It's considered an impolite topic in some scholarly circles, where academics would rather talk about resources or funding than say the “m†word. But the reality is that academia needs money to survive. Whatever a school's goals are-giving a chance to poor students, encouraging better teaching, driving great research-someone has to pay.
And on the money front, things aren't looking great in Europe. Cynics might say that last week was typical: European Union budget talks fell apart, and more students protested in London over rising tuition fees.
Christopher F. Schuetze reports on how the financial crisis has hit universities in various European nations - which, despite grand-sounding schemes like the Bologna Process, vary greatly in the way they fund and manage their education systems.
It's no surprise that hard-hit economies like Ireland, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain had significant education cuts. Ireland, in particular, is facing a challenge: A '90s baby boom means there will be more kids heading to university than ever before, and less money to pay for them.
And the situation sounds dire in Italy. “We are running the risk of the collapse of the system,†Marco Mancini, president of the Conference of Italian University Rectors, said about education cuts.
But the cuts are not universal. Surprisingly, nine E.U. nations - including, notably France, Germany and Switzerland - have increased higher education funding these past few years.
Funding may be uneven, but tuition rates for European students are not, which has led to in-fighting over who pays when young people cross borders. As Nina Siegal reports, some Belgians have bristled over Dutch students enrolling in their schools, where annual tuition is a scant "578 - but costs local taxpayers about "10,000 per year per student.
Part of the problem - if you can call it that - is that most Continental Europeans consider affordable higher edu cation a universal right, to be largely funded by the state and shared by all. Their relatively low domestic tuition fees are the envy of foreign students, who are paying many times those rates.
The notable exception is Britain, which raised its tuition cap for local students to £9,000 a year, making it the third-priciest university system in the world, after the United States and South Korea.
That drastic rise may have a chilling effect on the Continent. “If this is what can be done in the U.K., a democracy with one of the top education systems in the world, what will stop governments from doing it elsewhere?†Howard Hotson of the Council for the Defense of British Universities said to me in a phone conversation.
But, as any accounting student will tell you, you have to balance the books. If public coffers are running low, universities have to find other ways to make up the cash. Raising tuition is one way. Canvassing philanthropists and former graduates is another. D.D. Guttenplan writes about the University College London's rather macabre new appeal for alumni donations.
Yet another is to admit more wealthy foreign students, whose tuition is not funded by the state. But if a school admits too many, it may change the broader feel of a campus, dilute quality, and anger local taxpayers who feel that their children's places are being given away.
I once asked a president of an elite U.S. university whether it used foreign students this way. He said that his own institution's admissions were “needs blind,†meaning they were based only on the quality of the candidates, and not on nationality or economic status. That, ideally, is how it should be done everywhere.
But then he leaned over and - off the record, of course - said “I'm not more moral than anyone else; I just have more money. If the school didn't have its huge endowment, I might be standing on the sidewalk waving in foreign students, to o.â€
Do you think universities should be government-funded basic services, like roads and hospitals? Or should they be market-driven? If so, will only big-name, elite schools draw moneyed donors and rich students?
