Go ahead, ask colleges about their fees

Why are we, as a nation, paying for the same thing again and again? Three times the federal government — your Congress — decided to give away national assets worth perhaps many trillion dollars in today’s money to help higher education, for the betterment of the nation. This is how it was constructed, as a Congressional argument in 1862, 1890 and 1994: To ensure continuing American educational excellence the federal government will give, free of any cost, assets belonging to the people of the United States to institutions of higher learning in order to provide them the financial and overhead stability and planning to expand their places of higher learning for free or at low cost tuition. Collectively these universities are known as the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU).

So, how did this work exactly? Well, a university without, say, a fat endowment portfolio or savings especially compared to, say, the bloated alumni gifting program and rich endowment of any Ivy league institution like Harvard (that has $32+ billion of assets just sitting in banks) — well, these “poorer” universities needed a leg up, so the federal government changed the title of public lands all around the universities (although sometimes hundreds of miles away) and entitled the colleges to do what they wanted with them. Rent them, turn them into malls, apartment buildings, factories, whatever. Rental income, license income, big paychecks regularly. To add to the money pile, the Post Office was ordered by Congress to site its sorting and postal branches on these land-grant properties and pay top dollar. After all, the Post Office was making money, no? Nope. It’s another subsidy.

Who was president in 1862? Republican Lincoln. And in 1890? Republican Harrison. And in 1994? Democrat Clinton, who had an APLU pork-barrel line tacked onto a bill for the military budget by a Republican Congress.

There is no doubt that the strength of America is borne on the backs of education, especially higher education. The concept in Lincoln’s time was to ensure that America could turn out more doctors, engineers, managers, inventors, chemists, physicists and lawyers. And in large part, it has worked, and worked well. But the APLU brethren have become bloated with a spending spree that has little, if anything, to do with education. They squander resources, build multi-million-dollar volleyball stadiums, million-dollar diving-only pools, track facilities that rival the Olympics, skateboard parks, buy art for sculpture gardens worth millions and sign TV contracts worth $20 billion with ESPN for college football (over 10 years) and yet run football programs and college bowls that they say never make a dime (yet some student tickets to games are $250 a seat!). “Never make a dime?” Yeah, sure, when you pay the organizers millions of dollars in salaries and give them bloated expense accounts, cruises and tenure as if they were teachers. Oh, wait, there’s Nick Saban of Alabama (APLU), who is paid $5,395,852, and his coaches another $6 million! And he’s got 12 rivals who all get over $5 million a year, too. Is that a good use of your “public and land grant” funding?

The idea behind the APLU was worthy. Grant them public funds and assets to enable them to provide less costly or free education. Do they? Why would they when there is no oversight on how they spend public money and assets? Go ahead, ask them (and how many of these are big TV sports outlets): Alabama A&M University, Auburn University, Tuskegee University, University of Alaska (Fairbanks), University of Arizona, University of Arkansas, University of Arkansas Pine Bluff, University of California (all of the campuses), Colorado State University, University of Connecticut, Delaware State College, University of Delaware, University of the District of Columbia, Florida A&M University, University of Florida, Fort Valley State College, University of Georgia, University of Guam, University of Hawaii, University of Idaho, University of Illinois, Purdue University, Kansas State University, Kentucky State University, University of Kentucky, Louisiana State University, Southern University, University of Maine, University of Maryland, University of Maryland, College Park, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Massachusetts, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, Alcorn State University, Mississippi State University, Lincoln University, University of Missouri, Montana State University-Bozeman, University of Nebraska, University of Nevada, Reno, University of New Hampshire, Rutgers — the State University of New Jersey, New Mexico State University, Cornell University, North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina State University, North Dakota State University, Ohio State University, Langston University, Oklahoma State University, Oregon State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Puerto Rico, University of Rhode Island, Clemson University, South Carolina State University, South Dakota State University, Tennessee State University, University of Tennessee, Prairie View A&M University, Texas A&M University, Utah State University, University of Vermont, University of the Virgin Islands, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Virginia State University, Washington State University, West Virginia University, West Virginia State College, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Wyoming.

Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now lives in New Mexico.