Ref Needs New Glasses

by Daniel L. Bennett

Daniel Luzer of the Washington Monthly is calling foul on the for-private sector for supposed corporate welfare.

About a quarter of that tuition revenue goes to pay for recruitment, advertising campaigns and call centers. That’s fine for a business to do (I wouldn’t presume to tell anyone how to run his private company) but should the American taxpayer really fund this?

While I agree that it is outrageous that huge sums of taxpayer money are being transferred to colleges and being used for nonacademic purposes, I'm calling the referee out for his lopsided umpiring. Hey ump, seems like you need a new pair of glasses! I left the following comment on his blog:

Let's not forget that public and nonprofit colleges are also receiving tremendous sums of taxpayer money (much more than the for-profit sector) that is being used for non-academic purposes, including huge sums for sales and marketing. We just don't hear about it because the accounting standards for nonprofit colleges are not quite as demanding as they are for private enterprise.

Lest we not forget college sports, which are big-time revenue pits. Its supporters often claim that sports are a form of advertising or PR for a college and hence, a legitimate expense in spite of significant losses. Here again, we are subsidizing marketing in the nonprofit education community with taxpayer dollars.

Let's stop calling foul on one player when the entire league is committing egregious offenses.