The Myth That Won't Die

A pervasive myth about public universities is that their chronic decline is mostly a political problem. The myth is enormously destructive because, having accepted it, one is then led down a primrose path in search of a non-existent political solution.

The myth goes like this. Because public universities’ decline is driven by cutbacks in state support, and because support is determined by government, then the decline merely reflects higher education’s low priority among elected officials. If one buys this premise, then the secret to restoring state funding is to convince lawmakers to change their minds and pay more attention to universities’ needs.

And how might one do this lawmaker convincing? So the myth goes, by doing what academics always do and that is by making appeals to reason. Surely, if legislators were really aware of the dire impact of their actions, then they would bump their state’s campuses higher up the list of funding priorities. Once one buys into the myth, then the path to public higher ed's salvation is through more effective lobbying.

There is just one problem with this strategy: it doesn’t work. Higher education has been on that path for half a century, but it is the path of the status quo, not to salvation, and it leads only to more decay.

In Ohio, for example, appropriations are decided biannually. Every two years, campus officials marshal up arguments for more state funding. Charts and graphs are constructed, options are presented, proposals for glitzy initiatives are prepared, visits are made to legislative leaders, strategic plans are crafted, op eds are written, public relations campaigns are launched, trustees and alumni are mobilized, and support is garnered from business leaders.

I was part of that lobbying effort for more than three decades, and during that time Ohio higher education’s share of state funds steadily declined. The best one can say about all that effort is that without it things might have been worse. In this respect, Ohio is no different from nearly all states. In California, for instance, between 1985 and 2005, the fraction of general fund revenues allocated to the University of California dropped by half (from 6% to 3%).

It is tempting to blame inept or unsympathetic politicians for this decline. Admittedly, among the hundreds of state legislators I have known, there were some dim bulbs, plus a few ideologues, opportunists, and scoundrels. As one vice-chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents remarked, years ago, “Few politicians in this state get elected by supporting public universities, but plenty get elected by bashing them.”

But education-bashers are the exceptions. Most elected officials – Democrats and Republicans – really do understand the arguments made by higher education’s advocates. But as demands on treasuries have grown while revenues have lagged, politicians are caught between a rock and a hard place. We don’t have to worry whether funding for our campuses should come at the expense of, say, health care for the state’s elderly, but elected officials do have to worry. While you or I may place different weightings on the tradeoffs, the responsibility is not on our shoulders.

Here’s my point. What is, is. The democratic process has not favored public higher education for many decades. However, the blame does not rest with politics or inadequate lobbying, but with insufficient public money to meet society’s growing needs. At some point, and I believe that point is now, one has to accept the lessons of history and move on to another strategy. And even if that strategy means choosing among the lesser of evils, it is better to do that than to keep yearning for a fictitious enlightenment that will never arrive.