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Vermont Likely to Close 3 State Colleges

snoseek

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Irrespective of whatever the issues are with these two colleges, America needs fewer colleges, not more.

The entire industry is teetering on becoming a sham, with scores of colleges or the vast majority of given school's majors being nothing more than glorified high school preparing the student for nothing valuable in particular. This phenomena has absolutely exploded in the last 20 years. Higher education in America is a faux market propped-up with massive government-fueled debt, which has led to skyrocketing increases in professor salaries, increases in tuition costs, increases in school construction projects (usually for "fun" things, not higher education things), and increases in the NCAA athletic department nuclear arms race.

The other thing that's fueled this craziness is politicians from both parties telling America that "everyone" should have a college education. This is both terrible advice (not everyone is college material), as well as being completely irrational as well as unhelpful to say the least. You'd think people would generally figure this out for themselves via living in a world where the average plumber's W2 form is now more impressive than the average college graduate's W2 form.

The simple fact that there's so many line cooks with a culinary school degree... even if it's just an associate's, is just weird. Half the stuff that requires a degree could be done better in a decent apprenticeship program.
 

cdskier

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Irrespective of whatever the issues are with these two colleges, America needs fewer colleges, not more.

The entire industry is teetering on becoming a sham, with scores of colleges or the vast majority of given school's majors being nothing more than glorified high school preparing the student for nothing valuable in particular. This phenomena has absolutely exploded in the last 20 years. Higher education in America is a faux market propped-up with massive government-fueled debt, which has led to skyrocketing increases in professor salaries, increases in tuition costs, increases in school construction projects (usually for "fun" things, not higher education things), and increases in the NCAA athletic department nuclear arms race.

The other thing that's fueled this craziness is politicians from both parties telling America that "everyone" should have a college education. This is both terrible advice (not everyone is college material), as well as being completely irrational as well as unhelpful to say the least. You'd think people would generally figure this out for themselves via living in a world where the average plumber's W2 form is now more impressive than the average college graduate's W2 form.

Agree with pretty much all of this other than perhaps the skyrocketing increases in professor salaries part. I'm not so sure that part is happening. I think the administration is lining their own pockets more and more and don't really think much of those tuition increases are making it to the professors themselves. I have a few friends that are professors and they constantly complain about how underpaid their are and how it is ridiculous how the schools can't afford to pay them more with what they are charging students. Could just be my friends are at the wrong universities...who knows. I do know that in the 16 years since I graduated college that tuition at my school has more than doubled. (It was right around 20K in my last year there and is now 50.5K for next year for tuition alone). That significantly outpaces inflation and is just insane. It isn't sustainable at all.
 

thetrailboss

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Agree with pretty much all of this other than perhaps the skyrocketing increases in professor salaries part. I'm not so sure that part is happening. I think the administration is lining their own pockets more and more and don't really think much of those tuition increases are making it to the professors themselves. I have a few friends that are professors and they constantly complain about how underpaid their are and how it is ridiculous how the schools can't afford to pay them more with what they are charging students. Could just be my friends are at the wrong universities...who knows. I do know that in the 16 years since I graduated college that tuition at my school has more than doubled. (It was right around 20K in my last year there and is now 50.5K for next year for tuition alone). That significantly outpaces inflation and is just insane. It isn't sustainable at all.

Jeb Spaulding makes over $230k a year.


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VTKilarney

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Jeb Spaulding makes over $230k a year.


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That’s not much considering he is the head of an organization with a couple thousand employees.

The Vermont State College System isn’t known for paying high salaries. It is incredibly bloated, though. I spent some time looking at the faculty directory. A private company would have about 1/5 of the administrators and support staff, for starters.
 

dblskifanatic

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What about the salaries of some of the football coaches in some cases higher that many NFL head coaches.


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thetrailboss

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I had no idea who that was off the top of my head...had to google him. Good example of my point though about the administration lining their pockets...

It’s a lot considering the state and the negative results he has produced.


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BenedictGomez

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Agree with pretty much all of this other than perhaps the skyrocketing increases in professor salaries part. I'm not so sure that part is happening.

