Rather than serving the educational interests of their students, American universities have prioritized corporate interests.
The proof is in the pudding. Keeping in mind that private institutions are nonprofit entities, it is absurd to see the hefty paychecks senior administrators bring home each year. Take a look at the salaries of these university presidents:
Lee Bollinger, Columbia University: $4.6 million
Amy Gutmann, University of Pennsylvania: $3.1 million
Nido Qubein, High Point University: $2.9 million
Richard Joel, Yeshiva University: $2.5 million
Nicholas Zeppos, Vanderbilt University: $2.1 million
C.L. Max Nikias, University of Southern California: $1.9 million (updated to reflect 2015-2016 year)
Scott Cowen, Tulane University: $1.6 million
Ron Daniels, Johns Hopkins University: $1.6 million
Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Rockefeller University: $1.4 million
John Sexton, New York University: $1.5 million
Given these exorbitant salaries, one may expect university administrators to give the student consumer, what we pay for. But, that is not the case.
At my own university, USC, I've seen firsthand what happens when students request to meet with administrators: They get shepherded around, bounced from one person to the next until the vocal students graduate. As administrators become enmeshed in this corporate environment, it is the student experience that ultimately suffers.
Granted, not all businesses are bad in the same way that not all administrators are bad people. I've met several who do care about student needs. But the current state of affairs at American universities signal a need for a desperate overhaul in governing practices.
Sexual assault cases get swept under the rug. Hate crime incidents are dismissed. Senior administrators and university trustees are complicit in victim-blaming. When university communities face glaring circumstances of discrimination, the first priority seems to be smothering the PR debacle than attending to student needs.
When students file complaints on these matters, some administrators' knee-jerk reactions are to exclaim, "Quit the complaining!" But here's the thing: Why sign up for this job if you aren't devoted to running an institution dedicated to students?
This past December, prospective New York University student Khari Jackson, tweeted about his experience with Director of Graduate Admissions Dan Sandford. Given his low-income background, Jackson reached out to Sandford for an application fee waiver but was met with the following email response from Sandford:
Please do not take this the wrong way but if $65 is a hardship for you how will you be able to pay the tuition of $60,000? Of course, we do provide scholarships but the most we usually offer is $15,000-$20,000. This still leaves a considerable gap. Maybe you should give yourself a year off looking at ways to fund your graduate education.
Our nation cannot expect to level the playing field of education when higher education leadership governs with this mentality.
The rising cost of tuition, which does not adjust for inflation or median income levels, across the United States is another alarming trend that must be stopped to ensure higher education puts education before the frills.
When we asked one of USC's administrators why tuition goes up every year, the answer we received boiled down to "Because we can." When we questioned another administrator why tuition was going up by $2000 this year, they acted oblivious to our finding, even asking for a source (in response, we linked them directly to the first Google result, provided by the USC Financial Aid office itself). We were further told how USC could charge up to $100,000 in fees and get away with it because the demand for education is so high. These are the types of responses provided by those who claim to be dedicated to the advancement and growth of young people.
Arguably, administrators function as a moving piece of a larger Machine. It would be overly simplistic to argue that these administrators are solely responsible for education's foray into corporate dealings. The Old Money of university trustees, who are vested with much of the decision-making power and whose access to student communities is often limited to fully understand student needs, is one area in need of reform. The constant bid for continued prestige certainly leads to the rise in palace-like institutions and NFL-style football fields, compared to the schools of yesterday.
While adjunct faculty member salaries remain low and staff salaries leave workers in tears, universities continue to build fancy gyms and other luxuries students don't actually need or want. Senior administration salaries, in contrast, continue to skyrocket. Take a look at the University of Southern California's $650 million university village project: The projected operating costs of this behemoth reasonably explain yet another ridiculous $2000 tuition hike, putting our yearly rate over the $51,000 mark and the estimated cost of attendance for one year at the approximate $70,000 mark. Increasing costs haven't happened without pushback -- 43 years ago, USC students even took their grievances to court. But these steps go nowhere. Current student efforts, which include petitions, surveys, letters signed by student groups and call-ins.
Some argue universities must increase tuition in order to offset student demands for better mental health services, programs, and other initiatives. But they miss our point entirely. Students aren't making blanket demands without understanding the consequences. Rather, students are asking for choice: If granted enough financial transparency and decision-making power in the institutions they finance, they can actually choose for themselves if they'd rather have a movie theater on campus or greater mental health counselors. They can choose if a Sprinkles cupcake is worth the price tag if it means taking out another private loan. In its current state, students have no such power at these private institutions. American private universities are shrouded in secrecy -- something scholarship and education should not be associated with.
The effort to curb these rising costs is in the best interests of folks on both sides of the aisle. When the day comes that students default on student loans and the college loan bubble pops in the same way the housing bubble once did, all Americans will be impacted. When the government continues to send federal grants to students who flush federal dollars into these private institutions, it is the American economy that will once again suffer. Whether it is liberalism, to enrich all lives with the right to education, or conservatism, to pay due respect to every dollar, that guides you -- finding a solution to the current college affordability crisis works in the favor of all Americans.
Questioning the practices of educational institutions does not cancel out the pride we take in our universities. It's evident the educational institutions of today are not the educational institutions envisioned by Aristotelian scholars. In order to improve these schools for future generations to have better experiences, senior administrators at American universities need to wake up and remember the title of an educator is an incredibly powerful and rewarding one if treated correctly.