Puppets on parade: Privatize UNC-Chapel Hill

Submitted by scharrison on Mon, 01/17/2011 - 1:29pm

And the bad ideas keep coming:

Reducing Chapel Hill's $297.6 million annual appropriation could account for much of the UNC system's share of budget cuts. In return, Chapel Hill will gain the kind of autonomy likely to improve its standing in the world of academia.

Plus, it might make the school desperate enough for funding that it would finally acquiesce to the creation of a school of White Supremacy Western Civilization to combat all that cultural diversity stuff.

Chapel Hill is the one UNC school with enough resources to raise tuitions significantly without losing middle-income students. Because many of its students are from prosperous families, they can pay more to subsidize their less prosperous classmates, as at private colleges. Also, the school's sizeable endowment earnings can help with scholarships.

Those endowments are (by and large) intended to fund special facilities, projects and programs, which add to the uniqueness of the school. Without that, those well-heeled parents will send their kids elsewhere, totally screwing up your rich-helping-the-poor fantasy scenario.

I sure hope the News & Observer was paid well to print this tripe, because it definitely isn't going to help circulation numbers...

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I can't even. Seriously. What

Submitted by C. Diane on Mon, 01/17/2011 - 2:11pm.

I can't even. Seriously. What the hell?

It's not like UNC doesn't make the top 15 in best value in US News' rankings every year, and is the top public university on that list.

Damn, Libertarians piss me off. I wish they'd move to New Hampshire and enact their Libertarian Utopia there and leave the rest of us alone to watch it implode.

It's even worse

Submitted by scharrison on Mon, 01/17/2011 - 2:35pm.

It's not just Libertarianism behind a lot of what these guys push. Their efforts are often the extension of their master's anger and prejudice. In this case, he's angry that UNC-CH has resisted his efforts to manipulate what's taught at the school. He's succeeded elsewhere, and it pisses him off that he can't wield the same influence at Chapel Hill.

Leaving the Puppetmaster aside...

Submitted by C. Diane on Mon, 01/17/2011 - 5:14pm.

(Though I do agree he's got to be stopped before he turns NC into hell), the whole privatize everything! Taxation is theft! Free market! Invisible hand! "philosophy" makes me completely irrationally angry.

Yeah, me too

Submitted by scharrison on Mon, 01/17/2011 - 6:24pm.

It's almost exclusively theoretical in nature, with no (substantial) real-world examples to back it up, and it has the potential to unravel the fabric of collective governing and plunge us into anarchy.

And the fact that they refuse to acknowledge that danger, even though there are numerous real-world examples of it, is even more evidence they're part of a cult.

That's what they want.

Submitted by C. Diane on Mon, 01/17/2011 - 8:30pm.

Anarchy or a return to feudalism, and they all think they'll be the Lords, not the serfs.

They're so caught up in their Gedankenexperiment and seeing just how perfect and wonderful it is inside their heads that they don't give a crap about the consequences in the real world. According to a Libertarian friend of mine, that's the difference between libertarians and liberals. We care about the outcomes.

Sick.

Small problem

Submitted by Blue South on Mon, 01/17/2011 - 3:57pm.

From the Constitution:

Sec. 8. Higher education.

The General Assembly shall maintain a public system of higher education, comprising The University of North Carolina and such other institutions of higher education as the General Assembly may deem wise. The General Assembly shall provide for the selection of trustees of The University of North Carolina and of the other institutions of higher education, in whom shall be vested all the privileges, rights, franchises, and endowments heretofore granted to or conferred upon the trustees of these institutions. The General Assembly may enact laws necessary and expedient for the maintenance and management of The University of North Carolina and the other public institutions of higher education.

Sec. 9. Benefits of public institutions of higher education.

The General Assembly shall provide that the benefits of The University of North Carolina and other public institutions of higher education, as far as practicable, be extended to the people of the State free of expense.

"Keep the Faith"