Why We Have a College Funding Crisis

The University of Maine is suffering the budgetary equivalent of the death of a thousand cuts, and they gave their vice chancellor for administration and finance a $40,000.00 raise:

While confronting a $36 million budget shortfall, the University of Maine System gave its top financial administrator a $40,000 raise between last fall and this spring, according to reports of employee salaries that the system publishes twice a year.

The salary for Rebecca Wyke, UMS vice chancellor for administration and finance, was listed at $205,000 annually as of April 8, 2014. That’s up from $165,000 listed in the report published Nov. 5, 2013.

“Is it a lot of money? Yes,” said University of Maine System Chancellor James Page, when asked Tuesday about the raise amid widespread budget cutting efforts at the seven UMS campuses and system office. “And we’re looking at reducing our financial management structure on an ongoing basis. But you do need to have the right people in place to get the job done.”

Page said Wyke was a finalist for a position at a higher education institution out of state that would have paid her more. He brought the question of her raise to the board of trustees in January, and they ratified the decision in an executive session. There was no mention of the raise in the open session.

“We determined that her leaving at this time would have significant adverse impact on the projects that we now have underway,” he said.

Wyke declined to be interviewed for this story.

The median salary of a vice chancellor at universities that award doctorate degrees in the United States is $326,863, according to the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. The median salary for a vice chancellor at any institution, including those that only have two-year programs, is $186,750.

………

The raise comes at a financially stressful time for the system. In November, Wyke told the board of trustees that the universities would need to cut $36 million, or about 6.6 percent of the system’s budget, in order to pass a balanced budget in fiscal year 2015.

Page told the state Legislature in March that up to 165 full-time jobs would have to be cut as a result of the budget shortfall.

The bureaucratic overhead at higher education has exploded over the past 50 years, and the upcoming crisis in student loans continues barreling down on us.

There is a genuine problem with looting in education, and it is at the administrative level where the problem exists, and not at the instructor level.

There are way too many people who have little interest in education beyond finding a way to loot education for their own personal benefit.  (I'm talking to you, Michelle "Sell the Public Schools to Wall Street" Rhee)