An Article I’d Love to Read

When I wrote my book, my guiding principle was to write the book I would have wanted to read when I moved into administration.

Now there’s an article I’d like to read, but I don’t have the research base to write it. So I’ll cast it upon the virtual waters and hope somebody with the ability to write it picks it up.

It would focus on budget cuts that don’t hurt.

Cuts that hurt are obvious: layoffs, program closures, college closures, furloughs, deferred maintenance, pay freezes, travel freezes, etc. It’s a well-worn playbook at this point. (It’s so established that IHE actually runs a monthly article just to keep up with major budgetary moves at colleges and universities across the country.) Most of the moves in this category involve either attacking employee compensation, which causes obvious pain, or putting off necessary investments and living with gradual declines in quality.

I’d love to be able to avoid the question altogether, but that’s not really an option. And some of the larger-scale political changes that would make a major difference are well beyond what any given college could achieve on its own.

I’ve seen a few cuts that don’t hurt, but nothing resembling a systematic study. This is where some enterprising scholar could make a real difference. Admins all over the country would devour a good piece outlining nontoxic ways to free up resources.

Examples of cuts that don’t hurt include:

• Energy efficiency. Utilities are a recurring part of the operating budget. Improving efficiency of heating, cooling and lighting can free up money for other purposes without harming anyone on campus. It would also reduce the environmental impact of a campus, which is a good outcome in itself.
• Stipends for refusing health insurance. I’ve seen colleges offer eligible employees small annual stipends in exchange for forgoing the health insurance offered by the college. In practice, this nearly always reflects an employee going on their spouse’s plan. It’s a version of cost-shifting, rather than a long-term solution to health insurance, but enticing some employees who have the option to take that option reduces the college’s expenses without leaving anybody exposed.

• Early-retirement incentives. Replacing someone at the top of the seniority scale with a relative newbie usually saves tens of thousands of dollars a year. As long as the move is genuinely voluntary, it can be a win-win. Of course, when those who retire aren’t replaced, the harm accrues to the person who never got the chance to be hired. That person is usually impossible to name individually, but the effects are visible in the aggregate.

What those have in common is that they’re noncoercive, they don’t compromise the mission and they can result in significant savings.

What else have people done that reduces costs without undue pain or dilution of the mission? If you’ve seen a good one, please write me at deandad (at) gmail (dot) com; I’ll compile the best ones and publish them in a forthcoming column. And if you’re an enterprising researcher looking for a topic that will earn you respect and widespread attention in the field, by all means, have at it. Take the idea with my blessings.

Thanks!