By OCPA President Jonathan Small
When Oklahoma voters trounced University of Oklahoma President David Boren’s tax increase at the polls on Nov. 8, a major reason many voters gave for voting no was the fact that a large chunk of the revenue would have gone to a higher education system they view as wasteful and inefficient.
Less than a month later, what do we hear?
“As a system of higher education we generate $9.5 billion a year for Oklahoma,” higher ed Chancellor Glen Johnson boasted. “For every dollar the Legislature appropriates, higher ed generates $4.72 back to the Oklahoma economy.”
Seriously?
“Government spending does not come out of thin air,” economist Joshua Hall of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity said of that $4.72 number. “Every dollar spent by state government comes out of the private sector at some point. A dollar of public spending is estimated to cost anywhere from $1.25 to $1.50 to raise.”
When asked what would have happened if some of that money had been left in the private sector, the analyst who came up with the multiplier that Johnson cites told CapitolBeatOK: “We don’t look at that for the projects we do. We were trying to find the economic impact of those dollars spent in public institutions of higher education and play that out. We did not look at the fiscal stream, as such.”
Indeed.
So it’s no surprise that economist Richard Vedder, who helps compile the annual college rankings for Forbes, had this to say: “Econometric analysis I have done suggests that the relationship between state appropriations for higher education and economic growth is actually negative – resources are taken from competitive private enterprise driven by market discipline and given to an inefficient sector sheltered from such discipline.”
But hey, if Johnson is correct, then by all means policymakers should appropriate every single dime to higher ed – and we’ll all be rich.
With an annual compensation exceeding $411,000, Chancellor Johnson may make more money than the president of the United States – but he makes about as much sense. Remember President Obama’s claim about his “stimulus package” – that money extracted from taxpayers and crunched through a vast government bureaucracy magically generates more money?
If the higher education system is not willing to reduce administrative bloat, consolidate campuses, increase professor workloads, and rein in the out-of-control political correctness, appropriators should respond accordingly.
Jonathan Small serves as president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (www.ocpathink.org).
Very well said, Johnathan!
At last someone who gets it. As long as Oklahoma can afford to pay someone almost half a million dollars to be a mouthpiece for higher ED then they don’t need any more money from us. The defeat of a teachers raise was because of the amount of monies going to higher ED. Need to rethink the operation of higher ED. Many families cannot afford to send their children to college but still have to pay taxes to support bloated overpriced Chancellors of higher ED.
Dear Mike, Great to read another of Jonathan Small’s diatribes against higher education. With glee he points out voters turned down the Boren sales tax increase because some of it would have gone to colleges and universities they view as wasteful and inefficient. Of course they did and do. OCPA, the State Chamber, The Oklahoman newspaper, most of Friday Land’s Beautiful People and probably even God in some churches on Sunday tells them so.
Could it be Okies are just more willing to pay sales taxes to build rich people’s sports arenas or lay out much more than $100 bucks a ticket to watch a bedlam football game………..in a cold rain? It’s all a matter of priorities so let me suggest that when my friend Jonathan is feeling like he has a heart attack coming on, or about any other medical emergency, instead of walking across Lincoln Boulevard from his office to the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, built and operated with a bunch of tax dollars to serve sick people, he just drive down to the Thunder Playground and ask for an aspirin.
He might as well. His tax dollars helped to pay for that and the millionaire owners will thank him for his business and then laugh behind his back as they settle in for another night of fun and games in the reinvigorated, exciting and largely tax payer funded downtown OKC.
What’s not to like? Actually a lot in a backwater state where sports is adored, coddled, and comforted while public education, from pre-K through graduate school and including career technology, is treated by many at best only an afterthought and at worst an unnecessary nuisance.
But so what! Sis Boom Bah. Rah Rah Rah. We’re going to the Sugar Bowl.
Sincerely,
Cal Hobson
Hobson affords an immense definition of ‘diatribe’ when he posts his dribble while reacting to Small’s meaningful comments. How was he ever elected to anything?
When you consider how little money colleges and universities charge for classes, how little they actually get from Pell grants and student loans, how over-worked their professors are, and how little their administrators actually get paid, it’s not hard to understand why they’d be pleading with the Oklahoma public for more funding. After all, look at how little they actually take in for sports activities–they charge so little and keep their expenses so low so they can attract more participants, but what with low turn out for games and general lack of public interest, it’s understandable that they’d be looking elsewhere for substantial sources of funding. On the other, those fat cat, overpaid teachers in the common ed system keep hoarding more and more money–it’s a wonder that common ed asks for any public money at all. By the way, I have a bridge in another state that I’d like to sell you—I’m sure that with the toll money, you’d make back every dime in no time at all…
Hello Vernon,
I won fifteen elections for public office because I got to run against illiterates like you.
The word ‘dribble’ is what Westbrook does. The word ‘drivel’ often describes what I write.
What you do is obviously give a bad name to the otherwise articulate readers of Mike’s material.
Go back to radio and listen to your college dropout friend Rush. That’s real drivel. Or better yet go to college and learn a few new words. Then run for office.
Sincerely,
Cal Hobson
Cal, old boy, your rant states that ‘some of the funds’ would go to Boren and his buds (also known as ‘higher ed’).
The question specified, although somewhat nebulously, the mandated uses of 70% of the funds, to be used public education.
The question mentions 20% of the funds would go to higher ed, with NO STRINGS ATTACHED!
Reading the contents of your reply cause me conclude that you probably did not even read, much less understand, the requirements noted in the question.
.
Higher ed is never required to account for its forever increases in expenses (except when regent salaries are made public)
Too bad your personal attacks have nothing with the fact that the question sucked.
Dear Vernon,
If we keep trying you may actually learn something in these exchanges. Higher education is a constitutionally created entity unlike most other functions of government. That is why appropriations to it are in a lump sum. It was set up that way in the 1940s due to meddling by legislators many of whom were pressing to hire their buddies for important jobs.
As for accounting of expenditures numerous audits are conducted and are available for public inspection as well as to lawmakers. I urge you to read them, as I have annually for over thirty years and then we can speak further.
You will learn a lot and then may even come to appreciate, at least in part, what higher education offers in our state.
Take care and Merry Christmas,
Cal