Boston University, like all colleges and universities, goes to great lengths to bolster its competitive edge. Among its swaggering dormitories, annual lobster nights in the dining halls and ever-greener environmental initiatives also roam some very high profile professors. Altogether BU likely spends as much time maintaining an edgy competitive package for prospective students and staff as it does taking care of its existing community, and for good reason. Students who graduate from competitive universities represent it positively in the professional world, and professors who teach at them promote the university brand in the highest of academic castes.
A recent article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education reveals one of the more discreet ways university administrators nationwide attract and hold on to their most exceptional professors and staff members ‘- offering low-interest mortgages and personal loans from the school budget. These loans, of which Boston University offered eight during the 2007-08 academic year, have reached up to $500,000 dollars and are kept relatively secret, although they appear on university tax forms.
Though this type of benefit compromises an already unstable university budget, it’s not illogical to say they pay themselves off in the long run by keeping top-notch professors on the roster. While it would be comforting to think professors ‘- especially ones with outstanding academic clout ‘- would stay within the university of their own accord or because they find the traditional rewards of being a professor at BU satisfying enough, this is not realistic. The current economy, coupled with today’s unprecedented competition in the job market, call for more extreme measures, especially those of the financial sort. In the same way that students can apply for specialized student loans with low interest rates and more manageable payback schedules, professors deserve similar benefits.
The only real issue here would be if benefits like this became more commonplace. Just as BU and other universities implementing this technique are doing so to season their competitive edges, these offerings should be kept few and far between. Overdoing it would burden university budgets, jeopardize academic and professional values and of course, weaken the fundamental purpose of exclusivity that the loans were created for in the first place. Like all things gifted and most things monetary, these benefits, while effective, will perform best if kept in moderation.
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