Multimillion dollar boondoggles in higher education. Even at my campus :(

The ponzi scheme of higher education is so awfully evident everywhere.

Consider for example the brand new structure that is almost ready for use: The Health and Wellness Center.

The recreation center is a 45,000 square feet addition to the Old P.E. building, comprising of a two-court gymnasium with an elevated track, two racquetball courts, three multipurpose rooms, a 2,400 square foot strength and weight training area, a 3,600 square feet cardiovascular area, a 40 foot high by 40 feet wide rock climbing wall, new locker rooms for the recreation facility and the existing pool and gymnasium, an equipment check-out area, and office space for campus recreation.

Yes, including the uber-fad: rock climbing wall!  Cool, we have arrived!  The mission of the university is accomplished.  I am sure the authors who listed my university as one of the best returns on investment will be really happy.

I refer to this building as our Taj Mahal!

Over the summer, the university president offered reasons for why such an investment is needed:

Since moving from NAIA to NCAA Division II in 2000, Western Oregon University has been adjusting to the economic realities of competing at a higher level.More money was needed for scholarships, travel and increased investment in facilities, such as the new Health and Wellness Center opening this year, that will relocate the football team from the Old PE Building on campus.

Well, wouldn't it have made economic sense then to have stayed in NAIA and, therefore, not have incurred all these additional expenses?  Taxpayer and tuition monies could have been put to better use if we had stayed back in NAIA, right?

But, of course, the mark of a real university is a football team, and a good chunk of real estate in this new multimillion dollar "Taj Mahal" will be for that reason:

The football program will have approximately 8,000 square feet of new space. The new space will provide the program the ability to house all of the coaches centrally, a more comprehensive training room, improved locker room, laundry and equipment storage space.

Awesome.  I could not have imagined a better scenario.

Now, here is the awful thing--we are not alone.  It is pretty much the same story, a tragic one, in higher education.  Here is an excerpt from an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Last fall, Winona State University opened a 90,000-square-foot Integrated Wellness Complex on the east side of the campus, just across the street from the university's performing-arts center. The complex houses classroom and administrative space along with aerobics facilities, weight rooms, a glass atrium, and a 200-meter indoor track. Massage therapy is available on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. It cost $19.5-million to build.

The eerie similarity is not simply with the construction of a wellness center.  There is more:

The institution was founded in 1858 as a "normal school," the 19th-century term for colleges that trained public-school teachers. In 1921 it began offering bachelor's degrees and was renamed Winona State Teachers College. As the population of college-going students exploded after World War II, Minnesota converted Winona into a bigger, broader institution, dubbing it Winona State College in 1957. The final upgrade came in 1975, in a trade of "College" for "University."
There are more than 150 former normal schools like Winona, educating hundreds of thousands of students nationwide. Nearly all followed an identical progression: They became teachers colleges, then dropped the "teachers," then dropped the "college."

Yes, pretty much the same story here too.

The author has a note of warning:

a higher-education system in which teachers colleges are building $20-million gymnasiums is a system that is dangerously vulnerable to forces gathering outside the city walls.

Yes, they will come for us with torch and pitchforks.