Letter: College funding cuts aren’t all bad
 |
| Advocate Columnists |
 |
Print
Email
Save
Reprints
Twitter
Share
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Reddit
Kudos to Jeff Robert (June 10, “Lawyer scorns professors’ letters”)!
I feel like he is one of the few people to offer a balancing viewpoint to the steady stream of whining from academic officials and faculty members who parrot the opinion that their existence is the key to Louisiana moving forward.
I’m an “insider” who was an LSU faculty member for 15 years. My opinions are based on having seen firsthand both the good and the bad at LSU.
While there are many devoted teachers at LSU, the fraction is not nearly high enough. The waste at LSU is considerable. There are whole departments that should be eliminated, and within almost every department there are some really lousy employees who should be fired (which is difficult since most are protected by the policy of tenure).
The goals of the Flagship Agenda do not coincide with those of the taxpayers, who probably just want to see their kids get a really thorough, rigorous education, who don’t care about U.S. News & World Report rankings, and who might be interested to know that those silly rankings drive decision-making processes on campuses all across the country.
Not once have I seen an academic official (at LSU, University of New Orleans, University of Louisiana at Lafayette etc.) admit that some belt-tightening is good, that funding cutbacks will force some needed pruning and that leaner, meaner education institutions will be good for Louisiana.
Great similarities exist between the U.S. auto industry and higher education. Many people believe that U.S. auto companies are getting what they deserve after years of bad management and kowtowing to unions. The same flaws in the U.S. auto industry are duplicated on campuses across the country, resulting in the cost of a college education being too high and degrees that often don’t provide much value.
Eventually, people will be more discerning with the way their education dollars are spent, and the education business in the United States will be in for a shakedown. In the meantime, take those self-centered opinions from academia with a grain of salt.
Kevin Kelly, president
engineering research and development company
Baton Rouge
 | ||||
| Most Popular | Most Emailed | Hot Topics | ||
