“Privatization without Representation is Tyranny”

State-Owned Universities

The combination of 100% State control with only a 30% funding share is an egregious example of privatization without representation, and deserves to be called by its proper name—tyranny. 

When I first thought of the title of this week’s blog post, I was obviously prompted by the famous contention from American history that “Taxation without Representation is Tyranny,” a quote variously attributed to early Founders such as James Otis (1725-83) and Samuel Adams (1722-1803).

The modern synonyms for the word ‘tyranny’ include dictatorship, domination, and totalitarianism—things that Americans have ardently fought against for more than 250 years.  

It is not difficult to see why what began 30 years ago as a merely imperfect governance arrangement for the state-owned universities would come to be seen today as “tyranny.”

Isn’t that what happens whenever a financial relationship between two parties drastically changes, and yet the governance relationship—i.e., the balance of power over the decision-making process—fails to reflect those financial changes?  

When people are forced to pay a larger share of the cost for a service (including higher education), they expect to receive a larger say—not zero say—as to how that service will be provided to them. 

Thirty years ago, when the State was providing 63% of the funding, while controlling 100% of the governing board seats, some found that arrangement to be seriously undemocratic, since the students were already paying 37% of the cost while controlling none of the governing board seats. 

It is revealing to look at the relationship between State control and State funding over time:

·       100% State control was reasonable in 1914 when the State funding share was 90%, and the   
       Student paid only 10%.

·       100% State control was unreasonable in 1983 when the State funding share was 63%, and the Student paid 37%.

·      100% State control became unethical in 1992 when the State funding share fell below 49%, and the Student funding share went above 51%.

·       100% State control became tyrannical in 2012 when the State funding share fell below 30%, and the Student funding share had grown to more than 70%.

Cause and Effect

To better understand what has been happening to public higher education in Pennsylvania (and most of America) over the last 30 years, it is necessary to explore key ‘cause and effect’ relationships, including those between:  1) demographics, 2) public policy, and 3) the privatization of public higher education.  

The data show that:

·       The state-owned universities in Pennsylvania, as a matter of public policy, have been rapidly defunded (a.k.a., privatized) by the State over the past 30 years;

·       This systematic defunding, which is undermining the statutory purpose of the PASSHE universities, has occurred under both Democrats and Republicans, as public policy was being made in Harrisburg;

·       The privatization of public higher education in Pennsylvania has continued for three decades now with no discernible plan being put forward, either by Pennsylvania’s elected officials, or by PASSHE’s Chancellor and Board of Governors—an abject failure of leadership that can best be described as ‘privatization without a plan.’

The greater failure, however, lies not in the actual defunding of the public universities—a situation caused primarily by the rapidly shifting demographics in America over the past 50 years—rather, the larger failure lies in the irresponsible lack of any plan for preserving the statutory purpose of these public universities in the face of that largely unavoidable and demographically-driven defunding.

The absence of a ‘plan’ in ‘privatization without a plan,’ and the absence of ‘representation’ in the expression ‘privatization without representation,’ have nothing to do with demographic or other natural forces—these failures are purely the hallmark and handiwork of political control, plus politics as usual. 

In a word, these failures exist—and persist—because: 1) The elected and appointed State officials (the minority stakeholders) clearly benefit from the status quo they have created for themselves, and are not likely to forego their benefits without powerful public pressure to do so; and 2) The students, parents and donors, primarily alumni (the majority stakeholders at the ‘state-owned’ universities) are not yet sufficiently aware of the tyranny to which they continue to be subjected.

It is clear that correcting the second item above will go a long way toward helping to rectify the first.