IU Fact Check

IU, and more specifically, IUPUI, received a grant today. Wee!

Indiana University president Michael McRobbie will visit the IUPUI campus later today to announce two grants awarded to the Global Research Network Operations Center based in Indianapolis.

According to a news release, the money will enhance international network services that encourage scientists from around the globe to work together on projects. University spokesman Larry MacIntyre said the “multi-million-dollar” grants are funded by the National Science Foundation.

How wonderful. I’m sure this’ll fix everything.

Universities are like businesses, except they’re public and shielded from all the bad things about being a business. Likewise, they’re public entities and shielded from all the bad stuff about being a public entity. They live in the best of both worlds, without any of the bad. That’s a problem.

Universities, like businesses, want and have to raise money. Unfortunately, they tend do this by charging tuition, collecting donations, generating revenue AND collecting tax revenue. They’re worse than GM!

Let’s look at my educational establishment, IUPUI.

• Annual operating budget of $1.2 billion. The city of Indianapolis operates off of a budget just under a billion. Why does a university of 30,000 require more money to operate than an entire city of nearly a million?
• Average ’08 Freshman SAT score: 1,064. Too bad schools routinely exclude large groups of minority and “special admit” students like athletes or foreign students with English as a second language from these scores because they have the nasty habit of bringing down the average.
• Being an “engaged” campus and all, one would expect that more than a measly 19% of undergrads would be studying abroad or taking part in service leaning. Actually, since all freshmen are required to take service learning to boost that useless stat, it’s more like 10%.
• The average student/faculty ratio is 19:1. Too bad that includes hundreds of faculty members who do nothing but research all day (on what no one knows) and never even see or talk to undergrads.
• Over 90% of full-time faculty have advanced degrees, like a PhD. Probably  because you won’t let but a handful of people become full-time anyway. Leaving the grunt work of real teaching to adjunct faculty, who suffer day-in and day-out, with no way to advance. Whoops!
• Lots of great faculty! Wee! Like this guy, who I don’t believe even teaches anything. Or at least, nothing worth, you know, mentioning in his bio.
• All that research and yet, no way to know how effective they really are at the business of educating Hoosiers. Unless you look at this chart, which I guess shows a graduation rate of what? 35%? No one bothered to put some axis labels on it. That’s over six years, too. Wonder what the iconic four-year rate looks like.
• IU sure is cutting back. What with them looking for $59 million in cuts to make, I don’t know how they sleep at night cutting all of 5% from an entire STATE NETWORK of schools. Even if IUPUI cut 5% of it’s $1B budget, that wouldn’t be enough to cry about. I’d tell you how much IU as a system controls in its budget, but, uh, they don’t publish that and have nothing but a broken link and password-protected pages.
• Don’t get me started on this little gem from only a few years ago: Indiana’s public colleges and universities get an “F” for affordability. What a shame coming from a state in such a need of a more highly educated public, I guess.

All of this BS makes me hoppin’ mad. And don’t give me that, “But Justin, college grads make hundreds of thousands of dollars more in a lifetime than non-college grad” bull crap. Ever think that maybe the reason some people make more money than others is because they’re more ambitious, creative and desiring of a better lifestyle? Ambitious people tend to do ambitious things and school tends to fall into that. They’re a few others that would agree. The social aspect is bunk, too. Everyone knows at a school like IUPUI, no one socializes. Heck, even their own website says a little over a thousand students live on campus. There are more homeless people living under the overpass by campus than that.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the undergraduate degree is overrated. Especially when schools keep herding hundreds of students into programs like art and journalism, which have virtually no chances of ever being remotely profitable. If each school in the nation turned out 500 journalism grads, on average, each year, how many journalism jobs do you think there are in this country? Not enough, that’s for sure. What a bunch of liars.

Colleges and universities should report accurate statistics on who graduates from their programs, with what amount of debt and what they ultimately end up doing. That way when an art history major walks in the door, they know their chances of sweeping up shit at the zoo in 4 (or 6) years are 50/50.

This incessant need to research stuff is fine, but it had better bring results. What kind of an enterprise just gets to keep throwing money at problems that no one benefits from or had a problem to begin with anyway?

People who are teaching had better be damned passionate about what they teach and happen to enjoy teaching, to boot. No more grad students teaching intro courses. No more faculty members who like to study the mating habits of African dung beetles and nothing else forced to teach basic Bio 101. Competent adults, a desire to teach. Period. And lighten up on your lectures. Everyone knows people only retain about 10-20% of what they hear. You just keep talking because it’s darn cheap to yap at a room full of glazed eyeballs all day.

