Reading in the locker-room
Steve Hovley
I’ve been reading. A. J. Liebling, again. I paraphrase him paraphrasing Arthur MacWeeney of the Irish Independent: the longer I criticize Princeton, the more it disimproves [fn 1].
If you’re going to be a capitalist (risk-taking investment, secret decision-making, market-based wages), be one—charge what the market will bear for your product, which in view of the number of applicants rejected every year, would be a multiple of the current charges. If you’re going to be a charity, be one—stop the inexcusable, inexplicable tuition. There’s nothing worse than a namby pamby pitcher who won’t throw strikes.
The alumni are complaisant; the trustees compliant, and both complicit. Do you understand how revealing it is that while the university disimproves none of the inside glitterati (e.g., George Will, Cornel West, Paul Krugman, Michelle Obama, John McPhee) has spoken out about tuition, much less about go-go endowment investment, profligate spending, or the administration’s double talk and refusal to disclose data on faculty compensation and benefits?
[hint] Think Stanford, Seattle, Dostoyevsky, and Ball Four.
[1] The Sweet Science, North Point, p. 8.
I’ve been reading. A. J. Liebling, again. I paraphrase him paraphrasing Arthur MacWeeney of the Irish Independent: the longer I criticize Princeton, the more it disimproves [fn 1].
If you’re going to be a capitalist (risk-taking investment, secret decision-making, market-based wages), be one—charge what the market will bear for your product, which in view of the number of applicants rejected every year, would be a multiple of the current charges. If you’re going to be a charity, be one—stop the inexcusable, inexplicable tuition. There’s nothing worse than a namby pamby pitcher who won’t throw strikes.
The alumni are complaisant; the trustees compliant, and both complicit. Do you understand how revealing it is that while the university disimproves none of the inside glitterati (e.g., George Will, Cornel West, Paul Krugman, Michelle Obama, John McPhee) has spoken out about tuition, much less about go-go endowment investment, profligate spending, or the administration’s double talk and refusal to disclose data on faculty compensation and benefits?
[hint] Think Stanford, Seattle, Dostoyevsky, and Ball Four.
[1] The Sweet Science, North Point, p. 8.
posted by mcd at 9:53 AM
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