Privatize now

With all the concerns about the Memorial Student Union, such as the cost of renovation and the lack of food choices, perhaps it is time to realize that the problem is not the Union itself, but its business practices. The Union should have been privatized long ago.

There are two finite resources, time and money, that the Union is consuming to the detriment of the university's mission, which is, presumably, is to educate students and inspire great minds and innovative ideas.

While nations around the world privatize industry, realizing the economic efficiency of markets and the ineptitude of bureaucrats, universities around the country somehow think that the "academic mission" of their university justifies centralized control of the non-academic function of running auxiliary services. Nonsense. The academic mission of a university is best served by channeling money and attention into education and research. Control of the Union by in-house management blurs the academic focus o f administrators, sucks cash out of alternative investments, which would have earned a higher return elsewhere, and provides students with low-quality products and services.

Previous student-led efforts to privatize the Union were bold, but they often failed by compromising on "partial privatization," where the mixture was actually economically less sound than the status quo. Partial privatization left managerial control in t he hands of the administration, but allowed 'select' private competitors to conduct business in the Union. By offering so few opportunities, the price of entry was bid up to a point where the private entrants had little hope of making a respectable retur n on their investment.

Combining a free market with a controlled market usually produces a controlled market. The decision is simple: privatize the entire Union, including the management function. With the economic incentive of equity, a private entity will make the massive in vestments in the Union, which are sorely needed. It will also have an incentive to provide products and services students want, just as the American economy does. And most importantly, it will allow our administrators to focus on education and research.

Administrators should not be devoting their time to managing the Union. The free market can most efficiently do that. University administrators should focus on making the university a more effective laboratory and communicator of ideas. Every minute of ti me and money invested in the Union is a minute that should have been invested in improving the quality of education and research. And with the university administration proposing a total budget of only $60 million, compared to the $93 million the Union ad ministrators wanted for a complete renovation and expansion, the money would be better spent guaranteeing the students of the University of Arizona a worthy educational experience.