that easy-to-get loan means future indebtedness, and spend too much time playing beer pong or RPGs. Seriously, too many kids that stay get worthless degrees and saddled with debt. Meanwhile, they are paying CDL holders probably double (or more) than what most degree holders earn in the local economy to drive trucks in the fracking fields. There are skills that have a much higher risk reward ratio than a social work or a contemporary journalism degree.
Declining enrollment may mean that word is going around to this new generation that higher Ed is a grift for most degree programs.
As blue collar votes of all races move to Trump (and the GOP by association, if it is willing to embrace Trump), the higher Ed system and its miseducated masses it produces are the only prospective pool the Dems have to remain in power.
Don is right, administration needs to face the realities those of us not in higher Ed face every quarter in the world their young products have shaped.
I ran for Town Council in my location. There were various reasons, most having to do with over taxation. On example that shocked my co-residents was that the school budgets, which were consistently voted down, could be saved by a vote of the Town Council. They could not vote to increase the budget but could vote the budget in as long as it was $1 less than the defeated one. With an expanding administration and a superintendent making more than $400,000 my fellow citizens were shocked. But as I was in the wrong party I never did win in my three tries. I learned that my neighbours would spend increasing amounts of money for the pleasure of voting democrat.
Your article sir, points to a major problem in the USA and I suspect it's become a world-wide phenomenon, and that is an ever present bloated, self-consuming Bureaucracy, which eats its own and produces little or no value. This is a pandemic in our world and in our society, and it is a monster that, once unleashed, CAN appear to be unstoppable. Yet as your article points out in WVU's case, the problems are clear and the solutions ARE too. Remember the $500.00 wrench the military requisitioned in its budget? While the hardware owner down the street could have provided one for $35.00? It's truly a pandemic! FYI I will not comply with any of the BS these monsters are thinking about unleashing on US and i suggest that everyone else does too.
Why is the "education" industry staffed and managed by so many stupid people? They couldn't run a hot dog stand or teach a dog to 'shake paw'. Democrats dominate "education". So....
Yup. Exactamundo. It’s a con game. And we payfor it.
Stanford has 12000 students approximately. Half undergrad, half grad. It also has 12000 faculty and administrative staff. That’s one woke admin per one woke freshman. The number of hospital administrators has quintupled since the 1950s while the number of doctors practicing medicine hasn’t even doubled. The federal, state, county, and municipal bureaucracies grow like weeds, and spend like thieves, but this nonproductive sector of the economy can’t perform nearly any of its tasks.
You wanna know why we’re in this situation, the growth of the managerial class is a big reason.
These people - wait for it- don’t actually do anything. They talk. They go to meetings. They produce reports for each other. They make regulations which then promote more of these Kafkaesque grey people to make policy and procedure manuals. They can’t change a tire or remove your appendix or run a for profit market based company. They are the ones ruining America with stifling, stupid rules and bad politics. They take OPM and turn it into something worthless.
The Congress and the legislatures cater to them because they are a political donor force and many are unionized, which should be illegal. Why illegal? Because you, the taxpayer aren’t in the negotiations. And you’re footing the bill for their salaries and benefits.
Want to save money, balance budgets, save the nation? Start by shrinking the managerial class. You will find that all of a sudden things cost less, are easier, and incentives are aligned to productive peoples’ output.
Cutting Gee won't solve the problem. There is a long line of similar bow tie-wearing wannabe university presidents lined up to take his place and, likely, inflict more damage than he has. Before I retired, I used to say things like, "They can't possibly hire a worse provost than [the one who was leaving]." I learned, after a few years, that the university was taking that as a challenge. They always managed to find a more incompetent clown. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach become administrators..
It’s nice to see that Public Education- an oxymoron rivaling Military Intelligence - is as successful at the post-secondary level as it is at K-12.
I know how to fix the budget crisis: WV legislature should pledge to zero out funding. Make an allowance for matriculating students to graduate, but don’t accept any more. Lose the “fluffy” stuff - DIE, luxury amenities, and anything else that doesn’t directly support the remaining students. That might encourage less serious ones to leave right away. The goal is to shutter the place. Restart it as a vocational school, and keep it small while attendance builds back up. Make any new administrators run an audited P&L for their area of responsibility, and directly tie their compensation to that P&L. Or just abandon the place as a shrine to stupidity.
