Here’s a headline that ought to make your blood boil: “MSU’s $500M payout could mean tuition hike, using taxpayer money.”
The reference is to the lawsuit settlement between the university and the 332 victims (to date) of serial molester and former MSU gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, who was enabled by a university culture that preferred to look the other way.
Five hundred million divided by 332 works out to about $1.5 million per victim. As a taxpayer and father of three college students, I have no quibble with the amount, except that it probably isn’t enough. But then I doubt there is an amount big enough to make the hurt go away and help these young women get on with their lives.
What does bother me is interim MSU President John Engler saying, essentially, “Hey, no worries, we can just raise tuition.”
Where’s he get off? That’s like a kid crashing the family car then telling his buddies, “No worries, mom and dad will cover it.”
The university hasn’t said yet how it’ll pay the settlement, so tuition increases or passing the buck to the state are just options at this point.
But they’re options that shouldn’t even be on the table.
First off, we’re already drowning this generation of students in debt. I don’t know all the reasons behind the rapid run-up in the cost of college over the past decade, but I do know that, according to studentloanhero.com , in 2014, there “was approximately $1.3 trillion of outstanding student loan debt in the U.S. that affected 44 million borrowers who had an average outstanding loan balance of $37,172.”
I also know that many students and parents are looking at that last figure and laughing. They know that many kids owe much, much more for their undergrad degrees.
MSU is a great example. According to collegedata.com, the annual cost of attendance (including tuition, room and board, books and other expenses) is $28,428. Multiply that by four years and you get $113,712. Many students take five or six years to finish.
Then there’s grad school. Again, I don’t know how or when this happened, but somehow the education industry has convinced a huge swath of the last few generations – and the business world – that a bachelor’s degree simply isn’t enough, and that if you really want to get somewhere you also need a master’s degree or a doctorate. Spin those cash register wheels.
The result is kids these days are swamped with debt before they even enter the work world. And we wonder why millennials are getting married and having kids later.
Here’s the other reason students and taxpayers shouldn’t pay a dime for the Nassar settlement: There should be pain. The university should have to dip into its endowment fund, cancel projects or trim budgets until the debt is cleared.
If the university can simply pass the cost of horrible behavior along to taxpayers or students, where’s the incentive to fix a culture that told one victim that she just simply didn’t understand the “nuanced difference” between sexual assault and an appropriate medical procedure?
You might say, “Why, of course, they’d still fix the culture. That’s just human decency.”
OK, so where was this decency all the years that Nassar preyed on girls?
While it pains me, as a Spartan, to read this, you are absolutely right. The cost of MSU’s abhorrent behavior should not be borne by the student body. And, oh dear Lord, how can we get Engler out of there?
“There should be pain” – 100% yes. The university needs to feel it, not students in the form of more debt. The amount they already are saddled with is sinful. Once again your points are spot on, Andrew. Engler needs to hear them. (Agreed Pam, he needs to be gone.)
This is what happens when schools and their Board of Trustees adopt an elitist behavior, especially toward winning. Of course, everyone loves a winner and donations increase when a school produces winners. However, when winning supersedes quality of life and quality of learning, when athletics supersede academics and school safety, the school, the students, and the taxpayers that support higher education lose. We need administrators and boards that take their job as promoters of education seriously. There are many who should be feeling the pain for this, but the brunt of that pain should not be the students and their families.
There are three sources of funding that can pay the lawsuit.
1. Taxpayer funding received by MSU
2. Tuition from students
3. MSU Endowment
If the money were directly removed from the MSU Endowment Fund, taxpayer dollars and student tuition would be used over the next decade or two to replenish the Endowment Fund. No matter how you look at it, student tuition and taxpayer dollars will be used. Essentially any time a lawsuit is targeted at a public institution, taxpayer dollars are the target.
City of Flint suing the State of Michigan over water issues – State of Michigan taxpayers are the target. It’s the exact same financial philosophy.
I would be interested to see how much could be generated per annum by increasing all sports events tickets by 15%. Could this be a viable source of funding for the victim’s payout?
The university should identify all staff who ever had any part of this Nassar ordeal.
The staff should bear the cost of these settlements, not the students or the tax payers.
Recoup the $500M payout from the bad actors by whatever means are possible.
With regards to college student loan debt, I apply the exact same logic Andy Heller provided in his article regarding the MSU lawsuit payout.
There is no way in Hell that taxpayers should pay one penny of that loan debt.
You sign for that loan, you get the money, you pay it back. End of story. There is no way in Hell we need a college welfare program. If the debt is too much, DON’T TAKE THE DAMNED VOLUNTARY LOAN! Nobody holds a gun to your head and forces you to take any loan.
I agree with you 100% on college loan debt.
If you take out a loan, pay it back, very simple.
If you can not afford the terms of the loan, do not take it.
In Working Dad’s world, passing the consequences of sexual assualt on young women and children to the tax payers, the tax payers covering the overwhelming costs of student loans, and the tax payers covering the cost of replacing Flint’s water pipes, are all the same offenses.
Create an extremely high local alcohol tax. Solve two problems at once.
Love this idea!
Great Column…right on!!
As soon as I read “John Engler”, I flinched. You go Andrew. Enjoy your columns.
Many people have that flinching problem when it comes to that asshole.
For sure.
I just googled the basics of the MSU Endowment:
MSU has $2.7 Billion. They say this produces $856 Million for MSU, (That seems wrong to me. That would be a 32% return rate.)
Nevertheless, MSU could take the $500 Million settlement out of the Endowment, and have $2.2 Billion left. Then, going by their figures, the Endowment would provide $163 Million LESS to MSU. That is a lot less than $500 Million, but it is big money. MSU would need to make it up.
Let me revise what I just wrote about the MSU Endowment. If MSU takes the $500 Million settlement from its Endowment, it appears MSU only will need to make up about $26 Million per year. (It appears the Endowment’s contribution is about 5% per year, rather than 32%.)
MSU could raise an extra $26 Million, for the next several years, just by appealing to its alumni and supporters. MSU alumni LOVE MSU.
Of course, you are absolutely correct. This whole debacle by my alma matar has severally tarnished my degrees and leaves me much less proud to be an alumnus.
Your degrees are not tarnished in any way.
Makes you wonder how many more Nassars are out there.