Why Are You Spending Millions to Send Gov’t Employees to Harvard?
- Posted on October 27, 2010 at 7:20am by
Jonathon M. Seidl
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Every year, the U.S. spends millions of dollars to send government workers to Harvard for a month, an expensive training arrangement that some in Congress are questioning.
A monthlong leadership course at the Ivy League university costs taxpayers more than $18,000 per employee. That’s more than twice what the average public university charges for tuition and fees, excluding room and board, for an entire year, and enough to pay the same charges for a semester and a half at the average private university.
Government and school officials say that’s what it costs to train executives. And it‘s what’s being paid by top companies, which compete with government agencies for talent.
But the Obama administration acknowledges that nobody’s in charge of figuring out whether the government is getting the best deal possible, or even whether the training is worth the money.
The practice came to light this spring when Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Harvard about its Senior Executive Fellows program and why it costs so much. Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government responded that, while the Senior Executive Fellows program was its most popular government training program, it also offered government classes on leadership, regulating and economic development ranging from $500 to $1,000 a day.
With the U.S. embroiled in two wars and still recovering from an economic meltdown, dean David Ellwood wrote to Grassley, “It is hard to imagine a time when we more badly need wise and effective public servants who are well-equipped to respond to these large and rapidly changing challenges.”
Enrollment in Harvard’s government training programs increased from 376 to 490 between 2007 and 2009, a rise of about 30 percent, according to figures the school provided Congress. Tuition for the four-week Senior Executive Fellows program has risen from $15,500 to $18,300 during that time.
In all, the government spends about $5 million a year on Harvard training programs, according to the school’s figures.
The Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources department, told Grassley in a letter that federal regulations leave it up to individual agencies to select training.
“As a result, OPM does not evaluate individual agency programs for cost effectiveness or impact,” John Berry, the office’s director, wrote.
Since 2006, federal agencies have been required to submit training data to OPM for review, but OPM wrote that “the information reported is often incomplete.” Agencies have been working to improve that process for the past three years, OPM said, and the Obama administration planned to make that data available online by the end of September.
It is not yet available.
Despite more than a half dozen requests over the course of more than a week, the Obama administration declined to discuss the training.
“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,” Grassley said. “In addition, the government office that runs the training program seems to have a lackadaisical attitude about the seemingly wasteful nature of this spending.”
Shane Deichman, a longtime Pentagon scientist who attended the Harvard program in 2003, said the days were packed with sessions. And though they weren’t particularly difficult academically, the benefit was not in its academic rigor, he said. Rather, it provided a rare chance for government managers to see things a different way.
“When you’re in most of those government positions, you don’t get the opportunity to see how other nations do it, how local governments do it,” Deichman said.
The question at the heart of the debate is when the government should act like the large corporation it essentially functions as. The American Society for Training and Development estimated that U.S. organizations spent at least $2.8 billion on high-level executive training in 2007. About half the participating companies were major corporations with $3 billion or more in revenue.
Executive development is necessarily more expensive than typical staff training, ASTD says, because top-level executives are in high demand and it costs more to hire an experienced training staff.
In its letter, Harvard urged Congress not to compare its tuition with undergraduate programs. The management training is much more intensive and the faculty is made up of government management experts from around the world, it said.
___
Online:
Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government: http://ksgexecprogram.harvard.edu/
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Comments (93)
Ruler4You
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 10:44amI can’t believe it costs that much to “train” an executive. It seems to me that having already been educated and trained, they would be much easier to ‘further’ enlighten about almost anything.
Apparently, being educated makes you much more dense and much more difficult to ‘train up’ than one would believe. Either that or Harvard’s methods need to re evaluated.
Report Post »OBAMAWORSHIOER
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 10:44amBecause Harvard is our elite reeducation university. They have the largest private endowment in tall of higher education. We are a major factor in bringing that about. They know where the paycheck comes from. Quigley showed them the way.
Report Post »kramh
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 10:35amThis is just one more reason to shrink the federal government. We the people need to limit the government to those items listed in the constitution. Our founding fathers designed small federal government. Let’s cut 80% and let the states choose how much government is needed in their state.
Report Post »felina g
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 10:34amCUT THE BUDGET !!!!!
Read “Broke” ! We are in DEEP, DEEP doo-doo !
Report Post »WeWillWin
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 10:26amWhere did Obama go to school? This is just another way to distribute millions to their old cronies. Harvard is way over-rated and exists only because of it’s political influence and power. We should start recognizing Harvard for the dirty left wing liberal progressive communist machine that it really is!
Report Post »Richard Johnson
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 10:23amI work week to week as a General Contractor and barely am I able to keep my head above water.
