A Definition of Terms
According to The Free Dictionary, the idiom “to
compete against someone” means “to contend against someone; to play
against someone in a game or contest.”
The same dictionary provides
that the idiom “to compete against something” means “to struggle against
something; to seem to be in a contest with something.”
Recall that PASSHE’s governance system consists of a 20-member Board of
Governors (BOG), plus a Council of Trustees (COT) at each of the individual 14 universities,
with eleven members on each COT.
Both of the above definitions have relevance in describing the ways in
which Pennsylvania’s elected officials, and their political appointees to
PASSHE’s BOG and COTs, compete against PASSHE students.
Two key ideas in the above definitions are “competition,” and “struggle.” The Elected Officials and their Political
Supporters are in competition against PASSHE students, and the students are
struggling against the tyranny implicit in a majority (100%) governance
share combined with a minority (25%) funding share.
Elected Officials and their Political Appointees Against the PASSHE
Students
We have
previously described an example of game theory with three players in which a “two-against-one”
scenario involved Elected Officials and their Political Supporters working against
the best interests of PASSHE’s Majority
Stakeholders—the students, parents and private donors, primarily PASSHE Alumni.
Recall that the State, with its minority (25%) funding share of PASSHE’s
annual budget, continues to cling to a 100% governance share, meaning that the
State continues to exert total control over the 14 PASSHE Universities. As
a result, the Majority (75%) Stakeholders have no say whatsoever in how their
share of PASSHE’s annual budget—the $1.125 billion which comes from their
private checkbooks—gets spent.
Recall also that since 2002, the 100% political leadership of PASSHE has
ignored the statutory (Act 188) purpose of the PASSHE universities, which is:
“To provide high quality education at the lowest possible cost to the
students,” that is, at the lowest possible “bottom line.”
Instead, PASSHE’s Board of Governors has meekly followed the wishes of elected
Governors—both Democratic and Republican—and focused instead on maintaining the
lowest possible “sticker price,” i.e., “tuition,” a decision that may benefit
Governors politically while causing great harm to PASSHE students:
It saddles students from less affluent families with
crushing student loan debt, while
providing totally unnecessary State subsidies to students
from more affluent families.
Recall finally that since 2002 the PASSHE Board of Governors took actions
resulting in the loss of half (14%) of the quality gains (29%) achieved by the
Board of Governors in PASSHE’s previous 19 years.
We will now describe examples of how the two-against-one behavior of
Elected Officials (EO) and their Political Supporters (PS) on PASSHE governing
boards seriously disadvantages PASSHE students.
EO + PS against the Students
The essence of
the relationship between EO and PS has previously been captured by means of the
term “political patronage.” Elected
Officials (EO) do favors for their Political Supporters (PS) in return for
favors done by their PS for the EO. This
is known as: “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”
This mutual back-scratching involves an exchange of favors, and typically involves
exchanges of money.
Elected Officials have the power to appoint Political Supporters to
government jobs—involving salary and benefits.
Elected Officials also have the power to appoint Political Supporters to
governance boards that may not offer salary and benefits, but can still provide
large financial rewards to Political Supporters.¹
Political Supporters, on the other hand, often provide financial campaign
contributions to Elected Officials, or aspiring Elected Officials, as a way of
getting the attention of the individuals with the power to either provide
government jobs, or to appoint their “friends,” a.k.a., “political supporters,”
to public boards.
Financially Speaking, the 14 PASSHE Universities are Already 75% Private!
As the State
share of PASSHE”s budget fell from 63% in 1983 to 25% in 2013, the Elected
Officials and their Political Supporters who control the 14 PASSHE Universities
never developed a plan to preserve the mission or financial viability of these
universities, as State funding declined precipitously and the costs of
education were rapidly shifted away from the State and onto the
Majority Stakeholders.
The unrelenting loss of State funding for Pennsylvania’s “public”
universities has been described as “Privatization.” And the absence of a plan
by PASSHE’s 100% political leadership for dealing with that situation has been truthfully
described as “Privatization Without a Plan,” in a book with that very title.²
The fact that the PASSHE Board of Governors is not delivering a PASSHE
education at anything like the “lowest possible cost to the students” means
that PASSHE students desperately need scholarships to help reduce their
“bottom line” cost of education—something promised to the students by Act 188
but, unfortunately, not delivered to PASSHE students by the current Board of
Governors.
At private universities, student scholarships are often funded by
philanthropists on the governing boards who are typically wealthy alumni that are
grateful for their educations, and who want to “give back” to their Alma Maters.
One example of this would be Les Wexner’s $100 million gift to Ohio State
University.³
Here’s Just One Way in which EO + PS Compete Against PASSHE Students
-
At private universities, individuals get on the governance boards by making
donations to universities!
-
At PASSHE universities, individuals get on the governance boards by making
donations to politicians!
The PASSHE universities are already 75% private, financially speaking, and need
to be transitioning rapidly toward that status in terms of governance. That is, the Majority Stakeholders should
be selecting a majority of PASSHE’s governance board members, and the Minority
Stakeholder should be selecting a minority of PASSHE’s governance board
members.
To be continued. ¹ https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/7425061/tribune-review-article-pa-university-board-members-grab-14m-in-contracts-july-1-2012-pdf-2.
² http://www.amazon.com/Privatization-Without-Plan-Leadership-Pennsylvania/dp/1491295244/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408368767&sr=8-1&keywords=angelo+armenti.
³ https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/7445735/wexner-s-100-million-gift-to-ohio-state-university-february-16-2011-pdf-317k.
No comments:
Post a Comment