Ralph is gone but Ralph is still here. Last summer attempts were made in the U.S. Congress to eliminate colleges' and universities' power to give tax-free tuition reduction benefits to faculty, faculty dependents, other college and university employees, and graduate students. A lobbying effort by the AAUP and other organizations played a major role in preventing this from happening. However, we were not as successful in winning support for other areas of interest to faculty members. How this will affect dividends and annuity contracts down the road is still uncertain.
Faculty members are of course concerned.
Higher education has been increasingly under attack over recent years. Many of these assaults have been directed against college and university faculty, who are accused of being a high-paid elite who do not work hard and who are the source of bloated higher education budgets. Because of such criticisms, there has been public pressure to increase faculty workloads and make budgets leaner. This pressure has been fomented by critics in spite of the fact that their criticisms are not supported by existing data. Administrative costs at U.S. universities have been rising at a more rapid rate than has faculty compensation.