Harvard classes on taxpayers’ dime
Topline: In theory, only the best and brightest Americans make it into Harvard University. Unless, of course, government employees with taxpayer money at their disposal have anything to say about it.
The federal government spent $5 million sending its employees to month-long leadership courses at Harvard in 2010, at a cost of $18,300 per student. At the time, tuition for an entire year at the average public university was only $9,000.
That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.
Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname “Dr. No” by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn’t stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.
Coburn’s Wastebook 2010 included 100 examples of outrageous spending worth more than $11.5 billion, including the Harvard spending, which would be worth $7.2 million today.
Key facts: The government sent 376 employees to Harvard’s Senior Executive Leadership program in 2007 and 490 in 2009. In that span, Harvard raised the tuition from $15,500 to $18,300.
One government employee told the Associated Press that the classes” weren’t particularly difficult academically, but the benefit was not in its academic rigor.”
Federal agencies are required to tell the Office of Personnel Management how they train their employees. But John Berry, head of the OPM in 2010, said his department “does not evaluate individual agency programs for cost effectiveness or impact,” and agencies only provide “incomplete” info about their training.
Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.
Critical quote: “I don’t see how it can be justified to spend about $5,000 a week to send government executives to training at the most elite universities,” Sen. Chuck Grassley told the Associated Press. “In addition, the government office that runs the training program seems to have a lackadaisical attitude about the seemingly wasteful nature of this spending.”
Summary: Here’s an idea: maybe government jobs should go to candidates who are already qualified without needing to spend thousands taking more university classes.
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