I’m a huge higher education booster.   Minnesota under-invests in education at all levels, including higher education.  Higher education is an economic engine for our state, and it is also, in many ways, a quality-of-life engine.

But I’m also a parent who is one-third of the way into a grueling 12-year a college tuition march that will cost well into the six figures.  I don’t want to get melodramatic, but higher education officials need to understand how difficult the tuition burden has become for many families.  As we say in our household, “tuition is the new retirement.”  It is a statement of fact, not a joke.

Still, I have no regrets about my decision to prioritize paying for my kids’ higher education.  “Teach a man to fish,” and all that.  When I die, one of the things I will be most proud of is that I have been able to get my kids through college, so they can start their adult lives with a relatively full brain and empty credit report.  It will be among my most treasured gifts to them.

But while I’m truly proud to be do my part, I do expect higher education institutions to do their part, on the cost-containment front.  I agree that “you get what you pay for” when it comes to facilities and faculty, so I’m not a skin flint when it comes to higher education funding.  Still, there are some financial decisions in academia that just don’t pass the smell test to this beleaguered tuition payer.

For instance, a Wry Wing Politics reader recently shared a newsletter from the Dean of a University of Minnesota College.  Before I whine about something in that newsletter, I want to say that Minnesota would be a worse place if we didn’t have this College doing tremendous work, with all too little fanfare.  Rah, rah, rah for ski u mah.  Keep doing amazing work, College Who Shall Not be Named.

BUT, back to the Dean’s newsletter.  Among many other news items, the newsletter notes, without a hint of self-consciousness:

X and Y will be on sabbatical next year and then return to their respective departments.

It goes without saying that a paid year off is pretty much unheard of in other lines of work.  I’m a sole proprietor consultant, so I don’t get paid for years, months, weeks, days, hours or minutes off.   I’ve worked in other positions in the public, private and non-profit sectors, and there are no sabbaticals in those worlds either.

There is a good reason why sabbaticals are so rare outside of academia.  They are mega-expensive.  It is an enormous investment for any organization to make, so, like any large investment, it should be thoroughly evaluated.    If University administrators can make the case that a paid year-off will lead to significantly better research and/or teaching for many years to come, I could be persuaded.  I’m guessing that some sabbaticals are worth the investment, and some are not.  My point is simply that I hope that something that expensive is being used sparingly and thoughtfully.

However, this is where the Dean  loses me:  The reader who shared the newsletter tells me that one of the two professors is taking their paid sabbatical preceding an upcoming retirement.

A pre-retirement sabbatical isn’t a sound investment in education, because whatever benefit comes from the sabbatical will not be realized by the University for very long.  A pre-retirement sabbatical sounds a lot like a platinum parachute, not unlike the kind that University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler has, to his credit, promised to limit in the case of University executives,  because they “may have hurt the public’s trust in our stewardship of this great university.”

At a time when scores of  families are forgoing retirement to pay skyrocketing college costs, I can’t see a case for allowing university officials to use taxpayer-funded sabbaticals to significantly enrich their own retirement.

So again, higher education administrators, I’m willing to hold up my end of the higher education finance bargain.  Are you willing to hold up your end on the cost-containment front?  How about a comprehensive and fully transparent audit of how University of Minnesota sabbaticals are being used?  As a follow-up to the audit, how about a set of standards for identifying when sabbaticals are, and are not, worth the substantial taxpayer investment they require?

Note:  This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs.  It has also been republished in MinnPost.