The University and The Taxpayer

When President Biden's unconstitutional attempt to forgive student loan debt was struck down by the Supreme Court, there was outrage amongst a younger generation who remains trapped under a mountain of debt. For the most part, this generation is a victim of the combination of their own decision-making and the circumstance they were put in. But our nation's secondary education problem lies deeper than just the loan issue.

During my first semester at Ball State University, I heard a professor make a comment about "getting someone else to pay for your education", this respected academic (who dabbled in indoctrination) was hinting to students in his history class that the taxpayer should pay for their education. But in reality, the amount the taxpayer is already paying towards education is already substantially higher than it should be. In the budget proposed for Indiana's Fiscal Year(s) 2023-25, Ball State University is receiving almost 350 million dollars in taxpayer dollars. This means every taxpayer in the state is paying a little over $81 to Ball State University alone. Ball State doesn't exclusively receive state funds, they also make money from tuition, housing, tech fees, book sales, and regular grants and donations. Ball State even has an annual "One Ball State Day" in which they request additional donations. The cost of attending Ball State is estimated at just over $25k (fees included) annually, per in-state student, per year. This means each Ball State Undergrad degree costs at least $100k. Ball State currently hosts around 22,000 students. Ball State is one of 29 public universities in Indiana, each receiving state funding in addition to charging for tuition. The State of Indiana is spending billions on public secondary education, which in principle would seem like a good way to spend the taxpayer's dollars. The problem is the universities themselves.

One area where students and taxpayers alike would likely be surprised by university spending, would be in salary. According to data from the US Department of Education, the average full-time professor at Ball State University makes $104,054 a year, which is roughly $36k higher than the average income in the State of Indiana ($68k), and more than double the average salary of Ball State graduates ($49k). Full-time Professors making more than their students make is a predictable situation, but over twice as much seems an unnecessary disparity. And professors aren't the only ones making a decent living, It was revealed in 2017 that Ball State's University President, Geoffrey Mearns, would a starting salary of $450,000, and he is now estimated to be making $503k annually. (This is comparable to U.S. President Joe Biden's annual $400,000.) Mearns is the second highest paid Ball State University employee, to the head football coach, who is making $578k. As of 2021, Ball State had 33 employees making more than $200k annually. Now cutting salaries of hard-working people would be both controversial and unnecessary. It makes sense that the state would want to reward professors for educating young people, right? But secondary education isn't what it once was. For Ball State's 2021 Graduating class, at least 36% of students received degrees in education or related fields (a field that in Indiana no longer requires a specific degree to take the licensing exam), and 4% of students got degrees in Liberal Arts fields such as English or Political Science (neither of which create clear career paths). Meanwhile college professors nationwide have made classwork increasingly political, and actively require students to participate in their left-wing political discussions. In my past year at Ball State, I was required to participate in more professor moderated discussions about racism, abortion, gender and sexuality then I was about mathematics, science, and literature. And while the later did happen, it appeared to not be the priority of the classroom. Do Public Universities need to be paying professors to host these discussions, and does this really reflect the interest of the average Indiana taxpayer?

And these massive salaries aren't the only ways that Ball State's spending can be frivolous. Students often participate in the spending of funds, and while that is a good way to ensure that students see their tuition bills in action, it occasionally can lead to wasteful spending. During my time in the Ball State Student Senate, I once watched a bill pass which spent $1,000 on stickers for an event. The explanation provided by the Senator who introduced the legislation was that they "were good stickers" and "the University gives us the money so we have to spend it or they won't give us as much next year." That same year, I can think of at least 5 events which used University funds to give out free sex-related objects, (to be clear not condoms, we are talking vibrating stimuli and fetish paraphernalia) which were often handed in the public spaces of dormitories. Does this sort of spending reflect the taxpayer?

Ball State University is just one public Indiana university, in fact one of the cheaper ones. Perhaps it is time for the state of Indiana to lead the way for the nation and conduct a more in depth review of the spending and conduct of the Universities it funds, to ensure that the taxpayer is represented in the way their money is utilized. Perhaps the money that can be saved in secondary education can be diverted to primary education where Indiana's teachers are paid at an average salary ranked 44th in the nation. Or perhaps the money can stay with the universities, and be used to lower the costs of fees and tuitions on the student. But Indiana can not continue to spend millions in taxpayer dollars on a system currently filled with indoctrination and waste. It is time for some sort of action, to ensure that the public universities serve the public, or become completely private institutions.