The True Genius of America at Risk: Are We Losing Our Public Universities to de Facto Privatization?

The True Genius of America at Risk: Are We Losing Our Public Universities to de Facto Privatization?, by Katharine C. Lyall and Kathleen R. Sell. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006. ISBN 0275989496. The True Genius of America at Risk is a richly documented portrayal of the declining tax support for America's public universities. Much of this portrayal is from firsthand experience in Wisconsin, where Katharine Lyall served as system chancellor from 1991 through 2004 and Kathleen Sell as the system's chief budget officer from 1987 through 2002. In these capacities, they struggled with what they describe as "jerk and fit" state budgeting, which, as in most states, was a debilitating combination of budget cuts frequently combined with a general ignorance of, and great impatience with, the complexity of managing a very complicated system with appropriately multiple and difficult-to-measure products. The resulting fiscal austerity was (and still is) often made worse by dysfunctional bureaucratic intrusion and a stew of political agendas dominated by conservative and neoliberal attacks on public institutions, public employees (especially faculty), and public taxation. The book's subtitle suggests that we are losing our public universities to de facto privatization. That term, however, connotes a variety of quite different policies, both de facto and deliberate, that may include heightened competition for costly scholarly prestige, a legislative or even constitutional shift from the total state control associated with a state agency to a model of state steering associated with a public corporation, a more aggressive quest for philanthropic support, a shift of more instructional costs to parents and students, and/or a contracting out of nonacademic functions such as dormitories, food services, bookstores, and sometimes operations like maintenance and printing. While there are some who may lament most or all of these trends, most higher educational leaders and thoughtful observers (Lyall and Sell certainly included) would acknowledge that these shifts in themselves are neither new nor wrong nor likely to be avoidable. The real problem, I would submit, lies less with these examples of what Lyall and Sell label a de facto privatization and more with the widespread and peculiarly American political fear of taxation, coupled with a conviction (as with the fear of taxation, found among Democrats and Republicans alike) that public universities are wasteful and badly managed because ... well, everyone just knows they are. The strength of Lyall and Sell's book is the rich and quite up-to-date documentation of the financial austerity that has befallen most public universities. A minor flaw is that the authors sometimes are citing figures on the worsening financial situation of, and diminishing public tax support for, the entire public higher educational sector and at other times are referring to the fiscal austerity peculiar to the elite or flagship public research extensive universities (especially relative to their private elite research university brethren). But their portrayal of the last 15 or 20 years as a "perfect storm" of fiscal uncertainty and austerity for public higher education, especially for the public elite research university, is well drawn. The authors point out the unfortunate consequences of higher educational and fiscal federalism, especially as this feature of the American political landscape affects the public research university, whose "products"--be they the discoveries of applied and basic research or the education and training of undergraduates, graduates, or advanced professionals--are clearly national and international. As such, a funding base of mainly state budgets--particularly when most states are constrained in their abilities to deficit finance--is clearly going to be inadequate. …