PSA Takes Common Strategies to Logical Conclusions

Eleven years ago, I wrote this open letter to American academics offering the Professional Society of Academics (PSA) model for higher education (HE) (2012). Ten years ago, I wrote this to help the City College of San Francisco when its accreditation was to be pulled because its finances were tanking (2013). Nine years ago, I wrote this to help the City of Detroit during its urban collapse due to the 2008 economic recession (2014). Last year, I wrote this to help all troubled universities and colleges, using the Illinois examples of two now closed institutions, Lincoln College and Lincoln Christian University (2022). In between I have explained that according to the PSA model:

1) We don’t need (accreditation of) HE institutions (HEI) such as universities and colleges (2013)(2014)(2016).

2) Tuition and even expense-free HE is possible with a reduction in public spending (2013a, 2013b)(2014)(2016)(2022).

3) Exploitation of academic labor can stop and far better working conditions and compensation can start (2012)(2017a, 2017b)(2022).

4) The risk of reliance upon vulnerable government funding can be substantially reduced (2016).

5) The essential work of academics can be accommodated outside of the HEI boxes (2017).

6) Academic work can be protected from technological threats (2013a, 2013b, 2013c)(2018).

7) The ratified rights of access to HE by academics and students can be fulfilled (2012)(2013).

8) The integrity of HE can be better protected (2021)(2023a, 2023b).

9) Labor union representation is not necessary (2014)(2022)(2023).

10) All of this is financially feasible (2012)(2013)(2018)(2021)(2022a, 2022b).

11) There is historical basis for the model (2022a, 2022b, 2022c).

12) HE can be offered within the capitalist or the socialist framework (2012)(2013)(2023).

13) HE can form better internationalization relationships (2023a, 2023b).

14) Our lives inside and outside of HE can be better (2022a, 2022b).

All of this applies to the unfortunate circumstances that now impact individuals directly and indirectly related to the institution of West Virginia University (WVU). This example of HEI model failure has produced a common steadfast strategic response that is used to salvage or safeguard the social good of HE in our communities. This iconic strategy has been used for decades by unions, activist groups like Scholars for a new Deal, and the AAUP to defend against the widespread effects of such personal and community losses under the HEI model.

This post aims to make subtle observations about this strategy that show it is inadequate and that the response offered by the PSA model is superior. To demonstrate this, a series of quotes are numbered and extracted from a document in circulation during the WVU troubles, to which commentary is offered through the PSA lens. Though I cannot attest to the veracity of the content, the document acts as a good representation of the strategy in question. [NOTE: The document is a Wordpress post that contains two posts dated 2023/05/24 and 2023/08/21, with no page numbers.)

(1) What would it take to solve the WVU budget crisis? Cutting administrative payroll back to 2013 levels would completely eliminate the FY 2024 budget deficit. Cutting it back to 85% of 2013 levels, to match the decline in enrollment, would generate savings of $74 million. This would eliminate the entire projected budget deficit for the next 5 years, through the ‘demographic cliff’ expected to begin in 2026-27. Focusing the cuts specifically on non-classified staff, where all of the growth since 2013 has occurred, and cutting that specific category to 85% of 2013 levels (again, matching the decline in students at the university) would save $98 million, resulting in a large budget surplus for years to come.

If PSA were adopted back in 2013 by West Virginia in exercise of its state authority over education, the amount that could have been saved by taxpayers is $675.5 million in public funding, as of 2023. This is a rough estimate based on a minimum of 50% reduction in the total cost of providing HE under PSA. This ignores the additional economic benefits PSA can bring to the local and state economy such as increased out-of-state and international enrollments that have enormous obligation-free economic spillover to business and tax ledgers, or the improved earnings of academics and support staff that translate into increased consumption.

The weary strategy in question is framed within the longstanding, though not original, HEI model for HE. As such, the strategy assumes a (necessary) place for universities and colleges and so by logical consequence for their complement of administrative staff and substantive public funding. Within this box the fingers of moral condemnation are waved at administrators and politicians, while thumbs are raised for labor union organizations who excel at finger pointing (though not in the case of WVU). But no matter the digit, there has been questionable improvement and all remains fragile.

PSA does not assume the need for HEIs. In fact, it can eliminate them, though it can also convert or cooperate with them. As such legitimate complaints about bloated admins, or even corruptive and destructive admin such as President Gee and his cronies are reputed to be, have no place in the conversations, the deliberations, the expectations enabled by PSA. As a professional service model, the core is a professional society (e.g., the State Bar of California) and professional academic members that service the community – casting the HEIs and admins as unnecessary middlemen, as they always have been. If you have trouble wrapping your head around this, consider first these two things: 1) What PSA prescribes is what the original universitas embodied in Bologna and 2) academics (faculty employees of HEIs) are the essential labor that educates and credentials the sort of professionals who offer services to the community within the protection and direction of professional societies (i.e., accountants, lawyers, psychiatrists, physicians, etc.). There is nothing radical here, only an editing of the existing pieces.

