California State University System Increases President’s Compensation So His Children Can Afford to Pay the Increased Tuition Needed to Increase His Salary

Another Big Gain for American Education

The Dismal Political Economist reported earlier on the fact that budget difficulties in California were resulting in huge cutbacks in the California State University system.  The contrast was made with the increase in a University campus’s President’s compensation by $100,000. 

Now the UC Trustees have

approved a 12% hike in tuition to take effect in the fall as scores of chanting, sign-waving students protested outside. The increase comes on top of a previously approved boost of 10% for the coming school year.

The rationale for the dual increase being

preserve programs and services in the wake of deep cuts in state funding for the public university system.

And at exactly the same time

A Cal State trustees committee has voted to approve a proposed $400,000 compensation package for San Diego State President Elliot Hirshman, with a vote of the full board expected this afternoon

A spokesperson for the board defended the increase in salary saying that the incoming President of the San Diego State campus would need the large salary to pay for the college eduction for his children, and that they thought it would be wrong to make his children have to incur large student debts to pay for college.

Exactly what programs and services would be preserved by granting the President a $100,000 salary increase were not stated, but a proposed research project entitled “Tracking the Spread of Greed From the Private Sector to the Pubic Sector” was expected to be preserved by the tuition increases.

As for a solution, why not have every professor in the U. C. system teach one extra course a year.  The Dismal Political Economist is a refugee from academia, he knows that these people are not working up a great deal of sweat.  A Skeptic can visit any academic building at 2 p.m. on any Friday during the school year and count the number of faculty members in their offices or classes on his or her fingers, and only need one hand to do so.