I’m also having trouble seeing the point of today’s N&R article on the effect budget cuts will have on class size at UNCG, other than to air more complaints from faculty. They’re smart people over at UNCG —- that’s why they work at a university, right? —- so I think they’ll somehow figure out how to teach classes with fewer people and less money. And with the state of the newspaper industry right now, is it such a tragedy that journalism courses are being cut? Seems to me like it’s simple market forces at work.
UNCG history department head Charles Bolton says that “classes that are capped at 100 students that will now have 140 and some that are at 40 that will go to 50.” But will those numbers really make that much of a difference?
Large classes are not new at college universities, and students somehow have been able to make it in the real world. I took several stadium-seating classes at UNCG in ’80s, and look at me. OK, maybe not the best example, but…..
Update: The Business Journal reports that an audit of UNCG’s financial statements shows “increases in operating expenses outpaced growth in revenues,” the biggest increase coming from “salaries and benefits, which rose from $178.8 million in 2007 to $203.2 million in 2008.”
