Red ink in state budget ledgers across the country has prompted many lawmakers to take on the sacred cow of university professors? tenure, according to the latest Bloomberg Businessweek.
By taking the cash, [a retiring University of South Florida professor] joined hundreds of professors at public universities across the U.S. who have been coaxed into retirement with offers of as much as two years’ pay.
Faced with 2012 deficits estimated at a total of $140 billion, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, states are looking to their university systems for savings, even if it means circumventing the once-sacrosanct tenure system. “Most states have horrific budget problems, and they haven’t dealt with the kinds of cuts in higher education that are going to be necessary,” says Roger Meiners, who teaches economics at the University of Texas at Arlington and has written a book about tenure. “These buyouts will become more common.” ?
The buyouts also make business sense: Pay for tenured professors averages $117,000 a year at the top 200 U.S. public universities, according to the American Association of University Professors. Annual contracts for replacement instructors cost an average $52,500, the group said in an April report.
One suspects George Leef would lose no sleep over efforts to thin the ranks of university faculties full of higher-paid tenured professors.
