UO invests its tuition money in (some) people

11/3/2011: “Bad Politics, Good Policy: The UO invests its tuition money in (some) people”

RG editorial on the summer UO raises. Love that subhead. So, it’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of the policy. And why should the RG go out on the limb for a UO administration that has been spending millions on administrative bloat, and then uses retention to justify raises for *retiring* administrators?

As a state institution, the University of Oregon blundered when it granted $5 million in pay raises to administrators and faculty earlier this year. As an increasingly independent institution exposed to the bracing winds of the free market, the UO made a smart move by investing tuition dollars in the people who have attracted record enrollments to the university.

The conflict between the UO’s traditional role as a box on the state government’s organization chart and its emerging status as a self-reliant and self-guiding institution is revealed in the details of the raises, contained in documents released to The Register-Guard in response to a public records request. The documents list “special equity raises” of $3.1 million for 743 faculty members and $1.8 million for 417 administrators. The faculty raises averaged 6.98 percent; administrators’ increases averaged 7.68 percent. …