As I’ve mentioned before, I like reading the Higher Education Strategy Associates blog as they have some really interesting articles and topics. Most of the time I find it intriguing, maybe even illuminating, but once in a while I think, “nope, sorry, that analysis is weak”. Today’s article was in a similar vein about B.C. universities’ use of lobbyists to influence the BC government and the government telling them not to spend their money on lobbyists instead of actual programming.

So, the BC Government is telling BC universities that they shouldn’t hire lobbyists to lobby the provincial government. […]

From the university’s perspective, the sloganeering makes no sense unless you take the lobbyists effectiveness into account. If the lobbyist achieves nothing, then yes, that money would be better spent in the classroom. But if by spending 50K on a lobbyist, an institution ends up receiving another 500K in money, then that’s money extremely well spent. Obviously, it’s not always simple to determine cause and effect when it comes to an individual’s work, but that’s how universities need to look at the problem; is there a return on investment?

Admittedly, from the public’s point of view it’s not so simple. There is an unseemliness to institutions who receive public money to lobby government for more money.