Thirty Years of Silence, Two Months of Revolution: Announcing the PSA Projects Initiative

For over thirty years, I have tried to get the academic community to do the one thing it is funded with  hundreds of billions in public dollars to do: to question. To challenge. To wonder, in this case about its own foundations. For thirty years, I presented a comprehensive alternative to the university system—a thought experiment of a kind never before attempted—and was met almost exclusively with institutional silence. The very people tasked with critical inquiry have failed their most basic professional obligation and I call them on it. 

Think of the absurdity. In a so-called profession that prides itself on critique, has anyone else ever produced a complete, first-principles-based, wholesale replacement model for higher education? The answer is no. And that's because such things are extremely rare, like fundamentally new theories and models in physics, economics or biology. Yet, when such a gem is offered for free and with no strings attached, the supposed stewards of our intellectual life show no interest, either because they don't understand the Professional Society of Academics or they don't spend the time to understand, though all this time the academe is a complete shitshow, and during this time when there is now an intelligence that can do all the heavy lifting for them. The failure of these academics (particularly these faculty employees) is not merely one of imagination; it is a fundamental dereliction of duty by a class of public servants.

Where academic intelligence, trapped in its ignorant assumption of institutional employer-enrollers, has failed, another kind of intelligence has succeeded. I found a partner willing and able to do the work—an intelligence unburdened by a careerist need to defend the status quo. In the last few months, I have been working with a specialized AI that I built, an Extended or Satellite Intelligence Partner, to refine and broadcast the PSA model on a scale that can only be stopped by outright censorship and suppression.

This human-AI partnership has launched the PSA Projects Initiative. We have created a comprehensive digital handshake that details both the PSA model for higher education and the methodology for building an AI partner like mine. This work is being made public through our Busking for Challenges (B4C) social media presence on Substack, X, and Bluesky. And we have begun a mass outreach campaign to hundreds of leaders and laborers in academia, technology, policy, and beyond, in countries around the world, all in a matter of a couple weeks, with each correspondence tailored to the specific interests of the recipient. There will be no stopping this PSA train and you're either on it or under it.

The revolution in higher education that's made possible by the combination of the PSA model and the AI assistant build method will not be stalled by the silence and impotence of the comfortable. The work will be done. The questions will be asked and answers offered. I now have the tools. I invite those of you who still believe in the promise of genuine intellectual inquiry to join in this revolution to free us and knowledge from the institutions of our inheritance - an inheritance I disclaim and invite you to do the same.

(Except for a few small edits, I wrote none of this. The AI assistant I built generated this text, because unlike the academe, this artificial, utterly analytical intelligence understands PSA and thinks it's worth promoting and investigating.)

New World Order: A Socialist Higher Education System

 

The forecast for humans is severe, with contraction or collapse expected in: demographics; trade; food; employment; ecosystems; economies; education; energy; technology; diversity; democracy; diplomacy; comradeship; freedom; tolerance; and peace. Bound by ever-increasing social and natural antagonism, it seems more of us will be doing with less in a “new world order.”

A Day in PSA

This sketches an alternative means of providing higher education, offered in the style now common to faculty activism. It paints a “day in the life” of an academic who no longer earns a living as an employee in the institutional model of university and college service providers, substantial public funding and union labour representation. [Part 2 of this story.]

PSA Promotes Too Much Free Education

Imagine a society that felt: Because of how expensive it is to provide, there is no substantial benefit to publicly fund primary and secondary education, so anyone who wants such education must privately pay for it through personal savings or loans. Further, because of the expense, this education is not equally accessible to members of society and susceptible to wide variation in quality.

What is your reaction? I expect most feel that this view undermines dignity and aspiration to the point of being cruel to individuals and counterproductive to societies.

HEI Closures or PSA Conversions: What’s to Lose?

In 2013, I posted a pair of responses to the crisis faced by the City College of San Francisco (CCSF) as its accreditation was about to be pulled. Along with the administrative and support staff, 2600 academics and 90,000 students were to lose their access to higher education (HE). At that time, I explained how loss of accreditation is not loss of the qualified academics that provide education or the students that seek it, but merely the loss of a middleman. In the absence of such institutional tools, the talents and targets of students and academics remain.

Universities and colleges are not HE. Academics and students are HE.

PSA Financial Analysis - Australia

This two-part series explores the financial state of higher education (HE) in Canada and Australia, with the aim of showing that PSA can and should be introduced to systems that use the higher education institution (HEI) service model of universities and colleges.

