I don’t think treating Texas colleges like businesses is the answer to skyrocketing tuition

Texas state Rep. Lois Kolkhorst spoke in Navasota yesterday. Among her topics was the spiraling cost of college tuition.

She said she thinks more and more future college and university presidents will NOT be faculty working their way up administrative ranks, but rather, business professionals. She didn’t say whether they would necessarily have previous college administrative experience, let alone with the college or university that hired them as president or chancellor, just that they would be business people.

And, she said she thought it was a good idea.

As for the idea of treating universities more like businesses, it might have its high points, but could easily be taken too far. Will a academic program of study, or major, be deleted not just from one college but across most or all of the University of Texas, Texas A&M or Texas State University systems if it doesn’t perform well enough financially? If so, how tough will the criteria be? What will that do for learning for learning’s sake? Will private businesses be invited to be “sponsors” of college academic programs? What would that do for learning? Would, or will, businesses attach more strings to their donations in the future? Instead of “teaching to the test,” as primary and secondary public schools here do with the TAKS, will colleges and universities “teach to the business”? Wouldn’t that make them the white-collar equivalent of vo-tech institutions? (There’s a snarky slam for you!)

No, colleges and universities shouldn’t be financial black holes. But, the university as business institution idea should be approached carefully.

Let’s ask a couple more rhetorical questions, first, now that the 80th regular session of the Texas Legislature is now on the books.

How did we jump from the original version of the Texas Tomorrow Fund, to diminishing state support for public universities, to deregulated tuition with its attending quashing of reopening the TTF or the possibility of any successor version of it?

What will members of the 81st Legislature do instead of making our state colleges and universities even more capitalistic? Will they even discuss some form or degree of re-regulation? Will they consider increasing non-loan state financial aid or other things?