George wrote:
While we’re hearing many presidential aspirants demanding higher taxes on rich people who supposedly need to be compelled to share their wealth (with the government), to my knowledge, none of them has called for such “sharing” between colleges and universities.
During my term as a SUNY Trustee, I advocated for the sharing of resources not only among the State University’s 64 campuses but also among public and private higher education institutions in New York State.
To put it mildly, the educational status quo in New York did not warm to this idea, nor did politicians rally to it. It’s perfectly predictable that presidential candidates will also prefer to let sleeping dogs lie. Why? Because, like politicians in the Empire State, they don’t care to rile the “constituencies,” notably professors’ unions and handsomely compensated administrators, who (as one SUNY president said to me) “like it just fine the way it is.” These constituencies relish and feed off redundancies (of campus land, programs, etc.). “Sharing” would pare down their ranks and involve economies that would hurt their pocketbooks. Meanwhile, these same constituencies generously “share” their wealth with politicians in the form of campaign contributions.
See, George? There is a whole lot of “sharing” going on.