2017 Apr 4^th

I’ll bet you’ve never heard of Jarrett Skorup. Mr. Skorup is “a policy analyst at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank in Midland,” He had the privilege of airing his views on funding higher education in this morning’s Traverse City Record Eagle. The title of his opinion piece was, “Do universities deserve the funding they receive?” I’ll bet that without ever reading Skorup’s piece you can guess at his answer to that question.

Skorup uses the University of Michigan as his whipping boy; he points out that the majority of families of these kids earn over 100 thousand dollars a year; and that students whose family income is less than 70 thousand dollars a year pay no tuition at all. Michigan has an endowment of over 500 million so why do they need any tax money? Of course if Michigan can make it without any tax money why should any of the other Michigan colleges need any tax money? It may surprise Skorup to know that not all Michigan colleges are as well endowed as the University of Michigan. Graduates of Michigan Tech who incur debt will graduate owing about 45 thousand dollars.

Even the typical Michigan student who must borrow to attend Michigan will graduate with about 25 thousand dollars of debt. Tuition is not the only expense a college student must worry about. Michigan, in addition to tuition, will cost an undergraduate student about 14 thousand dollars a year for room, board, and books.

The undergraduate problem is only part of the picture. Scholarships for medical students are a rarity. Tuition at Michigan’s medical school is about 60 thousand dollars a year. The new M.D. will graduate from Michigan with about 137 thousand dollars of debt. If they graduate from Oakland University’s medical school their indebtedness will run between160 thousand and 250 thousand dollars. Of course the new medical school graduate may still have a load of undergraduate debt.

Medical specialists earn several times more money than a general practitioner, or an internist. An orthopedic surgeon will make about 450 thousand a year, a thoracic surgeon about 533 thousand and a GP perhaps 170 thousand. Is it any wonder that physicians want to specialize?

Skorup writes, “it isn’t clear that more spending on higher education is a good idea.” Of course not. Why would we need more physicians? Why would we need more teachers trained in the sciences to motivate kids to become physicians? What about educating more agronomists to help Michigan’s farmers?

Isn’t Skorup supposed to be associated with a “Think Tank?” If these questions are the result of that association maybe we should have a closer look at this “thinker’s” background. Skorup graduated from Grove City College a very religiously conservative four-year college. This college does not offer its faculty tenure, so anyone not hueing the college’s party line can be fired immediately. According to Mackinac Center’s website Skorup’s educational experience stopped with his undergraduate degree; he has never attended graduate school, he has never been on a college faculty and he is woefully out of his depth with this assignment about government funding of higher education. Perhaps next time the Mackinac Center can do better.2017 Apr 4^th

I’ll bet you’ve never heard of Jarrett Skorup. Mr. Skorup is “a policy analyst at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank in Midland,” He had the privilege of airing his views on funding higher education in this morning’s Traverse City Record Eagle. The title of his opinion piece was, “Do universities deserve the funding they receive?” I’ll bet that without ever reading Skorup’s piece you can guess at his answer to that question.

Skorup uses the University of Michigan as his whipping boy; he points out that the majority of families of these kids earn over 100 thousand dollars a year; and that students whose family income is less than 70 thousand dollars a year pay no tuition at all. Michigan has an endowment of over 500 million so why do they need any tax money? Of course if Michigan can make it without any tax money why should any of the other Michigan colleges need any tax money? It may surprise Skorup to know that not all Michigan colleges are as well endowed as the University of Michigan. Graduates of Michigan Tech who incur debt will graduate owing about 45 thousand dollars.

Even the typical Michigan student who must borrow to attend Michigan will graduate with about 25 thousand dollars of debt. Tuition is not the only expense a college student must worry about. Michigan, in addition to tuition, will cost an undergraduate student about 14 thousand dollars a year for room, board, and books.

The undergraduate problem is only part of the picture. Scholarships for medical students are a rarity. Tuition at Michigan’s medical school is about 60 thousand dollars a year. The new M.D. will graduate from Michigan with about 137 thousand dollars of debt. If they graduate from Oakland University’s medical school their indebtedness will run between160 thousand and 250 thousand dollars. Of course the new medical school graduate may still have a load of undergraduate debt.

Medical specialists earn several times more money than a general practitioner, or an internist. An orthopedic surgeon will make about 450 thousand a year, a thoracic surgeon about 533 thousand and a GP perhaps 170 thousand. Is it any wonder that physicians want to specialize?

Skorup writes, “it isn’t clear that more spending on higher education is a good idea.” Of course not. Why would we need more physicians? Why would we need more teachers trained in the sciences to motivate kids to become physicians? What about educating more agronomists to help Michigan’s farmers?

Isn’t Skorup supposed to be associated with a “Think Tank?” If these questions are the result of that association maybe we should have a closer look at this “thinker’s” background. Skorup graduated from Grove City College a very religiously conservative four-year college. This college does not offer its faculty tenure, so anyone not hueing the college’s party line can be fired immediately. According to Mackinac Center’s website Skorup’s educational experience stopped with his undergraduate degree; he has never attended graduate school, he has never been on a college faculty and he is woefully out of his depth with this assignment about government funding of higher education. Perhaps next time the Mackinac Center can do better.