{"id":612,"date":"2014-02-19T08:37:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-19T08:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/02\/this-is-a-short-term-pain-that-in-the-long-term-will-help-reinvest-the-money-in-education-where-it-should-go.html"},"modified":"2014-02-19T08:37:00","modified_gmt":"2014-02-19T08:37:00","slug":"this-is-a-short-term-pain-that-in-the-long-term-will-help-reinvest-the-money-in-education-where-it-should-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/02\/this-is-a-short-term-pain-that-in-the-long-term-will-help-reinvest-the-money-in-education-where-it-should-go.html","title":{"rendered":"“This is a short term pain that in the long term will help reinvest the money in education, where it should go”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

That\u2019s the quote that the Chicago Tribune offers in its story today on the two-day faculty strike at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a strike aimed at securing substantial increases in professors\u2019 and instructors\u2019 pay.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Now, what characterizes this sort of strike, in contrast to others, is that the students have already paid their tuition, and the university has committed to providing them with 15 weeks of instruction.\u00a0 I see no indication that the school year is being extended by two days, so the students are the ones who lose here, not the administration.\u00a0 If the strikers\u2019 response is that they can just learn the material on the syllabus for these two days on their own time, then that either questions the value of having instructors, or the value of the material itself.<\/p>\n

In any event, the strikers are demanding substantial raises:\u00a0 from $30,000 to $45,000 for lecturers as well as the usual fights over the percentage increases for other faculty.\u00a0 Where is the money supposed to come from, without raising tuition?\u00a0 From the money tree, of course.\u00a0 Well, actually, the union\u2019s website says this<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
  • The University of Illinois has accumulated more than $275 million in unrestricted profits annually for the last four years and is on track to do so again for the 2014 fiscal year. The profit margin is more typical of for-profit universities like the University of Phoenix.<\/li>\n
  • Tuition has increased by 25% since 2007, while student enrollment is up by more than 10%.<\/li>\n
  • Over the last five years, administrators at UIC have increased by 10%, while tenured faculty positions have decreased by 1%.<\/li>\n

    <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    And the\u00a0UIC site says this<\/a>, in a \u201cfact check\u201d: <\/p>\n

    Claim #7:<\/strong>\u00a0Professor Barnum states that the UI has had a $300 million annual surplus for the last five years, so it can easily afford to pay the union\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n

    Fact:<\/strong>\u00a0Public statements suggesting the University holds a large surplus of funds are misleading. The majority of these dollars are committed to specific projects and, just as a checking account can appear to be flush, it is likely because outstanding checks have not yet hit. These committed funds include researchers\u2019 federal grant dollars pending expenditure, indirect cost recovery dollars held in reserve for faculty start-up, and Student Information Technology fees that can be spent only on the Library or Academic Computing costs after recommendations by a student-run committee.\u00a0The University\u2019s financial situation with the State of Illinois is quite precarious, with payment of state appropriations lagging by $355 million and future revenues and costs very uncertain.\u00a0While tuition has increased in recent years, it has not been sufficient to cover inflationary cost increases, including compensation and lost state appropriation funding.\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    \u00a0Who\u2019s right?\u00a0 Neither, I think \u2014 the university is, most likely, not making sustained efforts to reduce administrative expense, and more focused on prestige than cost-control, while the union doesn\u2019t want to bother working with the university on actually finding the money to fund pay increases without tuition increases.<\/p>\n

    But the bigger issue is this:\u00a0 it takes me all of one minute to go to GM.com and find their annual report.\u00a0 The same is true for the University of Phoenix and other for-profit publicly traded companies.\u00a0 What about the UIC or other universities?\u00a0 I tried looking for information on finances at the University of Illinois and Urbana-Champaign a while back, with no success, and there\u2019s nothing at the UIC either.\u00a0 Do they prepare any kind of \u201cannual report\u201d or any report on finances at all?\u00a0\u00a0 How can a university expect to provide credibility, and justification for their tuition increases,\u00a0if they aren\u2019t remotely transparent on their finances?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    That\u2019s the quote that the Chicago Tribune offers in its story today on the two-day faculty strike at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a strike aimed at securing substantial increases in professors\u2019 and instructors\u2019 pay.\u00a0 Now, what characterizes this sort of strike, in contrast to others, is that the students have already paid their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n"This is a short term pain that in the long term will help reinvest the money in education, where it should go"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"That's the quote that the Chicago Tribune offers in its story today on the two-day faculty strike at the University of Illinois at 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