At the present, some universities are adopting a policy of linking salary increases to enrollment increases. Most of these schools have dropped the ACT and SAT standardized testing entrance requirements to open the gate to more students for their (borrowed) tuition money. The result will be to accept students who have no business being in college - NONE - who will likely not finish or succeed - but the greedy universities will continue to lie to these kids to get their money.
as schools, k-12 drop 0's for no work, late work and have gotten rid of homework, the end is predictable. Generations of kids dependent on the government and unable to say anything because if they do, they lose their benefits.
What you say about dropping 0s is true. Additionally, teachers have learned not to give Fs because the “solution” the administration employs is to remediate the teacher not the student. Consequently, failing students get passed along.
our friends son is 26 this yr. The parents made him take the 4th grade over since the kid couldnt read against the teachers advice. He still couldnt read much better when he graduated. The parents worked with him at home diligently too, his dad is a chemist.
Oh, that’s so sad! At least his parents took the necessary actions he needed to improve his reading skills. He is a lucky young man to have resourceful parents.
Deepest Sympathies regarding WVU's E. Gordon Gee, "the elfin president of WVU, is to blame for this mess ... He believes in magic" and while at Vanderbilt (2002-2007), his then wife believed in magic grass and mushrooms. I don't think he is as much college material as he is a fictional character by his own choice. Need more? Just do a Wikipedia glance if for no other reason than a good coffee spurt at his pix.
$43,000 per student per year. And like all "Educators" they are totally against COMPETITION.
The entire education budget should be put up to a Dutch Auction, with the bidders required to have students pass arm's-length tests before the payment in full is granted.
America dying under the Dead Weight of Incompetence, including the lightweights, but yappy madding crowd, in Education.
"The reaction to cutting programs instead of fat is as one may expect. Fools fell for it. The local paper blamed Republicans."
Of course, it did. Is that not the knee-jerk default response?
"And yet despite a Republican legislature, WVU’s budget grew by 26% in those 10 years."
I'm guessing those "Republicans" were actually undocumented Democrats.
"'The students didn’t come—enrollment fell to about 27,500 last fall—but the spending continued.'"
It seems that even if you build it, that's no guarantee that they'll come.
"(Unless you have an hour for me to answer, don’t ask why it is the Big 12 has 14 schools and another 13 affiliates.)"
The B1G (Big Ten) said, "Hold my beer" and is now constituted of eighteen member schools (but who's counting? Mathematics and arithmetic is racist, anyway), nearly half of those decidedly outside of the midwest, which was at one time, its core fan base.
Lucky for me, I stopped paying attention to all professional athletics in 2020 when they deified a black junkie that OD'd - and don't kid yourselves - "collegiate" football and basketball are professional organizations. I long for the day when the NCAA implodes on itself.
"He wears a bowtie well."
While it is a skill every man should possess, unless one is a clown or a college professor (not always easy to make the distinction), attending a black-tie function, or attending a Christmas party, one has no business wearing one in public.
"WVU’s stadium becomes West Virginia’s largest city every time the football team plays there."
WVU's greatest gift to collegiate football was when it allowed Michigan to hire Rich Rodriguez away from the program.
Again, an, "All of the above" is badly needed for today's poll question - did something offend the cat? Nonetheless, DIE is more dangerous than is a clown like Gee.
How about schools on the left coast joining the ACC.Geography went out along with Civics and history {never to return to public educ.} when the libs took over academia.
Your Mr. Gee is merely a politician at a lower level.This is the name of the game across the U.S.of A. and until the people yank the reins we are in a runaway wagon.Our only way back starts at ground level and courtesy of Don Surber,Kane,Wilkow.,and numerous others we are gaining ground slowly but steadily.Thank you sir!
Cutting the DEI administrators would be a great start.
Cutting wimxn’s studies and other grievance majors is a great thing, if these majors were indeed some of those eliminated. That would get rid of the most radical teachers and students on campus. If they cut the administrators for these worthless minor majors, that too would be great news.
The money from the Big 12 will probably drop. Losing Texas and Oklahoma isn’t a good thing for their TV deal.
Amen to that. There is more fat in university spending than on Lizzo's rear end.