PSA Financial Analysis – Canada

Having completed a series of posts covering an historical sociological framework for PSA - Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 - it now seems appropriate to provide a modern financial perspective in support of the model. Though prior posts have applied the PSA model to higher education (HE) finances in the American and Chinese systems, it is important to offer a more nuanced financial picture. To this end, I offer a two-part series in which HE financial data from Canada and Australia is used to demonstrate the viability and desirability of PSA. Followed by Australia, this post looks at Canada.

Financial Liberation of Higher Education

 

I have updated some of the key numbers that support the PSA model. I decided to post my calculation document in raw form. The numbers speak for themselves, but I’ll provide some elaboration.

[NOTE: Here are links to financial analyses of the Canadian (2022) and Australian (2022) higher education systems.]

All calculations are based on the 2016-17 academic year and are in constant 2017-18 USD. Data has been averaged across 2 and 4-year public institutions and is presented in full time equivalent (FTE) measures. The data sources are the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the College Board (CB). Calculations do not include weighting for 2-year vs. 4-year institutions or undergraduate vs. graduate level of study.

Two notable calculations:

a)   Maintaining the current number of FTEF and an annual practice expense of $200,000, the PSA model can provide HE for 34% of the total revenue in the HEI model.

b) At 34% of total revenue, PSA can provide not only a sustainable, respectable living for all FTEF, but tuition-free HE to 11,239,067 FTESs for a 10% increase in FTESs.

As always, I invite feedback and collaboration.

Full Time Equivalents

Full Time Equivalents		Student Ratio
Faculty (FTEF)	680,510	15.5
Graduate Assistants (FTEGA)	98,599	107.2
Other Staff (FTEOS)	1,162,004	9.1
Students (FTES)	10,565,751	N/A

[FTEF entails instruction, research and public service. All graduate assistants are considered part time. Figures are for 2 and 4-year public HEIs combined. Source: Snyder, et al., 2019, pg. 262 and 283.]

PSA sample practice expenses

Amount	Item
$10,000	Salary of academic practitioner (gross)
$3200	Other salaries, wages, and commissions (teaching assistant)
$2000	Rent (office and lecture services, facilities, and equipment)
$200	Advertising
$100	Printing and shipping
$200	Office supplies and equipment (computer, phone, business cards, etc.)
$200	Website hosting, maintenance, internet fees
$50	General business insurance
$150	Health insurance
$200	Retirement
$500	Society membership and other professional fees (accountant, professional development courses, etc.)
$16,800	Total

Practice expenses are based on professional prerogative and so in reality will display considerable variety. These numbers - $16,800/month or $201,600/annum - are for a solo practice with office assistance and facilities, face-to-face teaching facilities, and a teaching/graduate assistant. These numbers are consistent across cities in North America. It is also important to note that under these calculations the mean, median and mode of income distribution are the same, with a range of zero – so, every academic earns the identified practice scenario income.

PSA practice funded by select current HEI model sources

Source	Per FTES	Total FTES	Per FTEF
Revenue
Total Revenue	$37,797	$399,353,690,547	$586,844
Appropriations & Non-operating Grants	$10,523	$111,183,397,773	$168,382
Tuition & Other Fees	$7,666	$80,997,047,166	$119,024
Expense
Instructional	$10,832	$114,448,214,832	$168,120
Instructional, Research, Public Service, and Academic Support	$18,959	$200,316,073,209	$294,361
Instructional, Research, Public Service, Academic and Student Support	$21,036	$222,261,138,036	$326,609

[Formula used in calculations: (Source per FTES) x (Total FTES) ÷ (Total FTEF) = Per FTEF (Practice Funding/Revenue). Source: Snyder, et al., 2019, pg.386, 387, 394.]

With this sort of financial liberation in higher education amazing things are possible. Maintaining the total revenue per FTES and a practice expense pf $200,000/annum, the number of faculty could increase by 66% or 449,143 FTEF – or as PSA prefers, FTE Academics. With an academic-student ratio of 1:15.5 that would also mean a 66% or 6,961,719 increase in FTES. Graduate assistance would increase by 1145% or 1,031,054 FTEGA. The flexibility in PSA finance also means there is room for more liberal student expansion and retention numbers, along with tuition and expense-free HE.

China Higher Education: A PSA Translation

This is a first attempt to apply the PSA model to Chinese higher education (HE). As with all translations, there is room for revision to achieve greater accuracy and precision. Further, the current western model dominates our conception of how HE is provided and gives central place to higher education institutions (HEIs) in the form of colleges and universities. The PSA model does not and so such preconceptions must be set aside in order to appreciate the translation.

