NAS president Peter Wood writes here about the deferred maintenance problem many colleges and universities now face.

He’s right and this is not a new problem. Back in 2000, North Carolina voters were asked to approve a huge bond package (well, $3 billion seemed huge back then), much of it to be spent on deferred maintenance. And why was it that the state’s higher-ed authorities had not kept up the aging roofs, plumbing systems, air conditioning, and so on? Because money had instead been spent on attractive new things like athletic facilities and administration buildings and student centers. Humdrum maintenance expenditures were put off until so many UNC system buildings were so bad that there was a “crisis.”

Nor is this just a problem with higher education. Back to the 1970s, there was a deferred maintenance crisis in New York. The bridges were in bad shape from years of neglect. Why? Couldn’t the city afford the work necessary? Not if the politicians wanted to spend as they wished on politically cool things like new welfare programs and higher compensation for unionized city workers.

With any politically managed institution, the incentives favor devoting resources that things with immediate, visible benefits. Maintenance gets deferred.