I don't disagree with you for a moment about where the University's priorities should lie, but in the interest of you Knowing Your Enemy, this:
Maybe the uni could cut back on building huge !$#%#&%$ business buildings if it's feeling so very poor.
is an unproductive line of argument against the university, because those buildings are pretty much entirely funded out of constrained money. In particular, a certain proportion of international student fees (of which the business school generates a lot) must, by law, be spent on new buildings. A lot comes from the government in the form of HEEF/EIF grants, which again are only given for building stuff and not for paying teachers. Huge research grants usually require huge financial commitments from the university as well, which ties up still more of the money. Universities have a lot of money, but very little that they have discretion over; they're not blowing smoke when they say they're pretty hard up at the moment.
I'm not defending the idea that teaching should suffer to cut corners; just informing.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2009-06-23 11:23 am (UTC)Maybe the uni could cut back on building huge !$#%#&%$ business buildings if it's feeling so very poor.
is an unproductive line of argument against the university, because those buildings are pretty much entirely funded out of constrained money. In particular, a certain proportion of international student fees (of which the business school generates a lot) must, by law, be spent on new buildings. A lot comes from the government in the form of HEEF/EIF grants, which again are only given for building stuff and not for paying teachers. Huge research grants usually require huge financial commitments from the university as well, which ties up still more of the money. Universities have a lot of money, but very little that they have discretion over; they're not blowing smoke when they say they're pretty hard up at the moment.
I'm not defending the idea that teaching should suffer to cut corners; just informing.