Rutgers embarrassment — time to close or privatize it

It's been too much for a while now. First Rutgers spends the lions share of their resources on the football program, unfortunately, at the expense of other sports.

Robert Barchi becomes the president of the University and things got worse. Not just his defense of an anti-Semitic professor and then the justification for racist vandalism which he said was protected by the First Amendment, but now recklessly spending state money to give raises to student workers.

It's gotta stop. It's an irresponsible move at best to spend dollars from a state university on a completely unnecessary wage hike for students while working families in the Garden State struggle to put food on the table. At worst, it's classic political maneuvering to win over a constituency with other people's money. You'd think he was governor or something.

Making more sense is that the New Jersey institution is among the most expensive for in-state tuition in the nation. Of course if the spending on programs and giveaways isn't enough, how about a look at the salaries over the past few years.

It's time to rein in the Rutgers patronage machine and fire the guy at the top. Incoming Gov. Phil Murphy has a chance to rebuild the reputation and take back some control of the tuition/taxpayer subsidized institution, which derives nearly 25 percent of it's $4.4 billion budget from you. The university is virtually doing nothing to help the reputation of our state and certainly doing nothing to help families in NJ with great academics get a start in higher education. How about we cut the Rutgers salary budget and offer scholarships to the most deserving NJ high school graduates? It would be a start. But first, fire Barchi.

Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin’ Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015. Tweet him @NJ1015 or @BillSpadea.

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