With this in mind, reconceptualize the narrative in this document:

(2) To summarize: From December 2020 to May 2023, a period of 29 months, the university has been unable to generate data on the costs of running academic programs and the revenues generated by those programs, even with the help of outside consultants. The Provost’s office publicly mischaracterized its activity in this regard on their Academic Transformation website. They have now hired a second external consultant to help them with this.

After providing a long list of admin positions and their salaries the document continues,

(3) Let us conservatively focus on just those executives from the Provost’s office and Strategic Initiatives listed above, whose job descriptions involve data, analytics, finance, and assessing academic programs, ignoring the multiple other layers of bureaucracy just outlined. Their compensation totals nearly $3 million a year (and that’s with two people’s figures missing). That is 5-10% of WVU’s current budget deficit. Yet Reed and Alsop have both admitted that their offices are unable to produce basic data about the costs or revenues generated by academic programs on campus.

In this iteration of the common strategy, it looks as though the admin in charge is either unskilled or unscrupulous. In response, the call is for replacement or reduction in their numbers or compensation. But notice how these HEI functionaries remain. As I’ve said elsewhere, if you want to sell chicken then you’re going to need a Colonel Sanders, so in the HEI model you will never eliminate that expense but at best only reduce it. Though just intimated in this document, the replace or reduce response is often strategically coupled with a call for improvement in shared governance of the institution. The thinking is that with better shared governance we – academics, support staff, students, and the community – can better steer the institution and steward HE.

To help see the err in this thinking, imagine that on the far left of a slide ruler you have employees with no say in how their employer steers the institution/company that cuts their paychecks. A few notches to the right you have a range on the rule where the employer and the employee jointly steer with greater or lesser degrees of binding mutual authority. On the far right you have employees that steer the institution/company with no binding input from the employer.

The worn strategy under discussion aims to settle matters in the midrange. The HEI hires academics, promising some level of binding shared governance, which often proves disappointing and so the increasing response is labor unions are brought in to better arm the academics in the battle to dial the notches further in their favor.

But what about a dial set to the strange far right? This is where PSA resides. PSA enables us to notch HE to where logically there is no need for HEI employers, where academics are professionally licensed to offer their expert HE services in solo or partnered practice. This takes the common strategy to its logical conclusion, avoiding all of the antagonistic finger waving over the constitution and direction of HEIs – because there are none, because HE is provided under a professional service model instead of a mixed interest model that pits institutions and individuals against each other. The unions want to wrest greater control over working conditions for whichever labor they represent, as just another (often) conflicting interest in the HEI wrestling match. PSA reduces the number of interested competitors in the tournament, by removing institutional employers and reintroducing independent employment to HE.

But let’s look at some of the decisions that have been made for WVU within the conceptual framework of the HEI model, decisions that to one degree or another were (or ought to have been) made with some measure of shared input.

(4) The finances of a university system are complex and we are not forensic accountants. We don’t claim to understand every aspect of these issues, but one thing is clear: the growth, real or imagined, in the university’s profile has involved massive new building projects and renovations financed by debt and private-public partnerships. Fitch’s latest commentary on the institution lists over $550 million of bonds just from the period 2019-21 (source). As detailed above, Alsop has projected extra cost pressure over the next 5-7 years from the debt service for capital improvements, with an increase of $6.7m in debt service from FY23-FY24. The FY 2021-22 budget gives a figure of about $33 million for debt service. Assuming that number is growing as Alsop says, the university’s debt service is roughly the size of its budget deficit. Given that the university has gotten smaller rather than larger over the past 10 years, one can question whether this development, and the debt that financed it, were the product of sound financial planning.

Another enormous source of physical growth over the past 10 years has been the university’s use of public-private partnerships for building new commercial and residential facilities. In these arrangements, the university buys land, then leases it to a private developer for 40-50 years, who builds a revenue-generating business on the land. Sometimes there are more complicated re-leasings and revenue splits. This article gives an overview with examples from WVU. The institution has made use of this financial device to construct housing for thousands of students over the last 10 years in large apartment complexes near campus, as well as commercial developments, an aquatic center, and even a minor-league baseball stadium. The most important aspect of these deals for the university community to understand is that it is more or less impossible for the university to divest from them, as Rob Alsop explains around 1:55:30 here: WVU can’t sell the land, because it is leased to commercial entities for decades to come.

So, yes, one can question the soundness of these decisions that are typical of the HEI model and to do so responsibly under shared governance demands understanding these aspects of university and college finance or at least hiring experts that can be trusted to provide useful input when making complex decisions related to the issuance of bonds, capital construction and maintenance, debt service, lease agreements, etc.