All of these majors are a complete waste of time. They only create uneducated, angry people who think they are better than the rest, that have no skill set in the real world. Unless one has useful skills in society, which in many ways can be gleaned through practice, and repetition, you are just taking up space.
Al Gore and John Kerry, both could have been Presidents but their education, made them more arrogant entitled and dumber. These are two morons, who were given the climate change mantle as payback for their loss in stolen elections, so that another ignoramus could become president and start and keep us in two never ending wars promoted by the military industrial complex.
Here is what THE most corrupt state in The United States--Massachusetts--did when every other state and country in the world did when Covid came in and shut everything down and bear in mind there were NO classes, not even online tutorials. All staffing levels were kept at full time status instead of putting all these former legislature members on unemployment or layoffs. All bills were being paid and when schools finally did reopen, they had to borrow money from the states "Rainy Day Fund." The UMass system is run by no other than former senate president Billy Bulger. He is the brother of former mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger. So you know, I have questioned why the UMass system even exists when their average class size is 25%--31% OF CAPACITY. Talk about graft and corruption.
Connecticut is just as bad. For a state population of 3.5 million there are a DOZEN ‘campuses’ each with its own bureaucracy. No one cuts or consolidates anything because it is a Democrat Employment Project. In the meantime, the state continues to ‘leak’ population over high taxes and the high cost of living.
The UConn system has been teetering over the financial cliff for awhile now. If it weren't for their consistently good athletics programs, I doubt anyone would go there. You are correct--UConn and the whole state of Connecticut is doing a slow burn--definitely not fast enough in my opinion.
As a former, Massachusetts resident, I wonder Tony, is it truly the most corrupt state? It’s possible that California may have taken that mantle.
California has more people so of course there is more corruption. Whenever there is a government entity, there is going to be corruption and that is 100% true wherever you go. When I was posting articles for the Boston Herald years ago, I said this: "These politicians are SO corrupt they don't even have the courtesy of even denying it." When my car was stolen by a local police officer and I had all the proof I needed, when I went to state AG Martha Coakley at the time, I interviewed with one of her assistants to bring charges. Her comment to me was "If you wish to prefer charges against this officer, we will bring charges against you for trespassing.'" I said, "If we can share the same jail cell, that's fine with me." I never heard from her office again.
Massachusetts is a suck hole. What a corrupt shithole state! It needs a new shot heard round the world.
I completely agree
Never forget that these public university bureaucrats - and their over-paid fat-staffed senior level lackeys (along with their DEI-loving boards of Trustees) were the drivers of forcing an experimental, unsafe, ineffective clot-shot on tens of thousands of innocent tuition-paying students. They weaponized the college experience as an extension of the deep state. Now these kids are walking myocarditis cases with eroded immune systems. https://www.igor-chudov.com/p/pfizers-covid-vaccine-causes-vaids
At long last I am happy to say, universities are facing the threats to their survival that the rust belt manufacturers of the 1980's and 1990's faced. The companies that made this country a good middle class. I worked at many of them in management roles at the time. In chasing shareholder value for the benefit of their own bonuses, the senior executives destroyed their businesses which ended up in another country. May these "untouchable" public service universities suffer the same fate. May all those senior level lackeys have to go out and find a job at half the pay with lousy benefits to continue their worthless careers. We don't need them - especially the Ivy League bastards.
Chrysler Corp comes to mind when reading your comment. Having relatives in the auto industry, I witnessed this time and time again. I blame the bad decisions made by upper management; bone headed decisions. Ford's Taurus was at one time industry leader. Then the accountants decided to move in and make cost cutting a priority that was very misdirected and fatal. ie: One was to eliminate the sound proofing barrier between motor compartment and passengers. That's just one of a large number of really asinine decisions the auto industry made. Ever hear of the DEMING Award? Xenophobic Japan created it as an acknowledgement to Prof Deming, US citizen and prof that America ignored which subsequently proved fatal to the US auto industry and established Japan as an auto dynasty.
Wow, you bring back some very good memories. W. Edwards Deming was a master of process control. American senior leaders were lucky to attend his seminars before he died.
