Bret Devereaux

Here's the thing: it's all a false economy. No, not that the economy is fake - it's fake savings. Like when you overbuy at the grocery store because everything is on sale - you haven't 'saved' anything - you've spent more. It's that kind of false economy. 23/xx

Not only does the amenities-admin-tuition inflation turn into a treadmill going nowhere, but adjunctification is just as bad for the core mission of the university. Because you are burning these adjuncts out at a fearful rate; overloaded and underpaid...24/xx

They often can't teach as intensively as TT faculty and they don't stay in the job long enough to get excellent at it. Teachers get better over time - so burning them out wastes experience. The result is inferior teaching, even though most adjuncts work hard! 25/-continues-

In essence, the 'business model of education' ends up diverting university funds away from the *education* part of the university's mission. It also imposes larger and larger fixed operation costs, compensated for by higher and higher tuition...26/41

Which then finally brings us to our last horseman, Pestilence. Because if you are running one of these universities, you have massive problems - you can't simply say "we'll do the courses online and charge full freight"...27/x

...because you've been competing on everything *but* the education for the last twenty years! Moreover, the cost of all of those other things is paid for by fees - if you waive the fees, you still have to do the upkeep and the whole thing crumbles. 28/41

And even in normal years, the public funding has slowed to a trickle - in a pandemic, it might as well stop. Calling a halt to university operations, or doing everything online and waiving the on-campus living fees is financial suicide. It was the *right* course...29/41

...and at the same time, one that the reckless, ruinous system could *never* take. At the same time, even without Pestilence, the system is still broken. Demanding that universities 'run like businesses' to save the public money just doesn't work. 30/41