Misguided University Students Protest The Wrong Thing

University of Nevada students have started protests over education cutbacks. Students should indeed be protesting. However, they are protesting the wrong thing!

To help straighten this out, please consider UNLV Students Walk Out of Classes in Budget Protest.

College students around Las Vegas are demanding lawmakers leave higher education alone.

To prove just how serious they are about fighting back, hundreds walked out of class Tuesday and headed to the Grant Sawyer Building, where lawmakers were holding an finance committee meeting, to make sure leaders get the point.

"I think people are fired up. It is very clear that we are not going anywhere and it's very clear that we are serious about what we want," said student Michael Flores.

Nevada Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley and Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, and others, came to thank the students for their passion. "Can there be some level of cuts? Yes. But can it be 30-percent? No," said Buckley.

By protesting against budget cuts, students are protesting in favor of higher tuition and higher taxes.

Protesting is the right thing to do, but they ought to be protesting tuition and teacher salaries instead.

University Salaries

Here is a some information I gathered the other the other day on university salaries. I started with the University of California. However, I am sure salary insanity exists at all major universities.

Please consider University of California Pay Schedules.

I did a search for "Gross Pay Greater Than $75,000" and found 38,041 hits.

A search for "Gross Pay Greater Than $100,000" turned up 21,529 hits.

Gross Pay Greater Than $150,000 Has 7,669 Hits

Amazingly, schools have the gall to complain they are being underfunded by the state. They are not underfunded, there are tens of thousands of school employees who are overpaid.

click on table for sharper image

Look at slot #8. An associate professor makes $971,973 in "extra Pay" for a grand total of $1,098,588.

Close to $4 billion a year goes to those making $75,000 a year or more. $2.66 billion goes to 21,529 employees making over $100,000 a year.

Bear in mind those are 2008 figures.

Kids on campus ought to take those salary schedules and post them on every university bulletin board they can find. In fact, they ought to print out lists and march right into the Dean's Office and protest.

Instead, students in Nevada are protesting budget cuts. The irony is that without budget cuts and without teacher salary cuts, tuition will keep rising. Effectively, students are rallying for their own demise.

Mish

GlobalEconomicAnalysis.blogspot.com

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