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Contributing Editors
.::: A few random questions from the higher education
}, Todry's Top $torles beat - some weighty, some flaky
> Todaf$ 0olumn Friday,*"ovember 7, 1997
Bt John
) Conldluling fditors
O. Harnet'

o^ Are Massa_chusetts public college faculty in for the toughest collective bargaining negotiations
F Feople of their livesl It sure seems so judging from Tuesday's dress rehearsal, in w-hich siate"Board of
Hi_eher Education
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Charrman Jim Carlin told aCreaterBoston Chamberof Comnterce lunch crowd that he will
l 6iotapollooza fight to end tenure and increase faculty workloads.

} STFomm*
o Hou' manl' of the Boston business leaders in attendance at the lunch do you suppose have
l. Trch Updrtr degrees from Massachusetts public colleges?

l, fiueslboo*
o Sp^eaking of Han'ard. shouldn't a university with an $11 billion endowment charge students
,),ttatt less for tuition than a university with a $ 1 mil'lion endowment?

r Sspfrlghl
a Does the new Boston magazine repoft uncovering how "local unir,ersities flecce you with
their lavish excesses and outrageous salaries" sit awkwardly in a publication rvhoss
demographics attract monthly ads for $2-million homes in Wal,land and Weston?
}, firi{
o Does New Hampshire College's new center designed to provide education on tenant and
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homeowner rights and organize low-income people to bargiin collectively lbr lower urility rates
represent the shape ol town-gown relations to come?
) lP 0reaklns llelg
F Haursm
o Does Boston Common represent the shape of campus quadrangles to come? Foot-traffic
among Suffolk University and Emerson Coliege studentssuggesis so - with big benefits for
Boston's Midtown.
l', Businrss$irs

l.8toc[0uolcs o Why didn't Rhode Island try to lure the soon-to-be-discontinued Boston University Terriers
football team to Providence?
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o Has anyone ever documented the economic impact of stadiums against those of classrooms
or labs?

o Is it just a Lttle embarrassing that Alabama and Mississippi allocate twice as large a share of
their state budgets to higher education than Massachusetts does?

r Has all that well-publicized data about college graduates earning more than high school
graduates (an average $600,000 more over the course of a lif'etime) backfirecl on advocates ol'
higher education funding by casting education as a personal investment, rather than a societal
one?

o Shouldn't Nellie Mae's recent finding that student loan debt has caused 210 percent of
borrowers to delay buying a home and 3 I percent to delay buying a car sencl real estate
developers and automakers scurrying to Washington to press Ibr restoration of the lon-g--eonc
balance between outright student grants and loans?

o Would they be met there by lobbyists for processed-foods companies whose profits depend
 on the fact that Americans with high school diplomas are far less likely than their
college-educated counterparts to know about and heed health wamings, such as the link
between salty food and high blood pressure?

Answers?

John O. Harney is the executive edrtor of Connection: New England's Journal

of Higher Education and Econornic Development. Connection is the quarterly

joumal olthe Neir En-girnd Buard ol Higlrcr Educrltirrn.

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