(05-18-2020 01:57 PM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  Drove by the local mall the other day and told my daughter that they may not get back into it depending how long this thing stretches out. It was already hurting, and folks might want nothing more to do with the contact/proximity risk.

I get it that some institutions/businesses won’t survive, but I’m going to have to see it to believe it on the public school front. Private schools open and shutter all the time because of exceeding or outliving their need or mission. But the public schools carry that political burden that prop up their perceived need and value. States have to get out of this business a bit, or recognize that their creations evolved and grew, and that the weak need to be shut down.

My local mall (and this is one in a fairly nice area) has, in a period of less than a year *before* the pandemic, lost 2 of its 4 anchor stores (Sears and Carson Pirie Scott). It's now in severe danger of losing a 3rd anchor store (J.C. Penney) and we can't necessarily count on the 4th anchor store (Macy's) staying around if that company continues down its financial path, either. Granted, our town has developed a very nice downtown area (e.g. Apple Store, Pottery Barn, multiple bookstores, etc.) that has taken business away from the mall over recent years, but it's still unbelievable how much the mall has declined so quickly (and once again, this is upper middle class suburbia).

Separately, I do agree that shutting down a public university is an entirely different political animal compared to shutting down a private university. This isn't even a right/left thing - any politician that represents a city/county/region that has a public university is going to fight closing down that school.

On that front, what you have suggested about states getting out of the university business is impossible from an image standpoint (even if it might be the right thing to do in the long run). Putting aside the students, there are too many university employees and too many towns (both large and small) that depend upon universities continuing to function.

That being said, you could argue that many states have certainly reduced their exposure to the university business with how much funding that they have cut. Schools like Michigan, Virginia and Illinois are effectively only public universities in name only with how much they have to get funding on their own.