Alternatively, we can avoid such decisions altogether and steer the complexities of HE finance away from institutions toward individuals in a way that arguably presents more familiar, less complex forms of finance such as small business (or practice) accounting and loans, personal household debt and budgeting. Again, shared governance, as the prize sought by unions and activist groups on behalf of academic institutional employees, is indeed complex; and as PSA points out, not necessary if the dial is adjusted to professional independent practice in HE services.

(5) One thing we hear frequently about [WVU President] Gordon Gee (mostly from his own mouth or his media team) is that he is politically connected in West Virginia and extremely good at making money for the university. In response to a scandal surrounding his multi-million dollar travel expenses, he notoriously referred to himself as a ‘rainmaker’ (source). This argument apparently was not convincing to the WV state legislature, which has continually cut appropriations for the university since Gee took over as president, as detailed on slide 19 here. Alsop and Gee have not presented this as the primary cause of the current budget crisis and we have no reason to think it is. It is, however, another failure in one of the few major tasks they are responsible for. Alsop, before coming to WVU, had numerous high-level appointments in the gubernatorial administrations of Earl Ray Tomblin and Joe Manchin, two powerful figures from West Virginia political dynasties. Like Gee, his political connections do not appear to have helped WVU secure more funding from the state, nor to have helped him accurately understand the financial implications for the university of changes to public-employee insurance.

Again, this is a possibility and, in many cases, a real probability under the HEI model, which requires the use of Presidents, Vice-Presidents and other well-connected admin to (inter alia) curry favor with politicians who grip the public purse for HE. Perhaps in the case of Gee the bet appeared promising but didn’t pay off in the end. Welcome to the HEI game of thrones.

Though such favors are sought by existing professions, lobbying under PSA would be conducted from a place where the public cost of HE has been substantially reduced. From here, the tensions across political channels would be loosened to the point that politicians could afford to champion tuition or expense-free HE or even student loan forgiveness. At the same time, though the politicians would still control significant public funding, this reduced allocation could better weather economic or social turmoil by flying much further under the political radar.

(6) In April 2019, the WVU Board of Governors (BOG) announced its intention to extend Gordon Gee’s contract as president (source). This is despite the fact that, according to the university’s data, enrollment had fallen by about 10% since Gee’s appointment (slide 18 here). As part of the contract-extension process, the BOG is required to solicit feedback and commentary from the faculty and university community. They chose to do so in a 40-minute session on the first day of final exams, which was announced 4 days beforehand (announcement). That is, the over 5,000 faculty and staff affected by this decision were given the opportunity to comment on Gee’s renewal during a single live session of less than an hour, scheduled during vital university activities.

This is strongly reminiscent of the country where for seven years I worked in HEIs and owned an education company – China – and that can’t be good. Returning to governance, this smacks of a dial set on totalitarian rule, with the sort of nominal decision-making inclusion that China offers (if it does so at all) when introducing a new piece of legislation that will have serious impact on the people, opening it up to public comment for a couple of weeks with little to no effect on the outcome. This must not be how the social good of HE is stewarded, by a cadre of cronies for their own personal benefit.

Quote 6 is found under the section of the document, subtitled, “Who is Managing the Managers?” Ten years ago, I wrote a piece in response to a 2010 document release from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity entitled, “Inmates Running the Asylum?” The post was meant to show how though at the time the City College of San Francisco faced losing its accreditation, the qualified academics (faculty) and students of the college didn’t lose the desire to provide and receive HE service. The institution had failed, not the individuals. Based on this, I suggested PSA as a remedy that relied on a further fact: accreditation boards are populated by the only individuals qualified to evaluate HE service, namely academics, and these boards essentially license HEI to practice HE. PSA points out that in this framework, we can divide through by the HEIs and academics (in professional society) can license academics to practice HE. In this way, PSA would eliminate such BOG behaviour by placing the stewardship of HE squarely in the hands of the essential labor (academics and academic support staff) and primary beneficiaries of HE (students and the community), where professional society is structured with equal input from all these stakeholders, in the absence of institutional interests (including those of Presidents, Vice-Presidents, office-seeking politicians, etc.).

In closing, as a profession of academics in a society of stakeholders embedded in the wider community through independent practice there would be no need to publish the document upon which this post is based and there would certainly be no need to publish it with anonymity. Let’s escape the unnecessary tyranny and tension of the HEI model under which we all now struggle. Let’s abandon the common crippled strategy and instead follow its natural progression from voiceless to cacophony to chorus.

This post was hammered out with some urgency in order to respond to the immediate troubles faced by WVU. As such, please be patient with its lack of depth and consider it a talking document – the discussion and collaboration on which I am always open.