CU College Administrators in the 1%

In a move sure to baffle education critics - and the average taxpayer - the University of Colorado apparently used new revenues to provide substantial pay increases to top administrators at the campus. This comes on top of news that CU will again be hiking tuition a whopping 16% - a move which was defended by CU President Bruce Benson in a recent op-ed in the Denver Post. Most egregious of the increases appears to be a $49,000 increase to Chancellor Phil DiStefano, who will now be earning $390,000 a year.

The CU Board of Regents expressed outrage at the moves - and it's tough to blame theme. Even if the criticism from the Regents can be a bit political at times, college administrators pulling in nearly $400K is almost too much. Granted, Benson reasonably argues that CU's pay is not out of line with the nationwide average. And he needs these offers to remain competitive. And the state wants CU to be a top, competitive state university.

But seriously?

The chancellor of a university is a tough sell to be making more money than a surgeon. Obviously, he has a serious job that requires high quality leadership. There is much we don't know about the intricacies of that job. But perhaps that is the problem. How can leading a university be more "valuable" than leading a state government or Congress or the United States of America ... or an open heart surgery. Education funding is clearly a bubble right now, and there must be excellent leaders who will take CU to the Promised land for half the money. Right?

An Educated Electorate

In the realm of truly bad ideas in the world of government spending and education reform, Colorado state representative Don Marostica of Loveland has proposed cutting all state funding for higher education and privatizing all colleges and universities in Colorado. While this is a shocking statement for most educated people, it doesn't seem all that unusual in Colorado where conservatives are especially zealous in their anti-tax, anti-government crusade. This proposal was probably pretty well received by numerous Coloradans who oppose the idea that "government knows how to spend their money better than they do." This is despite the fact that Colorado has the distinction of being one the most well-educated states in the union while at the same time failing miserably at educating its own children. Though I am fiscally conservative, this issue is where I depart with the Republican Party in Colorado, as their support for TABOR (the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights) has severely curtailed higher education spending for a decade now, and the side effects are clear.

Regardless of most citizens' stances on taxes and government power, a majority of Americans have always accepted that funding of public education is a good investment for a state. The state mandates of free public education k-12 was a good idea. The establishment of state colleges and universities was a good idea. Public funding of the university system was a good idea. Despite all the criticism, much of it unfounded, the American public education system is still the envy of the world, and the U.S. educates a greater percentage of its population to the highest level than any other nation at any time in history. This serves us well, even as most other industrialized nations fund public education through college at a greater rate than we do. To consider moving in the opposite direction is, quite honestly, irrational, if not outright ludicrous. Yet, it just goes to show how blinding ideology can be.