Board of Regents creates unethical incentives

The recent plan presented by the Regents for future funding of the state universities strongly suggests that the Board of Regents gave no consideration to the incentives that their budgetary plan creates. The incentives the Regents have created are inherently unethical and extremely unfair to young people here in Iowa.

By making 60 percent of funding dependent on the number of Iowa students enrolled in the universities, the Regents have created an extremely strong incentive for all three universities to recruit and enroll students who should not be going to university, because their own skill set is not well served by the sort of education provided by a university.

The end result of the plan will be a large number of Iowa students going to university when they should not, acquiring debts that they should not acquire, and thus being hobbled for most of their adult lives by large quantities of debts that are not dischargeable by bankruptcy.

Why would the Regents not have considered the incentives they have created? Either they lack the wisdom to realize that they have created such unethical incentives, which does not bode well as we enter into a time of substantial transitions in higher education.

Or, they see some benefit (to whom, I cannot imagine) in impoverishing and burdening with huge debt significant numbers of young Iowans as a result of their plan. Neither option is pleasant to consider.

Wilfrid Nixon

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

University of Iowa

Iowa City