As you state, Deming is who made the Japanese car makers the best in the industry using SPC (statistical Process Control) to attain unbeatable quality. The US wasn't interested in him because they were too busy going full steam in the 1950's and 1960's. Then, Hondas came to America in the early/mid-1970's because the Arab Oil Embargo brought a wave of fear regarding fuel efficiency and the US/Detroit car line-up was made up of gas-guzzling whales. I was pumping gas at the time of the embargo. Cars were lined up the street for blocks waiting in line to get a fill-up before we would run the underground tanks dry. People panicked when a gallon of gas went from $0.25 a gallon to $0.35 a gallon. I love the muscle car era (my brother had a '68 Camaro SS), but they didn't survive the changes in the macro environment when fuel efficient cars started to be imported - and the US didn't adopt competitive manufacturing techniques. Too little - too late. That's why the leftists had to keep bailing out Detroit and Obama came up with "Cash for Clunkers".
Toyota's first cars sold here were a complete failure. The shame of it made them institute Toyota quality control. That's why they regularly give a reliable 2-500,000 miles since I was a kid.
The earliest models from Japan for both Honda and Toyota were tin cans with motors so you are correct. As the quality was increased through Deming, it became an unparalleled standard of exceptional quality that took U S firms like Ford another 20 years to get close to duplicating.
I worked in banking 28 years. During this time banking went through a mergers and acquisitions spree. Personnel cuts occurred at every level. Other industries have done the same. Government at every level, to my knowledge, are immune to this. Yet, they supposedly work for the people. We the people have significantly less power than major shareholders.
This continuous onslaught of bullshit is going to have to come an end sooner than later. I actually think there is going to be an event, planned by the D-Rats, to either cancel/delay the elections or cause a nationwide lockdown backed by the 3 letter agencies and the military, to avoid getting T into the WH. The Left knows the mood of the country and how many of them are vulnerable to charges of treason or murder or fill in the blank, and they’ll do whatever they can to keep from standing over a trap door or being tied to a post. If you think they’re just going to say ‘Hey y’all that was a blast, cya in four’ and walk away from this you’re delusional.
In a world where there really are no coincidences, if the concept of DEW’s are even a possibility, we have to look at the potential for Maui being a successful test run for the nation at large.
Get ready Folks and supply and Ammo up. We only have 14 months to figure this out!
MAGA!
Evidence is beginning to appear in small pieces - but never on any main stream media that I have seen. There had to be D.E.W. used. The disparity between an automobile that was so hot the aluminum rims and cylinder head melted sitting next to a grass field that didn't burn can't be explained away. Nobody has provided a convincing reason that dozens of boats moored in the bay - away from the grass fires on land - were all ablaze and burning wildly. . . not one or two. They ALL were toast.
There was a powerful external source used to start these fires in Hawaii and Canada, and it wasn't visible to the naked eye.
Did you see the picture of the ring of fire? Wildfires dont move in perfect circles. Something was done and sadly I think a lot had to do with the fact none of the natives were selling their land to outsiders at all. I hate being so cynical.
Yes. Very strange. Have you seen pictures of trees that burned from the inside out?
Well, the USFS (Forest Service) was paying around $200+ an hour to "fight" forest fires, so there IS an incentive to start them. To the USFS credit, their arson investigation teams are the best on planet earth. Arson fires used to be set all over the place in the 1980's. Rarely is that feat so common place today.
Thank you!
I will go look for them.
"This continuous onslaught of bullshit is going to have to come an end sooner than later."
While I agree, and would love to think so, but it doesn't seem to be the case.
"...there is going to be an event, planned by the D-Rats, to either cancel/delay the elections or cause a nationwide lockdown backed by the 3 letter agencies and the military, to avoid getting T into the WH."
You KNOW that is coming...
So in the end it doesn’t matter who Ricki was right, he just better be on our side 😊
Oh yeah…bright blue paint…buy lots of bright blue paint!
About half the kids drop out because they aren’t mature enough to understand that easy-to-get loan means future indebtedness, and spend too much time playing beer pong or RPGs. Seriously, too many kids that stay get worthless degrees and saddled with debt. Meanwhile, they are paying CDL holders probably double (or more) than what most degree holders earn in the local economy to drive trucks in the fracking fields. There are skills that have a much higher risk reward ratio than a social work or a contemporary journalism degree.
