Tuition Remission? Really?

By Matt Reed. Over at the Chronicle, Jeff Selingo has a strange little piece calling for getting rid of tuition remission benefits for “faculty brats.”  The argument is twofold: tuition benefits for the children of faculty are regressive, he asserts, since they apply to full-timers but not to adjuncts; and they contribute to a certain blindness on campus to the reality of tuition increases.  In his words, the benefit “smacks of an entitled ivory tower,” and therefore offends a sense of fairness. To which I say, it’s a case of asking the wrong question. Selingo never uses or acknowledges the term, but “employee discounts” are common across many industries. They aren’t considered elitist or scandalous there. Read more...