My friend Michael, who spends part of
his life dealing with people who don't pay their student loans, turns
a jaundiced eye on the whole matter of higher education bloat.
Michael signs on with those who think they see demand push: the
government makes funds available to students via various forms of
credit, easy and otherwise; the students tank up on the stuff and
the colleges and universities get to build bigger, fancier, more palatial
building, higher more faculty deans and assorted administrators and
do the other things that people do when somebody gives them a bunch of
greenbacks to play with. Michael is remembering the great boom in
health care spending when we pressed new dollars into the hands of
consumers without doing much of anything to increase the supply of
medical services. If you come, they will build it, especially if you
come bearing a government subsidy or guarantee.
[Second theme in a minor key: except in this
case, of course, the students are the ones left standing when the
music stops. The shortfall on all this easy credit is not
dischargeable in bankruptcy, and just try paying your $200k
professional school marker with your income as a massage therapy
assistant. True, but I don't think it undercuts the main thrust of the story].
I'm thinking of Michael this week when
I'm back in Ashland, Oregon for another shot of Shakespeare. Allow
me to explain. I just now did a quick check on the history of the
Ashland festival. . Sure enough, when the festival started in the
30s, it hardly deserved the name: just two plays a year in the
inaugural 1935 season, then three, then four, then five—and then
leveled off at five through 1969 (with couple of blips along the
way). The year 1970 brought the opening of the big new indoor
theatre named after the founder Angus Bowmer, and allowed them to kick up the
annual count of productions to nine. In 1977 they added the
shirt-pocket “third theatre,” although the number of productions
didn't increase exponentially: the modal number through most of the
time from them up to the present seems to be about 11.
There have been internal changes: the
current outdoor theatre is actually the third on site. This current outdoor facility went into service in 1958, although there was a multi-million
dollar upgrade in 1992. A new “little theatre” subbed out the
original smaller performance space, also in 1992. Staff and
administrative facilities have also evolved over the years though
not, perhaps, in the way you might think: there's still nothing like
the costly palaces that adorn so many college and university
campusus.
What you do note if you look around you
is the increase in personnel. Wiki
reports that there is a fulltime payroll of 300, including about
100 actors: that would mean 200 in the backshop, plus part-timers and
volunteers. Is this “too many”? I'm not ready to say so, but
just as a guess, I'm betting Angus Bowmer did not have
the services of “voice and text director” plus a “head of voice
and text,” nor a “director of literary development and
dramaturgy,” nor a “resident fight director,” saying nothing of
an “associate costume designer,” at least three “composers &
sound designers” a “voice & projection designer” a “dance
captain” plus individual individual directors, scene designers,
light directors, costume designers for particular plays, and suchlike. And a dramaturg; I
always wanted to be a dramaturg—in a pinch I'd settle for assistant
dramaturg.
I'm sure these are all total cheap
shots; I'm sure I've enjoyed every single piece of work that every
one of these worthies has carried out. And I don't mean to say they
are rolling in the big bucks: Guide Star shows them running a deficit
in the range of $2.5 million on revenues of $27 million (there's also a
foundation). But you'll have to concede: there is a certain sense of
mission creep here. Outfits like this never get smaller. They may
die; they may choke on their own bodily fluids in the section
501(c)(3) equivalent of pulmonary edema. Otherwise, the pathway is a ratchet and the only trajectory is up.
And what does all this have to do with
higher education bloat? Well I admit, the comparison is not 1:1.
Ashland doesn't finance the purchase of theatre tickets. And if they
did, the liability wouldn't be exempted from discharge in bankruptcy.
But look around you: whom do you see in the crowd outside the theatre
at Ashland, this balmy autumn afternoon? My guess would be you are
looking at upwards of 60 percent public employees, maybe upwards of
70 percent. And of these, I'm betting that more than half are present
or retired employees of public educational institutions--i.e., the same universities and colleges who have profited so much from the boom in higher education. If somebody
passes out in an Ashland theatre and you yell “is there a doctor in the house?” you'll probably get a response, maybe
several. But perchance you should ask for a professor of rhetoric,
my guess is that there would be a stampede. [I'll bet a good three
quarters also own public broadcasting tote bags but that is another
story.]
In other words, what we are seeing here
is the recycling of the money that went into the education bubble:
the great web of non-profit life. Again, I feel no need to deride:
I'm one of the proud holders of this lucky ticket and I think I
worked hard for my good luck, thankyouvery much. But it's a good
life, even if I am not a dramaturg. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to
see the show.
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