Ending the Budget Wars: Funding the Humanities during a Crisis in Higher Education

Abstract

The year 2008 ended badly for finance, manufacturing, and the rest of the economy in the United States and abroad. The same can be said for higher education. The richest university in the world, Harvard, lost over 22% of its endowment in four months, prompting a hiring freeze that echoed those at other major universities (Fabrikant; see also Moran and Wiedeman). A series of dire reports also appeared. Measuring Up 2008 gave 49 of 50 states an F in affordability (Natl. Center). Trends in Student Aid 2008 noted that student borrowing has doubled in the last decade (in constant dollars) and that the market share of commercial loans has quadrupled (Coll. Board). The crisis in affordability has accelerated shocking declines in educational attainment: for the first time in United States history, younger people are less educated than their baby-boom parents (Natl. Center; Coll. Board, figs. 1–4).1 In California, where per-student state funding for the University of California has now fallen about 65% since 1990 (corrected for inflation), the college participation rate of nineteen-year-olds fell from 43% to 30% in just eight years (1996–2004), a drop that may be one of the quickest in education in the modern history of wealthy nations (Newfield, Bohn, Moore, and Glantz; Mortenson).2 Last but not least, the MLA’ s employment report Education in the Balance shows that the permanent workforce in English has continued to be supplemented with adjunct and other contingent teaching labor. The higher education funding model is