Speaking of austerity: Surprise for Quebec's Universities

Just in time for the holidays: the Quebec government has announced it will cut another $140 million from University budgets this year; schools will have to come up with the cuts by April--yes, in 4 months. That's on top of the rolled-back tuition increases, which represented about another $40 million. This is not a good surprise. It's especially harsh when the PQ is raising taxes all over the place and we all know into whose pockets some outlandish proportion of our taxes go. From the Montreal Gazette:

the PQ repeatedly promised to maintain funding to universities for this year despite cancelling the strongly opposed tuition hike that was to have gone into effect this fall. Universities have been waiting for compensation for about $40 million in lost revenues from the aborted increase.

The student protesters see this as an unintended consequence of their success:

Even the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ), which has suggested that universities are more mismanaged than underfunded, was shocked with what president Martine Desjardins called a “hasty” decision. 

“We talked about a redistribution of money, but we never wanted to see university budgets cut,” said Desjardins. “We’re shocked. We fear it’s services to students that will be cut, that students will have to pay the price again.”

I doubt the students alone will pay the price, but the juxtaposition of widespread & rampant corruption, steadily increasing taxes, and steadily increasing cuts to education reads like a serious governance crisis.

So much for the end of men

NPR has a story on the college payoff, showing that while students pay much more for a college education in the U.S. than they do in most other countries, they also get a bigger return on their investment.  But for me the big story is the enormous gender difference in that payoff.  Wow!  There continues to be a huge premium for maleness across the globe, but it is striking indeed how much more being male in America gets you:

And what explains why college costs more for women in the U.S., Germany, and Canada?  It can't be a base price differential along gender lines, I would think (lawsuit, anyone?), so is it that men are given more scholarships?

The story points us to this study from Indiana University with more detail on the gender gap, including this chart showing that women must obtain associate's degrees to match the salary levels of men with high school degrees:  

I can't see how this information in any way squares with the notion that women are pulling ahead of men. 

Academic Fields of Study, by "Realness"

Gawker writes a list of academic fields of study by "realness" designed to provoke. What is realness? Gawker says "Don't act like you don't know. Come on."  The list:


1. Physics
2. Astronomy or other Space Science
3. Philosophy
4. Engineering
5. Math
6. History
7. Chemistry
8. Biology or other Life Science
9. Foreign language (Useful type)
10. Computer Science
11. Agriculture
12. Geology or other Earth Science
13. Architecture
14. Literature
15. Law
16. Geography
17. Music
18. Economics
19. Study of Some Foreign Place or Culture
20. Archaeology
21. Anthropology
22. Religion or Theology
23. Art
24. Education
25. Foreign Language (Useless type)
26. Political Science
27. Drama or Film
28. Phys Ed, Sports Management or other Major Designed For Athletes
29. Journalism or "Communications"
30. Business
31. Psychology
32. Sociology


Sociology clearly does not belong last, and should be close to anthropology; economics is way too high on the list.  Religion and theology should be last even though incorporated in the arts.  Speaking of which, why is literature ahead of music and art (which must mean visual arts, but not drama or film) so far behind them both and drama and film yet lower?  Any of these fields include subfields that are more or less real.  Take law for instance: I would put tax law near the top of the list, but of course I'm biased.

More on higher ed & taxes

Reich associates disengagement with public universities with the decline of the middle class.  The problem:

The US is already making it harder for young people of modest means to attend college. Public higher education is being starved and the middle class will shrink even more as a result. 

...The children of middle- and lower-income families are hardest hit. Remember: The median wage has been dropping since 2000, adjusted for inflation.

... public higher education isn't just a private investment. It's a public good. Our young people - their capacities to think, understand, investigate and innovate - are the US' future.  

...Public higher education has been the gateway to the middle class, but that gate is shutting - just when income and wealth are more concentrated at the top than they've been since the 1920s, and when the US needs the brainpower of its young people more than ever.

A solution:

A big part of the answer has to be more government support for public education at all levels. This requires more tax revenues - especially from Americans who are best able to pay. 

Most Americans still believe in the ideal of equal opportunity. And most harbour the patriotic notion that we have responsibilities to one another as members of the same society.

And here is a discussion of the growing problem of student debt, with this scary looking chart: