A Question for the Administration

Hello,

I know many people have personal stories to share. My funding was neither particularly bad, nor so good that I don't have to worry about money. I'm in my sixth year now, anyway. Higher TA salaries would help a lot.

My question for the administration is, why does every plan have to be perpetual? I understand that endowing every expenditure is all the rage among the ruling classes these days, but it is a very expensive and perverse priority that I do not share. I find it strange and presumptuous that I am being asked to buy into this logic.

I believe if you want something that costs money and you have the money to pay for it, you should pay for it and keep moving.

In the evening funding meeting last month, Cathy Cohen explained that the reason the University won't provide more fellowships to current students is because it costs close to $500,000 to endow one $20,000 annual award. That may well be true, but that's not what is needed. The administrators seem to be trapped in a very small and expensive, endowed way-of-thinking, and they are unable to see that a temporary problem (funding for current students) requires only a temporary solution.

I think the current model of development and the scale of the University of Chicago's endowment (yes, I now it's "only 13th" in the nation) calls into serious question the appropriateness of these institutions' non-profit, tax-free status. If the administration fails to appreciate the problems of the next few years, and revels in the anticipated glories of the institution in the distant future, I would urge lawmakers to tax university endowments. There is no reason the society at large should effectively subsidize what is going on at the country's richest universities, while families mortgage their homes to pay for an education.

Even a year of loans for school is a big burden on students, that casts a long shadow well into their careers. Yet the administration feels no urgency. The tax-free status is a privilege that has been granted by the American people so that schools can afford to attend to their true constituents: actual students and the society these students will go on to serve.

The tax-free status is not a right to horde money and pretend that it takes half a million dollars to pay a $20,000 bill. As the recent news from Northwestern showed, university administrators can very simply include current students in funding improvements.

But they have to want to, first.

--Julia Brookins