Stop raising tuition rates when you’re hiding behind millions, sometimes billions, in endowment money. If your amount of savings exceeds 10% of your annual operating budget each year, you have too much saved up for a public institution. Either spend it on a building project and pay for all of it in cash (no more tax and cost-spreading bonds) or immediately lower tuition rates. You’re a public entity — you don’t get to have profits beyond 10% of your budget.

Maybe then, and only then, can we start talking about real educational success in this country.

Indiana Emissions Testing

NPR’s Car Talk had a caller this weekend from Mishawaka, Indiana, who claimed to have a van that produced a noxious smell “worthy of germ warfare”.

In trying to figure out the problem, the Car Talk guys, Click and Clack, had the following exchange:

Click: “Do you guys have emissions testing in Indiana or don’t you care about the environment?”
Caller: “No, we don’t do emission testing in Indiana.”
Clack: “No, they just pull their car into a farm yard and count how many hogs keel over.”
Click: “So this is like a 10-hogger?”
Clack: “And then they give you a little windshield sticker that says, “10 Hogs”, don’t they?”
Clack: “Well. There goes a state!”

Good stuff. You can listen to it online for the rest of the week. It’s segment 9.

States Looking to Tax More

In the scramble to find something, anything, to generate more revenue, states are considering new taxes on virtually everything: garbage pickup, dating services, bowling night, haircuts, even clowns.

“It’s hard enough doing what we do,” grumbled John Luke, a plumber in the Philadelphia suburbs. His services would, for the first time, come with an added tax if the governor has his way.

Opponents of imposing taxes on services like funerals, legal advice, helicopter rides and dry cleaning argue that this push comes as businesses are barely clinging to life and can ill afford to see customers further put off by new taxes. This is especially true, they say, in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, where some of the most sweeping proposals are being considered this spring.

Not in Indiana. Somehow, Indiana has been affected by the recession just as much, if not more than Michigan and Pennsylvania, yet we’re ok. Gee, I wonder what the difference could be…

California Now Officially Worse than a Developing Country

Just in from the West Coast:

California’s debt is seen by investors as riskier than Kazakhstan’s, according to Bloomberg News. Five-year credit default swaps tied to California’s debt, which are a key measure of the market’s belief in the likelihood of default, are actually trading at 100 basis points above those of Kazakhstan. In other words, the market believes a developing country of just 15.7 million people is actually less likely to default on its debt than California, which makes up the eighth-largest economy in the world.

…

And last week, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan, the nation’s second largest bank, warned that California’s $20 billion budget gap could pose a bigger risk than the Greek debt crisis.

In other news, here in the Midwest, where rational people live:

During the fat years of the mid-2000s, while most governors went on spending sprees, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels was trimming Indiana’s payroll, slowing the state government’s growth, and turning a $800 million deficit into a consistent surplus. Now that times are hard, his fiscal rigor is paying off: the state’s projected budget shortfall for 2011, as a percentage of the budget, is the third-lowest in the country.

Can I C Ur Boobz?

The Indiana Legislature is taking a punt on sexting:

Proposed legislation making some teens’ practice of sending racy photos by cell phone a juvenile offense in Indiana appears headed for a summer legislative study committee to iron out policy problems.

Maybe some of my older readers can answer this question for me: what did 14 year olds do before sexting? I have a feeling it was actually being in the same room. Frankly, sexting is probably a good thing for parents. Let little Jimmy see Susie on his cell phone in his bedroom instead of actually being in the same room as Susie and going much further. To criminalize sexting dilutes the sex offender registry and just wastes time. I’ve checked the registry in my part of town and it’s mostly really old creepy guys or, more likely, a bunch of 18, 19 and 20 year olds who no doubt got caught with a slightly younger girl who was, for legal purposes, a juvenile.

Back to sexting, though. When I was in school, everyone used webcams to flaunt their naughty bits. I imagine before that everyone sent photos in emails and I suspect before that we all had phone sex. I bet as you go further back, people were probably etching themselves doing kinky stuff on cave walls.

Deal with it people.

Gay Marriage Legal in 9 States After Gay Makes Slam Dunk

The Onion, poignant as always:

Gay Marriage Passes In 9 States After Area Homosexual Dunks On Regulation Rim

MONTGOMERY, AL—A two-handed slam dunk by an openly homosexual man set off a chain of events this week that culminated in the legalization of gay marriage in nine states, including Mississippi and Alabama. “When I saw that dunk, I was like, ‘Whoa!’” said Alabama state Sen. Hinton Mitchem, adding that his office was flooded with calls and e-mails from constituents demanding legal recognition of same-sex marriages following the slam. “A guy with nasty moves like that should be entitled to the same fundamental rights as the rest of us.” On Thursday, the New York State Senate passed a resolution declaring that it would take a pretty sweet roundhouse kick from a gay mixed martial arts champion before it would allow homosexuals to marry.

