That Which We Call a Law School
January 16, 2020·13 comments·Jobs and School
A major university accepted a $125 million gift that could have funded education and expanded access. Then it rejected the gift to protect something worth far less: the brand recognition of an alumni credential. The choice reveals which interest—education or credential protection—actually matters when institutions are forced to pick.
• Alumni petitioned to reject a gift that would have helped the school. Their argument wasn't about the donor's character or intentions. It was that renaming the law school would damage the market value of their degrees among employers and the public.
• The university prioritized protecting alumni brand value over accepting transformational funding. A $125 million gift is substantial even for elite institutions. The decision to refuse it and keep the "Penn Law" name was an explicit choice about what matters more.
• This mirrors how medieval guilds operated. Elite universities function to protect and increase the scarcity and prestige of the credentials they confer. Education is secondary to maintaining perceived selectiveness.
• Universities justify their non-profit status and tax benefits by claiming to serve education and research. Yet they operate as credential monopolies, prioritizing credential protection over actual educational improvement or access, especially when the two conflict.
• Public funding and policy like unlimited student debt enable tuition increases without limit. The result is a generational wealth transfer from nearly every American to elite institutions. If student debt is forgiven without reforming the system, that transfer becomes permanent.
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Comments
I think an addendum to their resume would suffice. (Ie- "Cary School Of Law (Formally Penn Law)
LoL!
One of the things which isn’t discussed when looking at why Universities are so expensive is the effect of the end of the cold war and the focus away from nuclear weapons. There isn’t much written about it, because much of it is classified, but this article presents part of the story.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-fihn-californias-central-role-in-nuclear-arems-race-20181024-story.html
The point is, post WWII and during the cold war, the government needed to fund research into weapons systems. Universities were major beneficiaries of this, but for many reasons, the universities didn’t disclose the source of their funding, nor did they disclose to many of the students working on that research. This research gave universities a great deal of funding that they had freedom to use. However, with the cold war ending, that funding spigot ended. So, funding from other sources had to be found.
The world is a complicated place and many people benefited in ways they never imagined. You are helping me wake up to some of these facts. Thanks.
“But here’s the thing: The university caved. Following community complaints, they changed the short name used on all materials back to Penn Law – at least for now.”
So, does the University have to give the $125 million back?
Government funding of this academic madness is a case of negative network effects. Ask any ethics professor in the law school and she will tell you this: what’s moral is what’s legal. Reply by asking what happens when what’s legal is for sale? A similar dynamic is at work with housing, food and healthcare. www.negativenetworkeffects.com
“In short, elite American universities and their associated professional schools are no longer selling an education. They are – like medieval guilds – institutions who operate in the interest of the members of the guild. Their priority is to protect and increase the value, prestige and perceived selectiveness of the license they confer – and to sell that increasingly scarce commodity at rapidly accelerating market rates…”
Presented without comment - a “promoted” Tweet in my Twitter feed today:
Harvard Business Analytics Program
@HarvardBizAn
This rigorous cross-disciplinary online program prepares leaders with the analytics, leadership, and strategy skills to drive better business outcomes. Complete in as few as 9 months. https://hbs.me/2pWvxKm
(Could not find a way to import a pic, but wanted to as the below is much more “impressive” emblazoned in Harvard Red as it was in the Tweet)
Harvard Business Analytics Program: Complete an Analytics Certificate in Nine Months
(end Tweet)
Okay, I lied, one comment: notice how they got “leaders/leadership” in there twice.
I think it was a (temporary) resolution that had to be negotiated with the donor.
There’s a lot to this, I think.
That is part of the problem with establishing big institutions as quasi-government program instead of the businesses that they are - no one actually thinks about shedding assets or slowing growth when a business line becomes less profitable, because they don’t have to. The idea that they didn’t HAVE to maintain and train such a large group of researchers and PhDs just never occurred to most schools.
Thanks for sending this, Mark! I’ll bring this up to Ben, who has an extremely relevant story worth sharing on our next ET Live event.
Couldn’t get the link to work, but yes, all sorts of features of our Fiat World, the Long Now and the transition toward competition games we write about are equilibrial states caused by what you could call negative externalities.
Not sure what’s happening with the link. Here’s Zero Hedge coverage https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/whats-moral-whats-legal-and-whats-legal-sale
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