ATL, The UCLA Tuition "Riots," and Moi

I got a certain amount of narcissistic amusement out of the comment thread to Above the Law's post quoting yours truly on the UCLA tuition "riot." It seems I'm an overpaid (or, in one case, underpaid) Catholic nutjob:

Commenter 25: "How is Bainbridge in the classroom? Okay prof?"

Commenter 28:

I liked his class reasonably well. He's got an ideological bent and his class reflects it, but whatever.

I liked him less after I started reading his (generally thoughtful) blog, but mostly because of his occasionally lapses into the realm of born-again Catholocism.

Seriously, if you convert to that batshit religion as thinking and educated adult, something is deeply wrong with you. In fact, that's a decent rule for all people who consciously choose religion as an adult.

Good heavens. I thought I kept my preferences for free markets and free people pretty well hidden in class. Oh well. As for my conversion to Catholicism, I'm content to take my stand with Augustine, Aquinas, Thomas More, John Paul II, Michael Novak, and the countless other "thinking and educated" Catholic intellectuals through history.

Anyway, on to commenter 31:

I don't know what Prof. Bainbridge is smoking. The fact remains that for the same education, California law students will now be paying almost 5 times what the same education cost 10 years ago. I am a life time California resident with 2 kids in middle school, and the fact is that the state finds it more fitting to support the prision population than the future of our youth. California is sinking into the ocean much more rapidly than geologists would have you believe.

FYI: As I write this post, I'm smoking a Dunhill Peravia cigar and sipping some Dow 20 year old tawny port. FWIW, I agree that California spends way too much money on prisons, mainly due to the failed war on drugs. As far as tuition increases go, however, the trouble is that the state has bailed on us. So 10 years ago students paid way below market rates. Now they have to pay market rates. That's where the increase came from. Write your senator and assemblyman.

Commenter 38:

Most professors, especially name professors, make plenty and have all the job security in the world. If you check that UC salary list posted above, I doubt that Bainbridge will be hurting that much financially even if he is taking a 10% pay cut.

Hurting? Good lord man. I've had to cut back from 50 year old tawny port to 20 year old tawny port. And I've completely given up foie gras. If that's not a sacrifice, I don't know what is. But it's one I'm willing to make for the collective good.

Skipping over a few, we come at last to my personal favorite. Commenter 65:

Bainbridge really only makes 270k? {Bainbridge interjects: I wish. It ain't true.} I feel like he's an undervalued asset. Bainbridge is one of the most cited business law professors in the country. I thought he'd be in the 300s.

And, no, that was not sock puppetry. Apparently, it's just a satisfied customer.

Anyway, from 65's lips to the new Dean's {whoever he or she may be} ears.

Comments

[Cornellian]

"And I've completely given up foie gras. If that's not a sacrifice, I don't know what is. "

I'd call that a break-even since you've probably added a year or two to your life (at least) by giving up the stuff.

[A]

As a Chicago alum, it saddens me that you feel a need to keep a preference for free people and free markets hidden in the classroom.

[T. Shaw]

My response to commenter 28: I guess there is something seriously wrong with me. I'll now say my nightly Rosary with its intentions for my son serving in Afghanistan and the conversion of sinful America.

[Wes]

Commenter 28 here. The problem with your analysis of UCLA (and other semi-publically funded schools) going to the "market rate" is that the market rate is a fiction created by the Stafford loan and the inability of debtors to discharge student loans in bankruptcy.

This has created a bubble of skyrocketing tuition that allows institutions to do things like pay people like you $250k+ to teach 10-15 hours per week.

Scholarship as an aspect of college level educators' jobs has eclipsed teaching to an unacceptable degree.

All that aside, I do agree that tax funds would be better spent on subsidizing the university than prisons, emission regulation, or any of the other various boondoggles CA likes to involve itself with.

As to the subject of my ATL post, believe whatever makes sense to you or makes you happy. That's your right. Just as it's my right to believe that your belief system lacks any rational basis. Vive la différence.