University fund-raising

Tips to make out law and medical schools self-sufficient

As reported in the March 17 issue of Honolulu Advertiser, University of Hawai`i faculty groups have agreed that UH's law school and school of medicine should become self-sufficient or be eliminated.

Although the law school has responded by developing a long-term plan toward this goal, I wonder if there remains some alternative solution.

As a business major, I've learned that the best results don't always come from standardized methods, so perhaps there might be some wisdom in entertaining the following cogitations.

As any sports savant will explain, team owners use licensing to finance the difference between ticket sales and those ludicrously high players' salaries we can only dream of about. Ticket sales provide just a small portion of the revenue.

A much greater portion comes from the sale of sports apparel (hats, jerseys, pennants, etc). These items, licensed by the professional sports organizations, provide the revenue that goes to players like Kobe Bryant, who in his first year received some umpteen million dollars.

We could do the same here at UH. Charging for advertising space at the William S. Richardson School of Law -- at handsomely-sized fees -- might well be the best way to cover the budget deficit.

If this fails to produce the required funds, we could go so far as to eliminate room numbers, assigning colorfully inscribed private donors' names to the drab, dreary backdrop of the Law School. Imagine seeing Kenneth Mortimer's name in hues of fuchsia and chartreuse bolted onto the door of room formerly known at B101.

After all, there's no reason the students should shoulder all of the burden. And though UH might lose a bit more of its dignified appearance, who's to say that its dignity isn't already shot by its abysmal repair budget and lack of concern for educational integrity?

As for the medical school, which hasn't yet drawn up a long-term plan, some serious action is in order. I recommend we institute unit mastery courses, not just in the introductory courses like Sociology 100, but also in the upper levels as well.

For classes like PHYL 405, Applied Muscle Physiology, we could include 24-Hour Fitness memberships in the student fees, and have the students conduct research on themselves as a sort of "take-home" test.

Granted just about all of the medical school classes are already tough enough to drive any student insane, but wouldn't this make our graduates that much more respected?

Maybe we could print T-shirts with mottoes like "University of Hawai`i Medical School -- The Greatest Test of Mankind's Perseverance" or "UH -- the Best Ten Years of My Life" and market them to graduates.

If these measures fail to balance the difference between expenses and revenues, we could resort to admitting only out-of-state residents, since their tuition is twice the in-state rate of $5,300.

This might seems a little unfair to Hawai`i residents, but if the medical school is closed altogether, they wouldn't be admitted anyway.

The payoff would be enormous -- equivalent of hiking resident tuition by 140 percent in a single year.

And if that still isn't enough, we could raise tuition even more. Since out-of-state tuition is already a whopping $12,200 per semester, ew could support those students through a school-sponsored bake sale.

I realize that the resulting effects might be a bit disconcerting. As medical school tuition costs rise, so do student loan debts, which result in higher minimum salaries, which squeeze hospital budgets, which push the hardship onto the insurance companies, which in turn lead to higher insurance premiums.

But only the people who use doctors would have to pay the exorbitant price of insurance premiums. Ignoring the concept of distributing costs throughout society, we save a few dollars now and have other people pay later.

In addition, we might open a discounted law firm and hospital for the economically-impaired victims of our state's recession, with the labor provided by an endless supply of student interns. That's the way apprentice hair stylists are trained.

We, as a school, would have a competitive advantage in both the law and education markets because of our minimized labor costs, a niche market focus, and graduates prepared for the real world.

Perhaps the research facility groups should put forth the proposal I've been waiting for: eliminating students altogether. That way the researchers could continue with their work undisturbed, and we students could attend an actual university, not just a penny-pinching academy.