Report Post »I see this huge waste of our Tax Money and how it is spent, you think I can support more of these supposedly highly trained Gov. Employees and not be just a little mad. LOL.
TreeTrimmerJim
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 10:13amIts about wages… Harvard is doing what appropriate in capitalism, selling its products. Government managers are doing what is appropriate for their wages, growing the size and income of their staff. When they have a higher paid staff and more of them, government managers make larger salaries.
Our job, we the people’s job is to control this monster. We are the ones responsible for the bloated government we have. Its time to start firing people and make our wishes clear to those who are left.
Department of Education… Our nation’s level of education has gone down since you guys showed up. Fire them..
Report Post »Department of Agriculture.. what have you done to add to the nation’s bottom line…. Fire them.
Federal entitlement programs…. can not any state do entitlements if they so desire? What can federal entitlements do that states can not? Would a state attract better businesses, better workers if they offered entitlement that paid a return on investment? Dump all entitlements because its the federal government competing with its members.. the state and local governments. Voters have more say at the local and state level, voters can craft more effective entitlements with better controls.
TreeTrimmerJim
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 10:00amIs Harvard a wise enough school to know that there is a finite number of top level managers. Therefore training more managers to stay in government is competing with private industry and reducing the potential for more tax money to pay for entitlement programs. No one in government has new money with which they pay taxes. Any taxes paid by government employees is recycled money garnered from taxes paid by private industry.
Even Harvard knows it takes several private industry tax payers to pay the wages of one government employee. Same is true for entitlement recipients. When the government purposely competes for employees private industry looses the ability to fund the government. Kind of like a snake eating its own tail. Only private business creates new tax money through the sale of products and services. Government employee are all overheard and add nothing to our country’s bottom line, therefore no taxes to support government.
Take a pencil and paper and explain tax flow to any 3rd grader. A 3rd grader will understand that every government employee is reducing our nation’s income because they produce nothing that goes to the bottom line.
Report Post »starman70
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 2:17pmThese governmrnt workers already command higher salaries and benefits than the average American worker.
Gosh! with all this Harvard education, they can ask for merit and educational raises thereby making the disparity between them and the average American worker even higher.
Report Post »NotaLemming
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 9:51amThis is an egregious use of our tax dollars. This is the kind of Academic indoctrination we DO NOT NEED in America. Harvard is an Evil Socialist Brew Pot for Marxist policy studies.
Report Post »Windsong
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 9:42amAside from the recent revelations regarding the teaching matter, Harvard is no longer considered a place where I’d want to send my children. It could be compared to the ‘Nobel Peace Prize’, which has been made into a mockery in the eyes of hundreds of millions of people throughout the world.
As for the Harvard ‘American paid courses’, all I can say is BUDGET CUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Report Post »Sinista Mace
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 9:32amThis is atrocious, but I‘m absolutely sure that there’s even more agregious examples of government waste than this. All these examples we keep becoming privy to are just the tip of an iceberg the size of Greenland.
Report Post »Swizzle Stick
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 9:07amAnother well intentioned program that has run amuck…put into place, forgotten and allowed to run on auto-pilot as government leaders moved on to the next crisis. These folks ought to attend on-line like the rest of us and reserve such resident developmental courses to the “best and brightest” and not just the next available person to fill a seat.
Report Post »pm17895
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 9:05amI have no doubt that the execs benefit from the training. I am equally certain that the price tag is outrageous. Add time away from regular duties and concomitant hour and monetary expenses and it turns into a boondoggle.
Report Post »love the kids
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 9:01amMission Acomplished!!! The main focus of the class is how to best spend and waste taxpayer money, what better way than an actual lab?
Report Post »sWampy
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 8:47amI hate this crap, as someone who is a contractor for the federal government the mandate that 25% of all government positions here go to minority people, there are very, very, very few minority engineers and scientists, so they hire completely unqualified minorities that majored in business, underwater basket weaving, etc. They then figure out they screw up everything they touch, so they pay them to spend the next dozen years trying to get a masters in engineering at some ivy league place, pay their salary, pay their tuition, pay their room and board, and pay them to fly back and forth every week. They then have a position that needs filling so they hire a contractor through a “small minority owned” company that takes half the salary from the mostly white engineers that do all the real work. It‘s a great ponzi scheme to redistribute wealth from those that produce it to those that don’t.
Report Post »rfycom
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 8:16amSo we want small government and then we want the ones running our government to be a bunch of dummies? You have my permission to use my tax dollars to educate the people running my government. Jesus Christ PEOPLE. All creative people and creative institutions are liberal. Without liberals we would be in a world of hurt PEOPLE. Not to mention without good music and movies to watch. Oh and very boring books to read. You see PEOPLE we need liberals and they need us. It is the balance that makes our country great. We need to compromise. We compromise in our relationships, in our work, and in life in general. Compromising does not make you weak it just means your smart. Let’s compromise and get back to managing the liberals like we used to.
