Various readers have sent me this strange, conspiratorial piece by UChicago classicist Clifford Ando, whom I've met once, I believe, but I don't really know him and have not discussed these issues with him.  I do, however, know something about his writings about university finances, which are often marred by factual errors.  I note there are no footnotes (or links to sources) in this piece documenting any of its many factual claims, many of which strike me as dubious.  But put that to one side, I agree with Professor Ando that higher education is, indeed, conceived as a "private good" measured by its economic outcomes, which is very bad news for universities.  Unmentioned by Professor Ando is that part of the pressure for this results from the extraodinary cost of higher education in the United States, and the influx of first-generation students whose families expect marketable outcomes (I've heard this again and again from faculty who serve in the undergraduate dorms in various capacities).

In any case, all these ideological and cultural developments are not peculiar to the University of Chicago.  What is peculiar to the University of Chicago is the spectacular financial mismanagement of its former President, Robert Zimmer, who left the university with a structural deficit of roughly $200 million dollars (a bit less early on, a bit higher more recently, but now about $200 million).  Zimmer made various expensive bets:  that a massive construction boom (esp. new dorms and associated facilities like cafeterias) would allow an expansion of undergraduate enrollment, which would generate adequate tuition revenue to justify the infrastructure investments and the accompanying faculty expansion; and that a huge investment in molecular engineering (which did not exist at all at this university prior to Zimmer) was essential to the university's research mission.  (The infrastructure investment did not include new classroom space, which has created other problems!)

The bets have not paid off, although I gather the molecular engineering unit is a strong unit.  But it was an odd decision, taken by a mathematician President, at a university whose traditional strengths were in the social sciences and humanities, plus basic reserach in the natural sciences.  Personally, I'd trade molecular engineering for the humanities.  (If there is any evidence for Professor Ando's astonishing claim that universities, including this one, have become "technology incubators," it should be in connection with molecular engineering, but then let's see it.)

In any case, the current President, a distinguished chemist, was left the financial mess created by Zimmer.  In the midst of all this, he decided the University needed a new climate institute, a dubious investment it seems to me for which, once again, humanities and social sciences will pay.  (Some of my colleagues think the current President is hostile to the humanities; I'm agnostic so far.)

The Humanities Division here has an extraordinary 15 different PhD-granting departments (and does not include History, which is in the Social Sciences Division), everything from Classics, English and Philosophy, to East Asian Languages & Civilizations, and also South Asian Lanuages & Civilizations; Theater and Performance Studies, and also Cinema and Media Studies; Germanic Studies, and also Slavic Languages & Literatures.  This is impressive, but it is also unusual, even for elite research universities, and it's unsurprising it has become a target in the wake of the Zimmer mess.

It's pretty silly for Professor Ando to suggest that the current pause or reduction in admissions in the Humanities reflects a bias against "fields that do not concern North America" and "everything not written in English or which occurred before the modern world."  Art History, East Asian Languages & Civilizations, Linguistics, and Philosophy are among the programs not pausing PhD admissions, and their compass is much wider than North  America and English or modern writing.  What goes unmentioned by Professor Ando, but which I've heard about from various colleagues and graduate students in humanities, is that the job placement of some of the PhD programs whose admission are paused is extremely poor.  I do not know if this actually explains the "pauses," but it surely raises a serious question:  why have a PhD program if almost no one gets an academic position or a position in which their training is relevant?  Given the nationwide retrenchment in foreign language study, for example, this is bound to be a real issue.

Professor Ando is right to point out that University of Chicago undergraduate education, especially in the first two years, is largely provided by lecturers, senior lecturers, postdocs, and graduate students, rather than research faculty.  Fortunately, the caliber of these teaching faculty is very high, but parents should be aware that the undergraduate experience at the University of Chicago is different than what one gets at Princeton or Yale (it is more like Harvard in this regard).

ADDENDUM:  Professor Ando also understates the import of the Trump war on the universities for the University of Chicago.  If the changes to NIH and NSF "indirect" costs stick, it will cost the university at least $40 million per year, perhaps more.  A university with a $200 million deficit can hardly afford that.  (Overall, as I've noted previously, UChicago has been lucky given the authoritarian regime in DC.)

8/19 UPDATE:  Talking with a writer from The Atlantic, I learn that some folks claim that English here has very poor job placement, but the Humanities Dean is an English professor, ergo….  If that's true, it is certainly not a good look!