Threats to Autonomy

by Andrew Gillen

Dean Dad gets it almost right when he writes

university leaders in several states are proposing a form of fiscal secession from their states. The idea is that in exchange for acceding to ever-greater budget cuts from the state, they will be granted much greater autonomy in decisionmaking…

(It’s also hard to imagine that the alleged autonomy would last very long. As long as there are political points to be scored one way or the other, there will be interference. And the giant sucking sound from public money being hoovered by the plutocracy won’t suddenly stop just because subsidies go away. Next they’ll want PILOTs -- Payments in Lieu of Taxes -- and an end to student loan subsidies.)…

This is almost right, but not quite. The threat to autonomy doesn’t come from the fact that “there are political points to be scored,” but rather from the fact that public money is being spent. You can’t determine someone’s stance on this issue if all you know is their politics. A much better determinant is whether they are happy with the current state of higher education. If so, they are very likely to favor autonomy. If not, they are very likely to favor less autonomy (usually called accountability). Since neither the right nor left has a monopoly on dissatisfaction with the current state of higher ed, politics is not the driving force.

But don’t take my word for it. Here is Armen A. Alchian

THE FACULTY AND administration… have learned to use that political structure… They praise politicians for statesmanlike, responsible behavior when the university budget is increased; but if it is decreased, they cry of political interference. Having accepted almost exclusive dependence on financing directly from the political and legislative processes, they should not complain of “political interference” when that same political process examines more intently the budget and the operations of the university…

Either the students pay and control, or the political processes and politicians do. Yet some of the faculty seem to think they can avoid both…