“The ideas have caught attention in the blogosphere. Steve Foerster, who
writes a blog about higher education for elearners.com, blasted UC
recently for asking for what he described as a federal bailout.” — The Sacramento Bee
Okay, that's pretty cool. Yesterday out of the blue I got a call from Laurel Rosenhall, education reporter for the Sacramento Bee newspaper. She was writing an article on how UC Berkeley wants federal taxpayers to support them, and saw my recent post on the subject. She wanted to know more about what I thought about it as background; here's what she asked me and how I responded:
Q. I'd like to know why UC's request for federal funding was interesting to you as a blog post. Do you frequently write about higher education issues?
A. I do. My blog is primarily about my experience as a doctoral student, but I also sometimes comment on matters of related interest, such as what's happening in higher education generally.
Q. What about this caught your attention?
A. Well, I've worked for four colleges and universities in various capacities and been a student at several more, so I was interested in how the bailout mentality that seems to be so fashionable these days had reached academia. Don't get me wrong, I know a lot of schools have to do more with less. I'm just saying that when it comes to schools needing help, there are a lot of schools that need it more than UC Berkeley.
Q. What is your relationship with UC? Are you a former student or employee?
A. I don't have any relationship with UC, other than being one of the taxpayers being asked to subsidize them.
Q. Have you gotten any response from UC or the public to your blog post on this issue?
A. No, nothing like that. I'd be pretty surprised if someone from UC responded. It would be pretty tough to convince me.
Q. How would you describe your political stance?
A. I think that it would be fiscally irresponsible in an era of trillion dollar deficits to subsidize a university with a three billion dollar endowment, especially one that would rather pay an outside consultant three million bucks to tell them how to cut costs rather than ask faculty members from their own world-renowned business school. I'm not sure that requires any special political stance, to me that's just common sense.
She ended up quoting from my blog itself rather than using any of the interview material, but her article in today's Bee is pretty even-handed and worth a look. I suppose now all we can do is see what comes of the whole thing.
Next up, I attend a panel discussion at a nearby think tank on spiraling college costs.