Physician, heal thyself
32 economists associated with the University of Chicago at some point in their careers were awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, which is often referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics. With all that expertise, you’d assume that the University of Chicago would be a paragon of economic discipline. You’d be wrong.
“The University of Chicago is in crisis. Under extraordinary financial strain, it has diminished its faculty-student ratio and hired hundreds of “lecturers”: teachers whom it pays little and whom it does not expect to do research. It has deliberately driven down the percentage of undergraduate tuition that it devotes to actually teaching undergraduates. This summer it proposed to “merge” (read: “close”) departments; send some students online—or perhaps put them on buses—to study at other institutions; and teach some languages via ChatGPT. It is freezing budgets, closing academic units, slashing doctoral education, and contemplating the use of restricted endowment payouts to support functions not covered in the gift agreements.”
Milton Friedman is spinning in his grave.
The Chicago School crashes
“The University of Chicago is in crisis. Under extraordinary financial strain, it has diminished its faculty-student ratio and hired hundreds of “lecturers”: teachers whom it pays little and whom it does not expect to do research. It has deliberately driven down the percentage of undergraduate tuition that it devotes to actually teaching undergraduates. This summer it proposed to “merge” (read: “close”) departments; send some students online—or perhaps put them on buses—to study at other institutions; and teach some languages via ChatGPT. It is freezing budgets, closing academic units, slashing doctoral education, and contemplating the use of restricted endowment payouts to support functions not covered in the gift agreements.”
Milton Friedman is spinning in his grave.
The Chicago School crashes
Joel:
I had read this in 2009. The University of Chicago Magazine: Features
“The bottom line,” Rosenbaum wrote, “is that we must take decisive action to reduce our costs.” Each unit must trim its fiscal 2009 expenditures, with administrative units shouldering proportionally greater cuts (from 3 to 9 percent) than the academic units (2.5 to 5 percent). Taken together, Zimmer told a Student Government roundtable in February, the cuts will shave $130 million to $150 million from the joint University–Medical Center budget by the start of fiscal 2010.
This has been going on for a while. Other universities have been taking action. I do not believe their issues were as grave.
@Bill,
I expect that John D. Rockefeller is spinning in his grave.
Joel:
This went over my head . . . puzzled!
@Bill,
J.D. Rockefeller founded the University of Chicago. He would be disappointed at how it has been mismanaged and its decline.
Joel:
Thank you for the history lesson. Having grown up in Chicago and thinking of going there, you gave me new information. Instead I ended up at Loyola University of Chicago for my Masters. It was either them or DePaul. University of Chicago is on the other side of the city. It was the place to go to in the Chicago area. Them and Northwestern.
I thought it was strange when I first read the article I sent you. I read it a few years ago. How can they so badly mismanage a university like Chicago?
@Bill,
The article I linked to suggests that the board of trustees gambled on start-ups that were based on university IP and often run by university faculty.
Research is always and everywhere a cost center for universities. There are three ways to bridge that cost: tuition, licensing and philanthropy. If the university has a medical school, it can also be supported by the margin on the practice, if the university owns the practice and the practice is profitable.
Chicago was chasing after licensing and made a bunch of bad bets. They are trying to make up the loss by milking the tuition cow.
Thanks for the additional info