[Alumni-chat] Another Pet Theory...

[alanbenard (alanbenard at pobox.com)]

>Here's my simplistic theory about " Non-profit University" with six far
>flung branches. It's a semi-fraud. For-profit universities like Phoenix are
>big business. By using part-time untenured instructors (employees rather
>costly independent scholars) and the latest technology, they can offer very
>inexpensive degrees to a mass market of employed adults living at home. They
>sell stock and pay taxes.
>Tax exemption because of a prestigious logo gives the alleged
>Non-profit U.  an extra advantage over Phoenix. This unusual university
>(hardly comparable to Princeton or Stanford) can afford to pay its
>"presidents" (who would be deans under the thumb of higher administration in
>a traditional university) well if they follow orders. One branch, once
>independent, but still with tenured faculty, an effective program, and a
>national reputation, but with "difficult" able late adolescent  residential
>students, is expensive and expendable. "Let's put it in the deep freeze for
>four years." Then it can be "reinvented" as a money maker. Non Profit U.
>will still have the same name and reputation but with   pliable part-time
>instructors and complacent mature customers who are scattered all over the
>country.
>
>In the business world this happens all the time. Your friendly local grocery
>is suddenly a branch of Hannafords, located in Belgium..
>
>If you as alumni/faculty/staff/students/parents/ community accept this
>analysis, how do you respond creatively and effectively?
>
>Art Dole '46
Art, thank you very, very much for writing that. 

Alan