Postby Will Brown » Tue Sep 07, 2010 4:17 pm
I think few colleges keep many of their graduates in the local area. How many Eli's are hanging around the campus after graduation? And in any event, I think we outlawed slavery and indentiture.
So the reason we would want to subsidize a college would be because of the economic activity they cause (professors and custodians pay taxes and buy homes), the prestige of having such institutions, the convenience to our children of having a college experience they can afford, and the cultural activities they bring to the community, such as a winning football or basketball team. Granted, our local schools have fallen a bit short in some of these areas.
There are places where a higher percentage of graduates stay in the area, but I think that is primarily in the area of technology, where companies have sprung up in some areas, particularly California, partly because of the graduates who want to stay there, but primarily because of the weather and ambience of the area. There isn't a lot we can do with the weather; this will never be a tourist destination. But there is no reason we couldn't attract students by excelling in certain fields, and working to get some form of cooperation between the schools and some new industries. We have to make the best of what we have; perhaps given the large number of homicides we have, a local university could become expert in the field of forensic medicine and attract students that way.
I give credit to the University of Akron; they have improved themselves quite a bit and are enjoying the fruits of that work.
Cleveland State may be making some improvement, but it suffers from being a non-residential school, and from having to fill its seats largely with people who cannot afford to go elsewhere, or who cannot meet admissions standards elsewhere. For example, if you wanted to study music, wouldn't you rather go to CIM, BW, or Oberlin, or even CWRU, if you could, than to CSU?
As for CCC, I think it would be interesting to see how many of their graduates go on to a four-year college; and in fact, how many of them derive any benefit from required courses that are not related to their often vocational objectives. The CCC faculty and administration is very well paid, and I wonder how much we are wasting paying for courses that are perhaps not really needed. It might be a blow to their egos, but I think the market they serve is primarily vocational, and they should be honest about it and call themselves a trade school, and alter their budgets accordingly.
In any event, the citizens, not the politicians, have opted to give some support to CCC. And CSU is state funded. So this is a matter that is largely out of the hands of the local politicians, and someone else is going to have to do the work of improving it.
Society in every state is a blessing, but the Government even in its best state is but a necessary evil...