These days a whole lot of money is being spent in anticipation that not only will Hillary Clinton be the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, she ultimately will win the nation's highest office.
In the process of going from "dead broke" (her words) to quite wealthy, the former first lady, senator and secretary of state has talked and written her way into an amazing number of pocketbooks, charging at times more than a quarter million dollars per speech. It does appear a bit extravagant if not downright unseemly for a college or university these days to pay such amazing fees to hear a speech that is unlikely to give us much new political insight.
At least it does to a growing number of students hard pressed to pay for the constantly skyrocketing cost of higher education and facing years of debt because of the loans they needed to finance it.
A number of the students have launched protests, and even Clinton's campus fans seem to think that this may not be a good, defensible use of difficult-to-come-by college resources, especially by state institutions that always are looking for funds to stay up with competitive demands and steadily increasing faculty costs.
Clinton's average fee is a cool $200,000 per appearance and can run as high as $300,000. Justifying this amount can be tricky even when the money is not coming directly from the institution's treasury but is being raised through direct donations or charges at the gate to hear her.
The Washington Post recently estimated that she has collected at least a tidy $1.8 million from college appearances in the last nine months. Not bad for a politician who is just contemplating another run for the presidency. Will Rogers in 1932 cut short an introduction of Franklin D. Roosevelt because he said he wasn't going to waste much time or money on a mere candidate for the White House.
What is the value of spending so much money for a speech that isn't expected to cut much new ground? It isn't as though Clinton is tough to see or that her positions aren't well known--just turn on your television set or your iPad or open your newspaper. Bill and Hillary Clinton are now estimated to be worth more than $100 million, a neat sum for the down-and-outers of 2000 who left the White House in somewhat of a shambles and claimed to have faced massive debt. