College tuition too high...

[daepp]

Blame the executives at the University of California: in this economy, and considering their rise in tuition and drop in stature among other schools, the executives are threatening to sue the Board of Regents if their maximum annual pension for these bozos will be frozen at $187,500.

I just did some checking and the 2009 list of the top 100 earners goes from a high of $2.7M to a "low" of $489K!

The UC's pension liability (what they currently expect to have to pay out in the future) is unfunded by $21.6B

Top Univ. of Calif. execs to sue if earners of $245,000 or more don't see big pension hike

Glad my daughter is going to school out of state - for many reasons!

The pensions for these "academics" and lefties will collapse the state - they are simply unsustainable, and their are too many other options for an education in other states. As the cost goes up, attendance will shrink.

[red-beard]

Don't worry, Brown will fix it!

[9dreizig]

California needs to go bankrupt or it will never be fixed.

[daepp]

I agree about the BK. It should be now, it should be deep and short lived. Ratchet back excessive spending and freeze all budgets. Then let the state crawl out of this mess. The right leadership, possessing a backbone stronger than the unions, could do the job in one year.

[campbellcj]

What exactly would a BK mean at the State level? I don't see that it would generate positive results for California to stop repaying on its bond obligations. What we need is to fire all of the idiots in Sacramento and start over, with some term limits in place and a mandate for a balanced budget.

[Noah930]

Man, I wish I had a pension, let alone one that I was fighting having "capped" in the low 6-figures.

The argument will be that the UC system is fighting to retain the services of expert business leadership, and that it must pay rates competitive to the rest of the business world (such as the IBMs, GEs, and Apples) to retain those experts. Hence, that justifies the high compensation and benefits packages. Funny how that logic only applies to the executives, and not the rest of the university staff (i.e. profs), who are expected to accept whatever wage they get because of an altruistic good for society.

I wonder when this thread will get moved to PARF. Not because it's necessarily political or religious, but largely because it deals with criticism and an unpleasant subject. And we live in a world where criticism is deemed socially unacceptable.

[arcsine]

I cannot say that is my reality.

I work as a staff member at a state university, get paid (an admitted by the state)70% of my comparable value in the private sector, still don't make $50,000 (and I am the highest paid staff member in the department, I have an MS and 20 years experience) , have had my pay frozen for years, zero COLA and hours reduced permanently to an 11 month position, This year we are expecting at least increased cost for health care and a 3-5% across the board wage reduction (which will be the first time faculty will have lost anything although it is unclear if the legislature itself will be subject to this reduction). Tuition is being raised at maximum rates just to fill in the losses. In short, the state is no longer the major stakeholder in state colleges here.

"Be happy you have a job" is just not selling me on this right now.

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by arcsine

I cannot say that is my reality.

I work as a staff member at a state university, get paid (an admitted by the state)70% of my comparable value in the private sector, still don't make $50,000 (and I am the highest paid staff member in the department, I have an MS and 20 years experience) , have had my pay frozen for years, zero COLA and hours reduced permanently to an 11 month position, This year we are expecting at least increased cost for health care and a 3-5% across the board wage reduction (which will be the first time faculty will have lost anything although it is unclear if the legislature itself will be subject to this reduction). Tuition is being raised at maximum rates just to fill in the losses. In short, the state is no longer the major stakeholder in state colleges here.

"Be happy you have a job" is just not selling me on this right now.

Ya shoulda become a University football coach!

[Aurel]

The real problem here is that Universities are being run like corporations, bringing in highly paid executives, but who suck on state funding that should be used towards faculty. If these executives are so good, they should attract enough extramural funding, create endowments and funds to support their pensions. Evidently, they are an investment that ends up costing more than it brings in.

[Aurel]

And by the way, anybody who earns over $100k/yr should not be entitled to a state pension, because they make enough money to save for their own retirement. Pensions are typically for lower wage earners, who would have a hard time saving enough for retirement. I am getting sick and tired of this double dipping of some, at the expense of the many.

[Scuba Steve]

Throw into the mix limitless funding (tuition in the form of student loans) and here's what you get.

[fintstone]

Exactly. College costs are driven by the never ending supply of money in loans and grants to students. There is no incentive for universities to compete on cost.

[djmcmath]

I've heard some talk that this isn't isolated to California -- other colleges are also paying their "executives" enormous salaries with expensive benefits as well. My opinion is that it's heinous for the top of the pay scale to be that absurdly out of line with the people who are doing the work. It seems like the actual professors should be making the real money, with the administration getting a pittance -- it's the professors who are doing research, teaching students, and actually bringing in students, right?

Some others are suggesting that college prices are showing signs of a bubble, e.g. rising substantially faster than median incomes. If there's a supply of "imaginary money" in the form of student loans, that's definitely part of the problem, and fits with the pattern of other historic bubbles.

The question is: how will this fail? Students will have so much debt, they'll start defaulting on previously-assumed-safe loans? Colleges will start seeing a serious decline in admissions because students can't afford the education, and will reign in their own excesses? A college will go BK because it can't pay it's own staff any more, and there's a panic?

Dan

[Crowbob]

What is a comparable job in the private sector to a "staff member" at a state university? What does a "staff member" at a state university do? And what does a comparable private sector person do?

[arcsine]

Originally Posted by Crowbob

What is a comparable job in the private sector to a "staff member" at a state university? What does a "staff member" at a state university do? And what does a comparable private sector person do?

I'm responsible for purchasing, inventory management, employee management, regulatory compliance, HazMat waste handling, radioactive material handling and building safety for a chemistry department. We have 25+ faculty, a dozen graduate students and anywhere between 50-80 undergraduates doing research at any given time in addition the the 1500+ students per quarter that are enrolled in academic laboratory classes. You're right, probably no one comparable job in the private sector. I remember one person per job when I worked in pharmaceutical research.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

That sounds like about a $35k-$40k a year position to be honest (and I don't know the specifics, just going off of your description).

Pension liability is one of the "big slices of the pie" facing governments and quasi-government entities in the future - federal, state and local. As the Baby Boomers (who largely stand to be the recipients of these pensions) retire and age over the coming years, these pension liabilities are going to represent an increasingly heavy and crushing monkey on the back of the American economy.

My solution? Cap pension payouts at ten years. Sorry guys, it's that or nothing. There's not enough money.

Between ten free years of income (usually for 20, 25, or 30 years of service) and SS and whatever investing you've done on your own, it should hopefully be enough to retire on. But that's all you're getting - don't get greedy on me now.

[fintstone]

The problem with cutting pension benefits, is to be fair...you have to grandfather the folks that you already promised the pension to...so it takes many years to see the benefits. A good example is the Federal Govt. They have a very lucrative retirement system until the early 80's. They replace it with a system that is roughly half as generous for anyone hired after the cutoff date. The last of the "grandfather folks are retiring now and in the next few years...the more recent hires (starting in about 2 years) retiring in the future will receive less than half as much. The politicians that engineered this in the early 80's are mostly gone and will get little credit (or blame) because they are long gone. We should do the same with social security etc. Personally I cannot believe how lucrative state and local pensions are reported to be on this site. If true, no wonder states are in trouble. The current federal system seems pretty generous at 30% of base pay...although it is contributory and you must work for lower pay than the private sector and stay 30 years to get that much.

[Aurel]

Right now, I know baby boomers who are collecting social security, collecting pension from a previous employer, and working all at the same time. They have tons of disposable income, but cannot seem to stop being greedy, keeping jobs that could be filled by younger folks who actually need them, and would cost less.

[fintstone]

I really don't see how continuing to work past a certain age could be considered greedy. Why would one stop in their peak earning years when they have much to contribute? Also, how much is enough? If the same folks miscalculate and retire too early and run out of money, then what? Will you want to take care of them? There is no reason that a person cannot work and contribute to society until they are no longer physically or metally able. As far as younger folks that cost less...it is almost impossible to find one that will work the 70 hr workweek that their older counterparts will...much less have the skills. besides, who would take care of their adult children that just can't seem to manage on their own...LOL?

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by Noah930

....

The argument will be that the UC system is fighting to retain the services of expert business leadership, and that it must pay rates competitive to the rest of the business world (such as the IBMs, GEs, and Apples) to retain those experts. Hence, that justifies the high compensation and benefits packages.

Funny how that logic only applies to the executives, and not the rest of the university staff (i.e. profs), who are expected to accept whatever wage they get because of an altruistic good for society.

...

that puts it well - public service is not expected to be comparable to non-public service jobs, and usually is not

one thing tho - in the last 20 years, it has been very hard to recruit presidents for universities - seems no one wants the job