Research: The Economics of Teaching

Abstract

many new universities experienced rapid growth during the 1960s, there was much talk of 4 'mandates and missions to develop the finest graduate programs. In The Leaning Ivory Tower, Warren Bennis observes that at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo his colleagues spoke of image building, attracting super-stars, and making glamor appointments. Despite the new depression in higher education, the greatness syndrome persists, and it can be argued that this syndrome is having a negative impact upon undergraduate education. A recent self-study report of SUNY at Stony Brook reveals that, on the one hand, faculty members came there primarily to do research and graduate teaching and felt that they were recruited to develop graduate programs of the highest quality. Chi the other hand, undergraduate students believe the faculty lacks interest in teaching them; they resent the increasing number of large classes and are disappointed and frustrated with their education. We investigated some economic indices of a large university's concern for undergraduate education. Our data are drawn from SUNY at Albany (SUNYA). It is obvious, yet well to remind ourselves, that the financial resources of a state university come from the tuitions paid by students and their parents and the taxes of citizens. How does the university apportion this money? In monetary terms, what are the priorities of the university and to what extent does it value undergraduate education? Here we will be concerned with faculty salaries and their relation to undergraduate teaching. We looked at five units of SUNYA: the psychology, English, economics, and mathematics departments, and the School of Criminal Justice. We examined salary allocations, by faculty rank, for the academic year 1972-73, and course data from the spring 1973 semester. We also examined faculty salaries and course data in connection with the tenure decisions made in the College of Arts and Sciences (to which the four departments mentioned above belong) during the 1972-73 academic year. Our selection of units was largely a practical matter. It depended in part on our ability to obtain complete information. Further, we wanted to study at least one department from each of the divisions of the College of Arts and Sciences, and one of the schools at the university (we arbitrarily chose criminal justice). We have no reason to believe that the units we analyzed are atypical at Albany with respect to the kinds of relations to be reported here. However, the few units selected do vary greatly among themselves. SUNYA, like Buffalo and Stony Brook, is designated as a graduate center of the state university system. Nevertheless, in the spring of 1973 there were, according to head-count figures, almost twice as many undergraduate as graduate students at Albany. In terms of full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment, there were 8777.5 undergraduate FTEs and 3016.7 graduate FTEs, or almost three times as many undergraduate as graduate FTEs. (One undergraduate FTE equals 15 semester credit hours, and one graduate FTE equals 12, except for advanced doctoral students for whom 9 semester credit hours is full time. An undergraduate FTE does not necessarily correspond to one particular student, but represents a block of 15 credits taken in