News & Views item - August 2007

 

 

What It Takes to Elevate a Third Tier University System. (August 1, 2007)

    "Whenever I’m asked... I advise parents of college-age children to not send their sons and daughters to private schools, but to send them to public institutions, at least if there are any good ones in their state."

 

So writes Stanley Fish a guest columnist in today's New York Times. Being an American Professor Fish means universities when he writes of "college" and state universities when he writes "state institutions".

 

Professor Fish goes on: "I say this for the obvious reason. The tuition/fee difference between a good private school and a good state school can be as much as $40,000, and, aside from the dubious coin of prestige, it’s hard to see what you would be buying," but he then expands on the hierarchy of first, second and third tier universities state university systems.

 

In 1980 the then Governor of Florida, Bob Graham, called for “a thrust for greatness” and the building of a world-class university system.

 

Twenty-seven years have passed and according to Professor Fish: "More easily said than done. At present... Florida is not even in the second tier of university systems in this country. Florida does not have a single campus that measures up to the best schools in the systems of Virginia, Wisconsin and Georgia, never mind first-tier states like California, Michigan and North Carolina. Climbing that hill will be an arduous task, and the key will be a persistence few states are up to.

    "The conditions that leave a university system depressed have been a long time in the making and will take time to reverse. Five straight years of steadily increased funding, tuition raises and high-profile faculty hires would send a message that something really serious is happening. Ten more years of the same, and it might actually happen."

 

With Australia's federal government appearing to want to micromanage the universities to the point that the HEP's (higher education provider's) toilet paper is certified devoid of subversive literature, while the states don't really want to know when it comes to long term rebuilding, contemplating a fifteen year program is little short of a pipe dream.

 

Meanwhile Julie-Warrior-Princess is telling the HEP to just get on with it and stop bellyaching about shortages of resources; all they need to do is kick out  the unions an institute "flexibility" which appears to be Newspeak for mandatory AWA's -- or else.

 

The country's in the very best of hands.