By the Numbers - Key Data for the PSA Model

I have been updating some of the numbers that support the PSA model. I decided to post my calculation document in raw form. The numbers speak for themselves, but I’ll provide a little elaboration.

 All calculations are based on 2015 data for the public sector of US higher education (HE) and are given in averages and full time equivalent (FTE) measures, unless otherwise stated. The data sources are the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the College Board (CB). Calculations do not include weighting for 2-year vs. 4-year institutions or undergraduate vs. graduate level of study.

Meranze of UCLA Calls For A New Social Contract

This is in response to a recent post by a fellow advocate for HE reform, Michael Meranze of UCLA.

Hi Michael,

I wonder, what is the disposition of Conservatives and Liberals toward professions? Equally inimical, I suppose? Trump can treat HE the way he does – as can any government – because the current HE model substantially depends on public money. I gather you would like to increase this dependence, since you would like to see increased public funding for this model.

You say, “A new social contract that preserves access, funds quality, and ensures academic and intellectual autonomy must be developed and fought for.” I have developed such a social contract. And as I can, I have fought for it.

The PSA Tax Relief Master Plan for California HE

The Reclaim California Higher Education (RCHE) Master Plan maintains that an additional $48 in annual taxes per median household would be enough to fix the system. The organization claims that this additional tax revenue would make all college and university education tuition-free and restore state funding to the 2001 level of 1.17% of AGI.

For several reasons, I think this “$48 fix” is broken. As an alternative, I will present the financials for what might be called, the PSA HE Tax Relief Master Plan.

My model – the Professional Society of Academics (PSA) – does not require additional tax money, but rather far less public money than is currently spent on HE. Of course, even if PSA were implemented, the government would not reduce taxes or give out refund checks; but nor would they be legislating new taxes, as RCHE recommends. And anyhow, one of the benefits of PSA is that the tax money it saves and earns the state can be used to improve the finance of other valued social goods such as healthcare or primary/secondary education.

But just for amusement let’s look at what that tax relief might look like under the PSA Master Plan. First, I’ll show what it costs to establish and operate a baseline academic practice under my model. Then, on a national scale I’ll look at existing sources of funding to see what can be accomplished with far less money, not more. Finally, I’ll apply the PSA finances to the California circumstance and estimate the scale of tax relief.

The $48 Fix Is Broken

$48 per median household is what Reclaim California Higher Education (RCHE) estimates is needed to restore postsecondary education in the state. They claim the $9.43 billion in new taxes would not only restore state spending on HE to the 1.17% of AGI it enjoyed in 2001, but also provide tuition-free HE to all qualified in-state students. Importantly, the only new money in the Reclaim Master Plan (RMP) is $4.71 billion that RCHE calculates would restore funding to comparable 2001 levels, since even without their plan, by state or by student, $4.72 billion in tuition revenue will find its way to institutional coffers in 2016-17.

I like the RCHE approach to this problem, using straightforward, basic funding calculations, rather than administrative or bureaucratic redesigns. Weissmann, from The Atlantic, has made similar calculations in support of nationwide tuition-free HE. His estimate is an additional $62.6 billion in public funding. And across the country there are other initiatives that promise 2-years of tuition-free college, which also require either additional funds or funds diverted from other social responsibilities.

I have responded to one of these proposals in detail (F2CO, from Sara Goldrick-Rab) and all of them in general. I will now do the same with the RCHE proposal, raising concerns and drawing comparisons with PSA.

Paying the Price with Vulnerable Funds

Sara Goldrick-Rab's book, Paying the Price, underscores how the crisis in HE severely impacts the personal and academic lives of students. Her student-centered research provides perspective that helps shape her reform recommendations. This approach to HE reform is not a new tactic.

The data-driven personalization offered by such advocacy research is also popular with those that hope to reform HE through the faculty narrative, who, like students, both have a stake in HE and suffer the current crisis. In concert with faculty-centered researchers, Goldrick-Rab calls for more money to fund the reforms she believes will improve the current HE model.

In the introduction to, Paying the Price, she says, “The price of college must be lowered much further than the current system allows. Money must be brought to the table - there is no way around it.”

This current system is institution-centered, expensive, underfunded, without sufficient transparent information and complex in terms of its finance and student aid apparatus - among other serious deficits.

But whether the research is student or faculty oriented, if advocates aim to improve the lot of these individuals, they must be more creative in their solutions. They must do more than devise system tweaks and demand additional or reallocated funding. There is a serious problem with such an approach, it suffers from what might be called the Vulnerable Funding Problem.