The average college professor now makes north of $150,000, and the average college graduate makes south of $60,000.

That should trigger mental alarm bells for all.
 

EPB

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Certainly does not subsidize tuition


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Of course not. Big time college sports attract high school students to intuitions they wouldn't otherwise be interested in (e.g. Alabama). That should put upward pressure on tuition, if anything. That said, big time sports like SEC football should be serious money makers in their own right if managed correctly.

Other extremely high paid people in academia include fundraisers at places like Harvard. I once had an economics professor (not at Harvard, unfortunately) argue that these people basically just need to bring in one mega donation to justify their paychecks (paying someone $1 million to bring in an extra $10 million of donations is obviously a good thing). Of course, this also doesn't bring down tuition. It just allows universities to build bigger/fancier empires.

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cdskier

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The average college professor now makes north of $150,000, and the average college graduate makes south of $60,000.

That should trigger mental alarm bells for all.

Not really. I assume you're looking purely at NJ for the average numbers for professors at least? Because nationally at 4 year public schools the average is $129K and at 4 year privates it is only $137K. In NJ it is a tad over $150K overall (but Princeton paying an average of $250K skews that one a bit). You have to keep in mind though, many teaching faculty at colleges are not full "professors". In NJ, the average is down to $103K for associate professors and $85K for assistant professors. Adjuncts are even lower typically (and nationally adjuncts account for slightly over 50% of teaching faculty). So ultimately only a fraction of teaching faculty are part of that "150K average" that you're citing. If you had a true average of all teaching faculty, the number would be substantially lower (and far more useful).

And since this thread was originally about VT, the average professor in VT is at $103K, associates are 81K, and assistant professors at $69K. To be even more specific if we want to focus on the VSC system it is around $70, $57, and $50 respectively. So yes, $230K for the admin when that is the amount they pay professors is excessive.
 

DoublePlanker

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Demographic cliff is coming for colleges. Low birth years during the great recession. Colleges today have to hire large numbers of mental health counselors. Gen Z can't handle it being away from Mom and Dad. The ratio of administrators to students is out of control. Growth of professors is flat. Growth of administrators is high.
 

Zand

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Not at VSC!


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IIRC the highest paid professor at LSC when I was there was under 70k. I'm sure its gone up a little bit but still very low compared to almost anywhere else. Unfortunately for whatever reason the VSC decided they needed an administration big enough to run SUNY instead of small enough to run VSC.

From what I understand, nothing was going bad until the last 10 years. I remember them panicking about dropping enrollment during my last couple years. It just sucks...on top of having one of the best meteorology programs in the world, they also have a top notch TV program as well as pretty good music and mountain recreation departments. Not to mention how important it was for the whole northeastern part of VT and northwestern part of NH as the only commutable 4 year college. The fact that UVM is trying to get the state to fund them for more than the VSC needs to survive is the biggest salt in the wounds.

At this rate everything east of rt 100 and north of rt 4 should secede for NH and everything else can be part of a new Vermont complete with a new capital in Red Square in Burlington. It's what they want anyway. Its funny that a state that prides itself on being rural just laughs in the face of the people in the actual rural parts while they consolidate all the wealth, education, and jobs in one county.

The state is so corrupt that they don't even try to hide it anymore.

Oh BTW let's not forget the state also just decided to take 20+ prisoners infected with Covid from a prison in St. Albans and dumped them in St J.
 

BenedictGomez

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Not really. I assume you're looking purely at NJ for the average numbers for professors at least? Because nationally at 4 year public schools the average is $129K and at 4 year privates it is only $137K.

Uhhhh...... I mean...... okay, I'll take your research as gospel.

So what?

That's still more than TWICE the salary of the average college graduate. And for what, for teaching 18th century Greek art? Gimme a frickin' break. It's insane.
 
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BenedictGomez

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since this thread was originally about VT, the average professor in VT is at $103K

You obviously dont realize how massively above normal wage that is for a college graduate in State of Vermont.

I'm taking your word on that $103k figure, but assuming that's true, it's TWICE the wage of the average college graduate Vermonter's salary.
 
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