Declining enrollment may mean that word is going around to this new generation that higher Ed is a grift for most degree programs.
As blue collar votes of all races move to Trump (and the GOP by association, if it is willing to embrace Trump), the higher Ed system and its miseducated masses it produces are the only prospective pool the Dems have to remain in power.
Don is right, administration needs to face the realities those of us not in higher Ed face every quarter in the world their young products have shaped.
I ran for Town Council in my location. There were various reasons, most having to do with over taxation. On example that shocked my co-residents was that the school budgets, which were consistently voted down, could be saved by a vote of the Town Council. They could not vote to increase the budget but could vote the budget in as long as it was $1 less than the defeated one. With an expanding administration and a superintendent making more than $400,000 my fellow citizens were shocked. But as I was in the wrong party I never did win in my three tries. I learned that my neighbours would spend increasing amounts of money for the pleasure of voting democrat.
Your article sir, points to a major problem in the USA and I suspect it's become a world-wide phenomenon, and that is an ever present bloated, self-consuming Bureaucracy, which eats its own and produces little or no value. This is a pandemic in our world and in our society, and it is a monster that, once unleashed, CAN appear to be unstoppable. Yet as your article points out in WVU's case, the problems are clear and the solutions ARE too. Remember the $500.00 wrench the military requisitioned in its budget? While the hardware owner down the street could have provided one for $35.00? It's truly a pandemic! FYI I will not comply with any of the BS these monsters are thinking about unleashing on US and i suggest that everyone else does too.
Why is the "education" industry staffed and managed by so many stupid people? They couldn't run a hot dog stand or teach a dog to 'shake paw'. Democrats dominate "education". So....
Hahaha!
They have been infiltrated by Marxists for decades. They are not stupid. They are following the satanic communist religion fervently and to the t!
In 1970, my freshman year professor of history put down America with abandon.
Monitor alert!
Yup. Exactamundo. It’s a con game. And we payfor it.
Stanford has 12000 students approximately. Half undergrad, half grad. It also has 12000 faculty and administrative staff. That’s one woke admin per one woke freshman. The number of hospital administrators has quintupled since the 1950s while the number of doctors practicing medicine hasn’t even doubled. The federal, state, county, and municipal bureaucracies grow like weeds, and spend like thieves, but this nonproductive sector of the economy can’t perform nearly any of its tasks.
You wanna know why we’re in this situation, the growth of the managerial class is a big reason.
These people - wait for it- don’t actually do anything. They talk. They go to meetings. They produce reports for each other. They make regulations which then promote more of these Kafkaesque grey people to make policy and procedure manuals. They can’t change a tire or remove your appendix or run a for profit market based company. They are the ones ruining America with stifling, stupid rules and bad politics. They take OPM and turn it into something worthless.
The Congress and the legislatures cater to them because they are a political donor force and many are unionized, which should be illegal. Why illegal? Because you, the taxpayer aren’t in the negotiations. And you’re footing the bill for their salaries and benefits.
Want to save money, balance budgets, save the nation? Start by shrinking the managerial class. You will find that all of a sudden things cost less, are easier, and incentives are aligned to productive peoples’ output.
Management is like pissing 'yer pants. Doesn't achieve anything but gives you a nice warm feeling.
Tanto I have a pigs ear and some boar teats,can I qualify for a managerial position?
Definitely Managing Director level, with stock options. Highly qualiftied.
Cutting Gee won't solve the problem. There is a long line of similar bow tie-wearing wannabe university presidents lined up to take his place and, likely, inflict more damage than he has. Before I retired, I used to say things like, "They can't possibly hire a worse provost than [the one who was leaving]." I learned, after a few years, that the university was taking that as a challenge. They always managed to find a more incompetent clown. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach become administrators..
While I like a nice bow tie, it is frequently used as turd polish. Simply to sell.
Just a joke. I was also a professor who was a doer.
It’s nice to see that Public Education- an oxymoron rivaling Military Intelligence - is as successful at the post-secondary level as it is at K-12.
I know how to fix the budget crisis: WV legislature should pledge to zero out funding. Make an allowance for matriculating students to graduate, but don’t accept any more. Lose the “fluffy” stuff - DIE, luxury amenities, and anything else that doesn’t directly support the remaining students. That might encourage less serious ones to leave right away. The goal is to shutter the place. Restart it as a vocational school, and keep it small while attendance builds back up. Make any new administrators run an audited P&L for their area of responsibility, and directly tie their compensation to that P&L. Or just abandon the place as a shrine to stupidity.
At the present, some universities are adopting a policy of linking salary increases to enrollment increases. Most of these schools have dropped the ACT and SAT standardized testing entrance requirements to open the gate to more students for their (borrowed) tuition money. The result will be to accept students who have no business being in college - NONE - who will likely not finish or succeed - but the greedy universities will continue to lie to these kids to get their money.
as schools, k-12 drop 0's for no work, late work and have gotten rid of homework, the end is predictable. Generations of kids dependent on the government and unable to say anything because if they do, they lose their benefits.
What you say about dropping 0s is true. Additionally, teachers have learned not to give Fs because the “solution” the administration employs is to remediate the teacher not the student. Consequently, failing students get passed along.
our friends son is 26 this yr. The parents made him take the 4th grade over since the kid couldnt read against the teachers advice. He still couldnt read much better when he graduated. The parents worked with him at home diligently too, his dad is a chemist.
Oh, that’s so sad! At least his parents took the necessary actions he needed to improve his reading skills. He is a lucky young man to have resourceful parents.
Pretty much the opposite of what I proposed. Sad.
Deepest Sympathies regarding WVU's E. Gordon Gee, "the elfin president of WVU, is to blame for this mess ... He believes in magic" and while at Vanderbilt (2002-2007), his then wife believed in magic grass and mushrooms. I don't think he is as much college material as he is a fictional character by his own choice. Need more? Just do a Wikipedia glance if for no other reason than a good coffee spurt at his pix.
Freaky picture of near octogenarian.
$43,000 per student per year. And like all "Educators" they are totally against COMPETITION.
The entire education budget should be put up to a Dutch Auction, with the bidders required to have students pass arm's-length tests before the payment in full is granted.
America dying under the Dead Weight of Incompetence, including the lightweights, but yappy madding crowd, in Education.
"The reaction to cutting programs instead of fat is as one may expect. Fools fell for it. The local paper blamed Republicans."
Of course, it did. Is that not the knee-jerk default response?
"And yet despite a Republican legislature, WVU’s budget grew by 26% in those 10 years."
I'm guessing those "Republicans" were actually undocumented Democrats.
"'The students didn’t come—enrollment fell to about 27,500 last fall—but the spending continued.'"
It seems that even if you build it, that's no guarantee that they'll come.
"(Unless you have an hour for me to answer, don’t ask why it is the Big 12 has 14 schools and another 13 affiliates.)"
The B1G (Big Ten) said, "Hold my beer" and is now constituted of eighteen member schools (but who's counting? Mathematics and arithmetic is racist, anyway), nearly half of those decidedly outside of the midwest, which was at one time, its core fan base.
Lucky for me, I stopped paying attention to all professional athletics in 2020 when they deified a black junkie that OD'd - and don't kid yourselves - "collegiate" football and basketball are professional organizations. I long for the day when the NCAA implodes on itself.
"He wears a bowtie well."
While it is a skill every man should possess, unless one is a clown or a college professor (not always easy to make the distinction), attending a black-tie function, or attending a Christmas party, one has no business wearing one in public.
"WVU’s stadium becomes West Virginia’s largest city every time the football team plays there."
WVU's greatest gift to collegiate football was when it allowed Michigan to hire Rich Rodriguez away from the program.
Again, an, "All of the above" is badly needed for today's poll question - did something offend the cat? Nonetheless, DIE is more dangerous than is a clown like Gee.
The Republicans are Republicans
WVU has many, many other sources of revenue. I failed to make that clear
Ah! Thank you!
How about schools on the left coast joining the ACC.Geography went out along with Civics and history {never to return to public educ.} when the libs took over academia.
It's cheaper to ignore the details than change branding.
Your Mr. Gee is merely a politician at a lower level.This is the name of the game across the U.S.of A. and until the people yank the reins we are in a runaway wagon.Our only way back starts at ground level and courtesy of Don Surber,Kane,Wilkow.,and numerous others we are gaining ground slowly but steadily.Thank you sir!
Fully agree!