[simonh]

> ..but the real problem is that American politics has abdicated its responsibility to educate its people.

Er, being a bit hyperbolic there aren't we?

It's a double-sided resource crunch. Funding is drying up, yes, but meanwhile costs as academic institutions are ballooning. Administrative costs have rocketed, while other changes such as increasingly generous tenure arrangements sap away resources from the cutting edge of education. It's not unusual for Tenured professors to get a sabbatical every three years, rather than the more traditions one in seven. In 2011, 20 of Harvard's 48 History professors were on sabbatical.

[whathappenedto]

Where do you see the policy that professors take a sabbatical every three years? I've looked at the Harvard faculty web pages for several of their departments and they all say a most once every seven years after tenure.

[mjn]

Yes, the standard is one paid sabbatical every 7 years. And in some fields it comes with the de-facto obligation to write a book during that year. It is also the case that at any given time many of Harvard's faculty (in particular) are on sabbatical, but most of those are unpaid sabbaticals. Ivy League profs often take time off to be visiting scholars at other institutions, or at the UN or IMF and such. But they don't normally get paid for that; they take an unpaid sabbatical and are paid by the institution they visit, or by a research grant.

But in any case how much Ivy Leagues cost is hardly the main question of public interest; they could cost $80k for all I care. It's the decreasing affordability of systems like the University of California that is the major problem from a public-education standpoint, and that is mainly due to decreased funding.