The Depleting of Academic Rents

Abstract

Evgeny Balatsky — Department Head, State University of Management. Address: 99, Ryaszansky Ave., Moscow, 109542, Russian Federation. E-mail: ebalatsky@inbox.ru

For many centuries universities have based their activities on the model of academic rent, meaning that professors’ earnings reflect their past merits in their broadest sense. However, this model has nearly been destroyed by the process of depleting academic rents. And, in turn, this situation poses threats to the existence of higher education in Russia. How serious are those threats? Can we retain the existence of academic rents and thereby “salvage” the traditional model of higher education?
In an attempt to answer those questions, this article discusses the phenomenon of academic rents and reveals its financial and non-financial components.Considering the internal structure of academic rents helps to better understand its dynamics. The author conducts an introspective analysis of his own experience of working at a university and reveals the process of gradual dissipation of academic rents. This research provides numerous facts and discusses several cases which vividly illustrate this process. One such case is the diminishing of social status and earnings of professors in modern Russian universities taken in comparison with the Soviet period. The erosion of academic rents is also reflected in the loss of academic freedom, professional recognition and the general degradation of the academic environment in modern universities. Particular attention is paid to the important component of academic rents as risk evasion, which was an important factor in making academic careers so attractive to intellectuals as they could enjoy a more stable job and a greater opportunity to extend their working period to post-retirement ages. It is shown how these benefits have been completely reduced in the recent years.
The author formulates four basic conditions which are necessary for the reemergence of academic rents, and shows that all of them have been violated during the economic reforms of the 1990s. This leads to a pessimistic conclusion that in the coming years the traditional model of academic rents cannot be restored. The author further analyzes the recent attempts to reform higher education and the organization of science in Russia. It shows why these might prove futile in restoring the recognition of academia.