tailieunhanh - FINANCIAL INEQUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION THE ANNUAL REPORT ON THE ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE PROFESSION, 2006-07

These routes to increased demand, through lower interest rates, provide clear mechanisms through which a fiscal adjustment can be expansionary. If the increase in demand from an improved trade position, combined with increased investment and consumption, exceeds the falloff in demand that results from a combination of tax increases and spending cuts, then the fiscal adjustment can be expansionary. Whether in practice it is expansionary depends on the relative size of these effects. Of course, lower interest rates are a key part of the story. If interest rates do not fall as a result of the adjustment, then there is. | Financial _n qua__ữy in Higher Education The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession 2006-07 nflation is down and full-time faculty salaries are finally back up. These would seem to be encouraging signs for the economic status of higher education. Unfortunately however one good year cannot reverse discouraging trends that have been developing over decades. Growing financial inequality in the United States has become a prominent public issue. In February 2007 President Bush publicly acknowledged the growing gap between rich and poor Americans and recommended that firms reconsider the size of the salaries they pay to chief In a fall 2006 speech Janet Yellen president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank said that . income inequality has risen to such a level that there are signs that it is intensifying resistance to globalization impairing social cohesion and could ultimately undermine American democracy. 2 Financial inequality is growing in . higher education too. In this report we observe increasing differences between the endowments of rich and poor institutions between the salaries of college and university presidents and their faculties between the salaries of athletic coaches and professors and between welland poorly compensated faculty members. This economic inequality has the potential to negatively affect higher education. We will address this potential in the context of this year s survey findings. Average Salaries Up In terms of the average salary for all full-time faculty members 2006-07 was the best year since Overall faculty salaries climbed percent compared with the previous year. The inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Price Index was percent between December 2005 and December 2006 lower than it had been the previous two years. Adjusted for inflation then the average salary rose by percent the first real increase in salaries since 2003-04. Table A provides an overview of this year s .