Thursday, March 26, 2009

One upside of private universities

Private universities are certainly not immune from economic hard times. Heck, Harvard has more money than any of its competition, and they're having to cut back. Stanford is putting $1.2B of construction on hold. Still, private universities usually have enough flexibility to avoid the draconian cuts that can hit public universities when state budgets contract massively. The University of Florida's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is planning to meet its required budget cut by evisceration of the Department of Geology. Obviously finances are a mess right now, but is it really smarter to pick one science department to cut off at the knees, rather than spreading the pain more evenly? Hat tip to PZ Myers.

1 comment:

Uncle Al said...

http://www.diversity.umich.edu/programs/

University of Michigan "Diversity Matters": 82 programs for victims! of genetic, developmental, and behavioral trash; reproductive warriors, religious hind gut fermenters, drug addicts, Enviro-whiner Luddites; the stupid, the pathetic, and the Officially Sad.

I found one program for Gifted students. If something must be cut, lance that single boil.