More Mainstream Media Higher Ed Hypocrisy
Sometimes headlines just sing, don’t they?
“More mainstream media higher ed hypocrisy …”
It just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? It’s so, dare we say, “mellifluous.”
Anyway, whenever they – whoever “they” are – decide to go back and chronicle the death of the mainstream media in South Carolina (and the rise of new media like us), “they” will no doubt point to fictitious articles like this one from Wayne Washington of The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper (a.k.a. La Socialista).
And then they will point to the mellifluously-headlined response that you are currently reading …
Now we’ve always known that La Socialista is nothing more than a friggin’ advertorial for the state’s higher ed boondogglers, but the journalistic fellatio it performs on South Carolina’s institutions of higher spending (err, learning) has now crossed the line into deliberate misrepresentation – something that is sadly nothing new for this ethically-challenged news outlet.
First, from La Socialista’s latest fiction:
Higher education spending in South Carolina will drop to roughly 1995 levels if the state trims roughly 3 percent from what it spends on colleges and universities.
Um, no … no it won’t … but more on that in a moment.
Washington’s article goes on to say that these latest “cuts” will cost the University of South Carolina $4.1 million, a figure which is accompanied by the predictable whining and bitching from higher educrats about how hard they have it these days (in spite of the fact that they’ve nearly tripled tuition on South Carolina families over the last decade).
Anyway, Washington’s article also includes the requisite quote from a legislative “leader,” Rep. Chip Limehouse (RINO-Charleston), a borderline short bus rider who slumps (err, stands) as a waddling (errr, walking) testament to just how “valueless” a degree from the University of South Carolina really is these days.
“I’m a fiscal conservative and a cost-cutter,” Rep. Limehouse told La Socialista. “But we stopped cutting fat long ago. We’re now down to the muscle and the bone.”
Really? As the higher education subcommittee chairman on the all-powerful Ways & Means committee, Limehouse (who from the looks of his belly clearly doesn’t know a thing about trimming the “fat”) has been the lawmaker responsible for approving some of the largest higher ed budget increases in state history.
He’s clearly never seen a spending increase – or a plate of spare ribs – that he hasn’t liked.
Limehouse has also been hand-picked by House Speaker Bobby Harrell to whitewash one of the most flagrant wastes of taxpayer money in South Carolina history – the $300 million Innovista project, a sad and costly example of what happens when universities forget the job their supposed to do in the name of “economic development.”
This guy’s a “fiscal conservative?” Please …
In addition to all of this nonsensical bureaucratic and legislative hyperventilating, Washington’s article also includes the following budgetary graph to illustrate the dire straits in which South Carolina’s institutions of higher learning now supposedly find themselves …
2000: $733 million
2001: $781 million
2002: $749 million
2003: $667 million
2004: $606 million
2005: $620 million
2006: $652 million
2007: $688 million
2008: $757 million
2009: $577 million
Ummm … okay.
Again, for those of you who don’t know the truth about higher ed spending in South Carolina, these numbers represent only state-appropriated general fund dollars – which represent less a third of the total state budget.
What’s the actual number state government spent on higher ed?
Well, in the 2009-10 budget, South Carolina appropriated a total of $2.08 billion – and that was just for the University of South Carolina, Clemson University and the Medical University of South Carolina.
That’s a dramatic 34% increase over the $1.55 billion that the state appropriated for these three schools just six years ago.
It’s also nearly four times the amount referenced in Washington’s story, and it doesn’t even include what the universities have brought in via their latest round of annual tuition hikes.
1995 levels?
Again, please …
And remember, these dramatically higher figures represent only what South Carolina spends on its top three public universities – there are thirty other institutions (at eighty different campus locations) spread across the state, an abnormally large number of schools for a state with a population of only four million people.
In fact, according to the latest data available from the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), South Carolina currently spends 17.8% of its state budget on this bloated, wasteful, duplicative and inefficient system of higher education. The average state spends only 10.1% of its budget on higher ed.
So … what have the South Carolina taxpayers received for that investment?
Well, besides a bunch of waddling ignoramuses (like Rep. Limehouse), we’re getting crappy results across the boards – as our top schools continue to post stagnant or declining national rankings (click here and here).
Pathetic, huh?
But why should we ever expect anything to change?
After all, no one’s holding these schools accountable – either in the legislature or in the “mainstream media,” which makes it not unlike the equally costly failure taking place in South Carolina’s abysmal K-12 system.
In fact, the legislature and the mainstream media are not only providing zero oversight, they’re covering up clear failures – and not just by whitewashing scandals or fudging numbers, but by burying incriminating stories.
Oh well … what is past is prologue, right?
The great thing about the marketplace of ideas is that truth has a way of outing itself.
And news outlets that fail to tell the truth have a way of crashing and burning under the weight of their own hot air …
Comments
By Billy Bob on November 30th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
The amount the State spends on higher ed is exactly what Limehouse said. While not a defender of the system and it’s poor overall results, the truth is that the “total funds” part of the budget is actually just a “permission to spend”. The agencies/colleges still have to raise the rest of the $$ which includes grants, tuition and even football ticket revenues.
By Quiet Voice of Reason on November 30th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Seems that a lesson in basic higher ed finance is required here, but neither side wants to listen. That billion figure way over-states what the institutions can use for operations — includes grants and such — but yes, there is still waste (ICAR, Innovista, FMU’s “Cultural Center”). We have a state that asks for zero accountability from any educational system. We have no research on what we’re spending, no research on results, no anything except the usual suspects complaining.
No, I’m not surprised. Just continually wishing for a better legislature.
By Liberty For Me on November 30th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
State funded schooling is inefficient…and strong-armed robbery.
By Soft Sigh From Hell on November 30th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
“We have a state that asks for zero accountability from any educational system. We have no research on what we’re spending, no research on results”
Hear! Hear! I’d go farther. What does out vaunted “research university” USC actually do for the State of South Carolina, or even the SEUS region, beyond the basic education of students the same as Francis Marion, Winthrop, South Carolina State, etc. I would argue that Clemson (another research university) and the smaller universities with some significant research efforts–College of Charleston, Coastal Carolina, and private Wofford–do more for the state and region. Snooty USC, especially in the sciences, views itself as “too good” for work in its own backyard, except for the coast and there simply because coastal studies are trendy and faddist.
I’d withdraw considerable investment from USC and put it in colleges with some interest in understanding and improving or helping their own state and region.
I personally or by family have not a dollar to gain here. I am just kind of sick of seeing so little interest by USC in South Carolina. They would of course point out this or that small but worthy project located here, in objection to my claims, but the bottom line is it is not very much proportionally. No one wants USC to be a provincial or trade school, but it wouldn’t kill them to have, say, one out of five professors with interests and projects in the state or region.