Governor of Kentucky, Matthew G. Bevin, recently announced that the state would be cutting university funding. He said the state would grant financial rewards to institutions that have successful outcomes. This seems reasonable. As we have discussed, government has a limited amount of funds and must carefully decide how to use them. Investing money in failing institutions at the expense of scientific research, elderly care or defense does seem like an unwise decision. However, as I have learned from class discussions and other articles, measuring success rates is often tricky. It is difficult to track students post graduation, and certain factors may be artificially pulling down the graduation rate (for instance, some people only intend to take one or two classes to sharpen their skills in an area and beef up their resume). Republican Governor Bevin has a very particular way of measuring success, that is, taxpayer potential. He derogatorily remarks, “all the people in the world that want to study French literature can do so. They are just not going to be subsidized by the taxpayer like engineers.” This is certainly a very conservative view, and we can imagine that left-wing thinkers would disagree. While people pursuing a liberal arts degree will not necessarily contribute as much to the tax bank, they are enriching our communities with culture and art and a kind of sophistication you can’t get from mixing chemicals or solving math problems. We can also imagine that a population made solely of doctors, engineers and businessmen would quickly become very dull.
Link to article: Kentucky Governor Orders Immediate Cut in Funds to Universities