In Indiana, it’ll require a Colts Superbowl win. Maybe two in a row. And, it wouldn’t hurt if Peyton Manning were gay.

More, Please

INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles is trying to save drivers a trip to BMV branch offices.

The BMV said Tuesday it has started offering online driver’s license renewals at the agency’s Web site. Officials also announced the BMV will allow people to renew vehicle registrations by phone, and they can go to certain AAA Hoosier Motor Club offices to renew driver’s licenses and identification cards.

The changes are the agency’s latest efforts to give customers more choices, BMV Commissioner Andy Miller said.

Although, just across the hall at Government Center South is FSSA, which, evidently, is the epitome of automation run amok with no goals, no efforts and no clue.

Indiana Shedding $400 Million More from State Budget

Looks like I picked a good time to get the heck out of dodge:

Gov. Mitch Daniels this morning announced an additional $300 million to $400 million in state spending cuts, including no pay raises for state employees and a moratorium on most state building projects.

Daniels said the cuts are necessary after state revenue projections missed for the fourth straight month. State tax collections in October were $46 million, or 4 percent, short of projections.

I’m not entirely sure how much more Gov. Daniels can cut before his powers as a governor are tapped dry. For now, they’re offering voluntary unpaid leave to state employees, plus an additional 5% cut to spending on top of the 5% whack back in July. Forgoing pay raises for this year will save the state an additional $20 million. The last arrow in his quiver is going to be employee furloughs for weeks at a time.

At least we can still claim, “We’re not California”. As Colbert said earlier this week, “California is so broke they tried burning it down for the insurance money.”

We’re number 12! We’re number 12!

Indiana ranks 12th in the annual State Business Tax Climate Index:

The states are scored on these taxes, and the scores are weighted based on the relative importance or impact of the tax to a business. Keeping a state competitive in today’s global marketplace can be difficult, but there is one factor lawmakers have direct control over: the quality of state tax systems. The Index measures how well a state’s tax system encourages investment by maintaining a broad tax base and low rates.

Where do other states rank? Glad you asked…

The top 10 states in the 2010 Index, from 1st to 10th, are South Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska, Nevada, Florida, Montana, New Hampshire, Delaware, Washington and Utah. The bottom 10 states, from 41st to 50th, are Vermont, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Maryland, Iowa, Ohio, California, New York and New Jersey.

Maybe instead of looking for business investment in China, Gov. Daniels should just go to New York, California and New Jersey.

A Letter to Rep. John Barnes and Gov. Mitch Daniels

Dear Gov. Daniels and Rep. John Barnes,

My name is Justin Harter. I’m a home-owning, tax-paying resident of Indianapolis’ Warren Township. Aside from all the banter regarding township government in Marion County, I have a more important issue. It’s about the Homestead Tax Deduction.

You see, I bought my house in October of 2007. I was told that because the home I bought wasn’t owner-occupied prior to my purchase, I would need to file for a Homestead Tax Deduction. Currently, my mortgage for a modest three bedroom home north of Beech Grove costs $906 a month. That includes principal, taxes and insurance.

I filed for my deduction in November 2007. Gov. Daniels, you signed an order extending the Homestead Tax Deduction deadline a few months when taxpayers erupted at poor assessments in Marion County. Unfortunately, I still did not get covered. That meant I had to wait until May before the changes would, in theory, take effect.

No such luck. Since Indiana pays taxes one year in arrears, my tax deduction wouldn’t take effect until May 2008. At that point, I’d still have to wait ANOTHER year before I’d start seeing deductions on my monthly mortgage payments. I expect to save nearly $250-$300 a month when the deduction finally applies.

At this rate, over the last three years, come November 2009, I will have paid $9,000 in additional taxes that should never have applied in the first place if one could just walk to the Assessor’s office and simply file for the exemption and have the changes take effect in a few months.

In terms of our economy, do you know what I could do with an extra $250 a month? Or what I could do with $9,000? I could pay off nearly half of my car. Or, I could have been paying the same $906 a month and paid off my mortgage in a fraction of the 30 year term.

Has anyone given any thought to changing the way Indiana files Homestead Exemptions?

Sincerely,

Justin Harter

Indianapolis, District 89

Editor’s Note: This message has been mailed to Ind. Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) and State Rep. John Barnes (D., Indianapolis).