Monty Pelerin's World

I don’t have the data, but perhaps some readers might. I have often speculated that the cost of a state-university degree is higher than a private university. In my state, NC, it would be interesting to compare the cost per graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill to the cost per graduate of Duke University. I am speaking of cost, not tuition. Obviously, tuition at state universities is lower because it is subsidized by taxpayers. If anyone has a source of data, for either NC or any other state, I would be pleased to receive it and analyze it to test the hypothesis.

Not related to this cost comparison is a post today by Karl Denninger. Denninger takes no prisoners on his website. Here is a post dealing with the “privileged class,” the University of Illinois. I suspect most states are similar.  We know from many sources that government employees are better compensated than their counterparts in the private sector.

Tuesday, March 9. 2010

Posted by Karl Denninger in Education at 19:56

IF You Are Going To “Demonstrate”….

Then aim your “demonstrating” at the people who are bankrupting your state – and you personally.

I speak specifically of people such as those that The Daily Illini pointed out – all employees for the University of Illinois.

Let’s see what we have here….

The head of the football team – the coach – makes $1 million.  For coaching a college football team.

The “intercollegiate (sports) director makes $600,000.

The President of the University is just $50 large shy of a half-million.

A large number of Deans and Professors make $250,000 – or more.

Indeed, I have to get eight pages into this list before I drop below $200,000.

Oh, we also have two Lieutenants in the Police Department that make $192,545 – each – per year.  Handing out tickets to scooter riders without helmets and issuing University Parking Citations (probably more than $200,000 worth of those) I’m sure.

Now maybe you can justify how it is that these fine bastions of American Government Employment earn these bloated salaries.

I will point out some demographics to readers for Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where the University happens to be.

The median home price is $159,900, which the top fifteen pages of these employees can afford to pay cash for with one year’s salary.

The median income for a family is $52,628, while per-capita income according to the BEA is $31,354.  Fewer than FIFTEEN PERCENT of the persons on the University Payroll make equal to or less than the median per-capita income for the city.

Oh, and let’s not discuss retirement benefits.  Legacy pensions anyone?  How about medical care once one retires.  And speaking of which, what’s the retirement age?

There has been much written about overblown pensions, double and even triple-dipping and similar games.  But this table, nicely sortable by salary, makes quite clear exactly who the system employs and how much they pay – and that the pay is, shall we say, ridiculous compared to the average private-sector prevailing wage.

This much should be clear: If you’re curious about why you’re being bankrupted with parabolic tuition and fee increases along with demands to take on outrageous amounts of debt to get a so-called “college education”, you might discern from the above that the only “educating” you’re getting in the UofI system is how to hold still while you’re bent over the table and violated.

What you, Dear Student, who is being given the whaaaaambulance treatment by the Administration (the folks making those six-figure salaries that are all radical multiples of the average living wage in your town) do about that “education” is, of course, up to you.