Report Post »Cotswolds
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 8:38amLiberals are fine, I count myself amongst them (in the Jeffersonian sense). Progressives can all jump off a cliff, I have no use for compromise with their ideals. It’s a ridiculous premise to suggest that only progressives are creative. To be clear, there can be NO COMPROMISE with the progressive agenda at the federal level.
Report Post »TRUTHLADY
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 2:48pmAcademic credentials are useless to people who have no moral values. You can’t teach common sense and values and that is exactly what we need in Government. It’s not about me, me, me and me. It’s about serving the WE THE PEOPLE. By the way you used the Lord’s name in vain, that is called Blasphemy. I bet they don’t teach that at Harvard!
Report Post »Cotswolds
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 8:10amThis is another example of why the whole city [of D.C.] needs to be purged to the fullest extent possible. I have no faith in our ability to truely change the culture in that swamp.
Report Post »subflavus
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 8:05amCan someone please e-mail his story to that idiot Olivia Wilde who just made that MoveOn.org ad. The whole premise of that ad was that the evil Republicans will take over and act like a corporation, which will destroy civilization as we know it.
Report Post »Bob PA
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 7:56amHarvard, like most universities are predominately left wing in their world view. Why would the USA want to emulate how other countries do it with their failed socialistic democracies.
Report Post »pscully17
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 7:50amwhich also explains that 90 percent of our DC political ass-es are harvard Grads, then enroll themselves and their underlings back into harvard for these stupid expensive programs– its a pay as they go relationship!! we pay, they go. and GIve back to the schools coffers!! its a conflict of Interest–very shady and HArvard should be cut off immediately! lets not forget their habitual production of anti-constitutional lawyers/judges.
Report Post »starman70
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 8:44amOOOOOOH YEAH! Harvard like many Universities are in need of money. Didn’t our president attend Harvard? Who paid his tuition and fees? Is this some kind of payback at taxpayer expense?
Harvard has notably the most far left professorship in America. Who else could “Train” government workers in the fine points of socialism and government control than “Haaavd”. Of course, the government payments only go to subsidize the Communist agenda. When will the majority of Americans wake up and see what’s happening to this country?
Report Post »Meyvn
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 7:45amAnother example of squandering public money!
Report Post »Beckofile
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 2:56pmWhen is the left going to go ballistic over Big Education and no bid Harvardburton contracts????
Report Post »mizflame98
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 7:43amSend them to the University of Phoenix or Devry. I find it ironic that we spend all this money to send them to Harvard for training and they’re still incompetent bureaucrats.
Report Post »LadyIzShy
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 7:47amLOL true I wonder if they send the postal workers here maybe thats why they keep losing money
Report Post »snowleopard3200
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 7:52amGot an idea, send them out here during the AZ summer monsoon, and if they can withstand the storms, humidity, heat (yeah right), and the local wildlife (animal, human, and tourist) then they just might (not holding my breath) be able to pull off a success story.
At least if anything we could see real politicians at work in the real heat; and have them use the public transportation here as well.
Report Post »Beckofile
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 2:46pmHow about they send themselves or their parents help them through screwl? Better yet they can get a student loan like the rest of us? This is elitism at it’s worst!
Report Post »grandmaof5
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 4:29pmProbably they should send them to Liberty University to study the Constitution.
Report Post »RichardSaunders
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 7:40amI’ve attended training at this facility. It was a great trip, we had a lot of fun, and the professors/instructors took us on a tour of the Harvard Club. My training was paid by my employer, a private, for-profit company, and it was several years ago. Not sure if my experience is/was the same as what is going on today, but while I enjoyed the week, I don’t think the training or the experience was particularly enlightening … but hey, I DID get a chance to go drinking at the bar that the TV show “Cheers” was modeled after … AND a “good time” was had by all … but it wasn’t worth eighteen grand of taxpayer money … simply wasn’t …
Report Post »Chett
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 7:33amBaloney
Report Post »Now we know why our government has zero common sense. (its against the rules at Haaavard)
NoName22
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 11:32amIt’s not education. Who teaches at Harvaaaad? Barack Hussein, Elena Kagan, some guy that just left his economic team.
It’s a brainwashing session, not an education.
Report Post »LadyIzShy
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 7:33amif they are execs WHY do they need to be trained?if they are unqualified for the job get rid of them.. heck get rid of the government or say 9)% of it.. THAT will cut cost and I bet those staying can do the job without going to 18,000 dollar classes
Report Post »mara123
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 7:48amthere regulating and economic classes must be substandard, if they were good at teaching these people, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in now.
