Oh, now don't get me wrong, I really do criticize for the right reasons ...

With regards to the new ATH med school and the University System of Georgia, generally, my bottom-line is this: State interests preclude managing educational resources from a political point of view.

For the record, here is the King's "nutty" comments about the new UGA "health sciences campus" on Prince Avenue:

The state has a definite interest is seeing that its citizens have access to quality healthcare; unfortunately, this ongoing effort was motivated primarily by regional interest groups including UGA alums on the Board of Regents who wanted some sort of medical school in Athens; they used vague, half-baked "data" regarding a "doctor shortage" to win approval from a cheer leading media.

In fact, expanding access to medical care necessarily will change state rules and laws to increase competition; as is, hospitals keep prices high by limiting their services, and by keeping-out qualified doctors when they refuse to grant privileges. State rules that limit service delivery by supposedly "unqualified" practitioners are, in effect, an imposition on behalf of the industry intended to LIMIT access to health care in order to DRIVE UP health care costs. THEN, why would one expect the state, now, to turn around and increase access in order to drive down costs?

Likely, the cost to train a doctor in GA is now much higher as a result of a haphazard, politically-motivated expansion of the training program; per public dollar, this means that the state can now afford to train fewer physicians. What is more, many doctors trained by the public, now, refuse to practice in regions that need them; both because they are kept out by local monied monopoly interests and because they'd rather live in metropolitan areas boasting higher standards of living.

Despite the tax-payer funded "happy talk," moves by the Regents have worsened health care quality and access in GA. GA citizens ought not pay to train doctors who do not practice in the state; and they shouldn't be "double-billed" and promised better access to health care. In effect, the state has little interest in allowing more competition, even as they use taxpayer dollars to pursue selfish, regional, political whims.

Dissolution of the Regents and replacement of Hank Huckaby would be a good first step that might help the public get a better return on its investment in the USG. Unfortunately, timid state political leadership has seen the entire USG devolve into a money-hungry politically correct monster completely untethered from state interests.

In light of THAT harsh, condemnatory contribution, I though I might review potential rebuttals out there to my remarks; I do caution, however, that supporters of the new Campus, including highly paid UGA and USG PR battalions NOT peruse the following remarks; they may be hazardous to your conscience and mental health!!

Aren't ALL developments in higher education to some extent "political" decisions? The effort to locate UGA in ATH, and the founding of GIT in Atlanta? THEN, shouldn't most of the focus be on their actual contributions to the state of GA and NOT on the politics of how they got where they are? And, more specifically, even big-dollar projects that create ill effects from the outset can be "re-tooled" to more fully and completely do "good things" for GA citizens? (For instance, if NBAF was built in ATH, we would have the building and the programming funds; both could be re-tasked or nuanced away from their original missions to more humane and helpful roles.)

Well, imagine the well-constructed house-of-cards that is the USG. In the beginning there were NO public funds and little interest in this thing we now call "higher education." Getting the money for the thing was NOT easy; and funding HE in GA and elsewhere still lies on a foundation of public trust and confidence. For instance, the Regent's governance structure was specifically designed to insulate the system from "politics;" and thereby stave-off efforts that finally would have divided and possible caused public confidence to collapse.

TODAY, in addition to the "Med School in ATH" political push, we have any manor of disturbing things going on in higher education. We have transformed compensation in a corporate manner where leaders get very rich during their tenure; compared to older policies that gave free room and board in lieu of compensation in the not distant past. Of course, as pay at the top got higher, faculty and staff saw significant cutbacks; in fact, we have lost many good, talented faculty over the years and now -- despite a few token "stars" -- probably have the least robust, least effective faculty even as tuition is, you guessed it, higher than ever before!

Then, let me ring the chapel bell: What about football? You have a quasi-professional organization that spends many millions of dollars each year and where coaches are paid higher than any other state employee! BUT, the Regents claim these funds do NOT constitute education dollars; and that the GAA is a private charitable organization charged with managing UGA's athletic teams; the head coach and all the rest are NOT actually UGA employees AT ALL!

Football players are told to show-up at a cancer hospital to be photographed with dying young children! They get text messages from a highly paid PR firm telling them how to dress and act ... and PRESTO! We have artificially inflated the image of "football," all at taxpayers expense and right before their own noses! Don't get me wrong, many students are fine people; but something so professionally stage managed leads some in the public to think they are saints when the truth is a little darker, shall we say?

Then, recent shenanigans join a long, long list of mismanagement that poses a real risk of collapse in public confidence; heretofore, huge PR subsidies have been used to cover-up mismanagement and make the public believe what is really a rosy fairy tale. The real truth is that higher education in GA today is mostly a fraud still resting on a very shaky house-of-cards political and public confidence. THIS SUCKER is going to blow!

Shouldn't Athenians support the ATH med school because it benefits the state AND Athens? Ah! Again, the state rightfully has NO political interest in funneling USG resources to UGA to "help" GA and Athenians! Oh, come on, you can't be serious ...!

AFRAID I am. Imagining at least, that Athens is a "little better off," is like imagining that a young damsel ravished by a wealthy politico might have better opportunites as a result of her troubles ...

AND, you CAN'T get a little bit pregnant ...

How long before the whole thing falls down? Much of the productive use of education funds has already seen their yields push towards a net zero.1 Surely GA will not get out of the business of higher education? NO, not until it has exhausted most of its financial resources and the public and political leaders see what the current USG has become: A cynical, rambling, self-serving parasite on the public purse; not interested in helping the state or anyone, really, until its champions help themselves to the all-day and all-night buffet on the public purse carcass ..

So, the King is leading a campaign to "reform" the system ...

Well, in a sense; the way one might use "reform" as applicable to re-building a home or building summarily devoured in a raging inferno. At this point, the King is like a blaring fire alarm telling interested parties to immediately exit! There will be no saving it; the system is "fully engulfed;" investigators can poke through the smoldering ruins and find ... a LOT of what I and others already told them they would find: Deceit, Lies, Theft; the scarcely-recognizable charred remains of public and political confidence!

1. The USG core of honorable and effective faculty and managers took many years to build up; with recent changes in philosophy, more craven, self-serving folks have pushed out good, effective people. Either they were forced-out in power struggles between those "for us" and those "against us," or more likely departed voluntarily taking a sense of disgust and perhaps wondering just how bad things might get "over there." When you turn-out, on a yearly basis, many honest, sincere, effective teachers and administrators and replace them, on an ongoing basis, with warm, craven selfish inexperienced and ineffective leaders, after a while, the entire experiment in higher education is infested with, you guessed it, second-tier denizens of proud and loud self-service. A collapse of the current system might actually be the quickest way to fix it; a slow collapse, however, might sear into the public's mind, the rules, again, on how to support higher education in GA.