Thread by @brucefenton

1/ While the costs of public K-12 schools (average $16k / yr per student) is an astonishing ripoff to the taxpayer, it pales in comparison to higher education - a scam that has reached such epic proportions it may end up in history books.

2/ The College Board, US News & others publish various numbers but data averages from $20-35k for public in state schools to $35-45k+ for private colleges.

As with K-12 the spending is absurd.

A good chunk of this also comes from taxpayers.

usnews.com/education/best…

3/ Taxpayers support the public universities directly & taxpayers also support private colleges & the overall system through student loan guarantee programs & special spending.

Colleges don’t have to pay taxes like almost every other enterprise.

4/ Cronyism is rampant

Take U Mass:

Mobster & FBI informant Whitey Bulger’s brother Billy Bulger, who was Mass State Senate President & head of the lottery commission (which his brother won twice) became President of the University of Massachusetts

abcnews.go.com/Politics/james…

5/ Billy had an outlandish budget of taxpayer funds for his “Office of the University President” at One Beacon Street in Boston, the most prestigious address in town.

The luxurious office is about 100 miles away from the University’s Campus, where Bulger had another office.

6/ Bulger hired hundreds of cronies for high paid, six figure admin jobs - many of whom spent the days working on political campaigns, doing PR, or going on junkets.

They’d also get premium SUVs or other state vehicles, complete with special license plates that avoid tickets.

7/ When Romney was elected MA Governor & worked to have Bulger fired the media & teachers unions screamed over Romney being “anti education”.

dailycollegian.com/2003/09/bulger…

As a final insult to the taxpayer, with his resignation, Bulger earned another $309,000 severance bonus.

8/ Today in retirement, Bulger still earns over $270,000 a year for his retirement pension, also paid for by the taxpayer.

Keep this in mind next time someone talks about it being “for the students”.

bostonherald.com/2019/01/21/how…

9/ Giving money and special zoning and tax breaks to something that is not only a business...but a scammy one at that, is unfair.

Bulger isn’t an isolated example, many taxpayer funded universities have salary & bonus packages in the millions.

10/ Unlike other government funded programs, colleges seem almost immune to scrutiny on wages and waste:

The head coaches at Clemson and University of Kentucky each made $9.3 million in salary.

These are both public, taxpayer funded universities.

moneywise.com/a/the-10-highe…

11/ Academics are sales people who fleece teenagers by saddling them with decades of debt for degrees that often have little ROI.

They also fleece the taxpayer & don’t deserve special breaks or our wages.

It’s not honorable to overcharge teens like this. They should be ashamed.

12/ The system is funded by the wages of workers, taken from politicians, who in turn get huge voting blocks of teachers to enhance their power and increase spending.

Teachers union endorsements are like gold to politicians & academia provides them cover for graft & cronyism.

13/ As with K-12, politicians can put just about anything into state university budgets, no matter how outlandish and no one will scrutinize it because it’s “for the students”.

14/ If a politician wants to give some taxpayer wages to a crony the crony can get a six figure speaking gig, admin job or a deca-million contract. The size and scale of universities makes it easy to bury thousands of cushy $100k + jobs and multi million dollar contracts.

15/ The scamming doesn’t stop with crony jobs and contracts — the entire system breeds more corruption. Students are charged sometimes $200 or more for textbooks that could be $25 or even free and open source.

It’s scamming across the board.

16/ Perhaps the most nefarious thing about the current system is that all those billions of taxpayer and tuition dollars are primarily used for more indoctrination to further bad ideas about spending, government authoritarianism, freedom, civil rights and economics.

17/ Perhaps it’s time that academics, like the media are judged more fairly and evenly on their actual record rather than being given a pass. Professors are great but, like teachers, they support & endorse politicians & robbery of both students & taxpayers that is unforgivable.