RALEIGH – Okay, listen up. For now on, anyone who tries to argue for more taxpayer funding for the University of North Carolina system, or even to protect the current level of operational and capital expenditure for UNC, is no longer allowed to make the following, previously familiar arguments:
“The university’s library is so underfunded that it can’t afford basic academic books and journals.”
“Many students are struggling to keep up with their share of the rising cost of their undergraduate education.”
“Our best and brightest faculty members are being lured away for more pay.”
“Students aren’t graduating on time because there aren’t enough sections of major courses available.”
“Our labs and dorms are crumbling.”
Why can’t UNC defenders make these arguments anymore? It’s not because the propositions lack any supporting evidence. There are books and journals that libraries have foregone for budgetary reasons. Some students (though not many, actually) are struggling to keep up with rising tuition and fees. A few professors have been lured away to other campuses. Students do have trouble finding some classes available. And there are real physical-plant problems.
But the reason why these arguments do not form a persuasive case for greater taxpayer largesse is that they’ve been around a long, long time. I remember hearing them back when I first hit the UNC-Chapel Hill campus as a student more than 20 years ago. Since that time, state operating support for UNC has risen significantly, even after adjusting for inflation and enrollment. Additional billions in taxpayer money will pay off recent bonds for campus construction and renovation projects. And yet, the same folks keep caterwauling in pretty much the same way about the same issues.
So where has the money gone? Well, there are a number of new academic programs and departments, many of dubious merit. Administrative costs have mushroomed. The most egregious recent example of UNC’s misplaced priorities, however, made the front page of the Raleigh News & Observer on Sunday. It seems that the Chapel Hill campus really needed a new student center where undergraduates could catch a quick, simple meal while reading Shakespeare, contemplating Plato, working out the causal implications of quantum mechanics, and researching the political machinations of 16th century Florentines.
Just kidding. The new $70 million Rams Head Center, built in part with millions of dollars in taxpayer dollars and higher student fees, seems destined to become an instant memorial to academic excess. For instance:
The center’s End Zone sports cafe is a sensory extravaganza. Each tabletop is emblazoned with photos of Tar Heel sports teams and remote control buttons for wall-mounted plasma TVs (a dome of speakers above each table directs the sound to that table.)
There’s no waiting in line, either. Students order their food on a touch screen with a swipe of their ID cards, then grab a pager that notifies them when it’s ready.
The second floor features about 40 video and virtual reality games, along with such old-fashioned favorites as a basketball shooting cage and air hockey. In the corner is “Turret Tower,” an octagon-shaped booth containing a helicopter simulator that tilts left to right and rotates 360 degrees. Players strap themselves into the cockpit and wield six weapons to destroy the virtual enemy.
Nope, I just don’t want to hear the bit about the journal-less library ever again. After all, who’s got time to look up journal articles when the line at “Turret Tower” is so long?
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.