Letters To The Editor
LETTER: Privatization of Higher Ed Violates R.I. Constitution
OPINION: The benefits afforded the president of URI are excessive and violate the R.I. Constitution.
As reported in the press (here and here), the University of Rhode Island has spent close to $500,000 on repairs of its president's tuition-funded home, which is among the fringe benefits that come with the president's job, such as a car, an expense account, and club dues. Excessive administrative spending is but one of many results of nationwide privatization of public education. Particularly distressing in this context is the root cause of this development, namely the decline of the fraction of the URI budget that comes from the Rhode Island general revenue, a percentage that has dropped from 60 percent in the 1950s to less than 10 percent currently. Privatization has resulted in an explosive increase in tuition. As documented in Trends…
