It's a Rip-Off!

We at the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine argue with ourselves constantly. As an outlet for our schizo-phrenia, we introduce herewith an occasional editorial debate, no holds barred, with-well, with ourselves.

This past spring arrogance in the Ivory Tower reached new heights as the nation's elite universities were caught attempting to charge the federal government for such necessities as yachts, fancy crystal, and the entertainment of muckety-mucks. The outrageous expenses were part of a game played all too well by higher education against the federal government.

The game is called "indirect cost recovery" the hoi polloi would call it "overhead." Of the $9.2 billion currently being doled out by the feds for academic research, the universities charge an additional $2.5 billion for administration, facilities, utilities, libraries, and the like. Each year the universities negotiate with the government to decide how much to include in those overhead charges.

The rules of the game are complex, but Dartmouth played it well at least, until auditors nabbed it red-handed. Last spring the inspector general at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services toted up $880,000 in "unallowable and inappropriate costs," including the president's official entertainment expenses, that bastion of research called the Daniel Webster Cottage, canoe storage, legal costs for defending a lawsuit by The Dartmouth Review, and even a chauffeur for the president.

There are better ways to spend our tax dollars than on collegiate chauffeurs; say, homeless shelters, or the fight against AIDS (universities charged the federal government more in overhead during the last year than the government itself spent on AIDS research).

No wonder why higher education has been under attack lately.