Report Post »grandmaof5
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 7:49amOr they could do it the “old fashion” way, move up thru the ranks and learn on the job.
Report Post »snowleopard3200
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 7:49amHonestly the way our government does not know what the heck it is doing (save spending our funds and others it does not have) why should I be suprised at this. If the government had to truly compete with private industry to get the best graduates and managers, then they should understand one part of the equasion – the best leave and you have the worst left over.
If the worst stay entrenched in their administrative feif’s then how could we not expect such waste as this to occur. Maybe we need a good house cleaning from more than just the Congress and the President, VP and all of his Progressive Czars; shake each department to the core and get rid of the bloody waste, streamline the rest, and what works efficiently keep. The rest put to the torch.
Our bloody government on the Federal level is the only thing I know of growing while the country is in the worst shape for a long time.
http://www.artinphoenix.com/gallery/grimm (mix art)
Report Post »snowleopard3200
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 7:53am@Grandmaof5
Agreed, promotion based on true merit, not on the professional (insert any appropriate phrase here) commonly used in DC.
Report Post »HKS
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 8:22amThis sounds like one of those five thousand dollar hammer deals. Someone is getting a lot of kickback. That’s the way government works.
Report Post »where is JG
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 10:22amharvard=obama=socialism=bad for america. WHY WOULD THIS GOVERNMENT DO ANYTHING GOOD FOR AMERICANS? They hate us and want us destroyed or as the POSpotUS called it “fundamental transformation” of America. REMOVE THIS POSpotUS ASAP
Report Post »MsMonsoon
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 10:57amI worked at a California school district once which everybody knows, is already top-heavy with administrators. All I did all day was submit invoices for payments for consultants and outside studies. I could never figure out how they qualified for management positions if they had no expertise necessary to their department.
Report Post »AngryTexanFromAmarillo
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 11:14amby trained i think they mean reprogrammed or brainwashed. You know the age old saying about the Marine Corps, every other branch says the Marines are brainwashed to think they are the biggest and baddest in the military. Now don’t get me wrong I support all military. but my little brother is in the Marine Corps and he’ll tell you, through out boot camp and beyond they drill it in their heads they are invincible or at least try too. Kind of giving them a mini God complex. and this is exactly what they do at harvard.
Report Post »ReaganerThanThou
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 11:18amAnd some people wonder why tea partiers are against big government?
Report Post »VABuckeye
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 12:41pm@ Mara
It’s not necessarily that the econ classes are substandard, it’s that Ivy Leagues (and most colleges in general save for a few like George Mason U) teach Keynsian economic theory, which has pretty much been a failure everywhere it’s implemented. I was lucky enough to learn supply side and learned Keynsianism and why it fails vs. free market economics.
Report Post »Beckofile
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 2:41pmGot to send them in for a tune up at the Indoctrination Station every once in awhile. How else are we going to keep the most talented “useful Idiot” both usefull to the progressive movement and a complete idiot???
Report Post »retiredgranny
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 3:06pmAs a former govt HR specialist, I would recommend someone checking UVA and all the other Ivy League School. This has been going on for years…
Report Post »Ken
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 3:35pmHell, I bet they even have clothing allowances for Armani suits!
Report Post »EPinTally
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 3:45pmWhy are they teaching them how other governments work instead of teaching them how the Founders of our Great Country,The USA intended it to be run.
Report Post »Oahujack
Posted on October 27, 2010 at 5:24pmOh, is’t just Harvard…you know, that quaint little Marxist encampment in Cambridge Massachusetts!
Report Post »Blazergirl
Posted on October 28, 2010 at 8:49pmOf course the administrations do intensive training. The key word is intensive. They make certain that they will be indoctrinated to the administration’s standards. Why else would they have to study other governments and the way they govern? Can you say Communism or Socialism? It’s been very obvious that the Obama administration does not care how much things cost. If they did, we wouldn‘t be in the mess we’re in now.
Report Post »Take a look at our President going on his Democratic Tour. He‘s flying around this country like he’s a rock star. How much is this costing the tax payers for him to campaign for his cronies? I‘m pretty sure it’s not being paid by the democratic party fundraised money. Look how much it cost us just so the First Lady can jetset to Spain. Millions! It makes me sick to my stomach to see how much money they just waste when we in such a mess. They spend so much that I bet if we could cut off their “allowances” we could pay back a third of our national debt. I pray for our country everyday.
chazman
Posted on October 28, 2010 at 10:04pmWhy are you spending $800,000 of American tax dollars to teach Africans to wash their genitals before they have sex? Sex with what? Goats? Sex with a knothole in a fence?
Report Post »This is Treason, people …