Thursday, March 11, 2010

Link of the Day

"I joined the University of California faculty in 1966 and so have watched a good many of them, but have never seen one less impressive that this year's. In 1964 there was focus and clarity. This one was brain-dead. The former idealism and sense of purpose had degenerated into a self-serving demand for more money at a time when both state and university are broke, and one in eight California workers is unemployed. The elite intellectuals of the university community might have been expected to offer us insight into how this problem arose, and realistic measures for dealing with it. But all that was on offer was this: get more money and give it to us."

1 comment:

tim eisele said...

He mentioned the Small Business Survival Index, so I decided to look it up. The values are summarized here, and holy cow, California really does come out looking pretty bad on this (particularly if you click on the report link and look at the California taxation levels).

Michigan could be better, too, but at least we are pretty solidly in the middle of the pack, and not off with the extreme outliers.

Interestingly, when Michigan started cutting support to the state universities a couple of years back, there was some grumbling, but I don't remember any actual protests or riots.