In a recent budget discussion at Georgetown I noticed the following statistic, which I'm told is pretty standard: roughly 13% of our main campus budget (roughly A&S and business) goes to faculty salaries.
Universities now provide housing, entertainment, health care, world class sports, electronic media and computing resources, counseling, thousands of funded clubs, gyms, parking, private roads, bike paths, gardens, parks, and often farms, private police protection, etc. In short, most of the resources of a city.
So I just had a thought: how much would it cost to have a university that only paid for research and teaching, or a college that only provided teaching. Find your own place to live, pay for your own entertainment, etc, just come here for classes. I suppose community colleges are closer to that model, though not that close, but why equate it to limited educational/research focus?
Does this strike anyone else as a useful thought experiment?
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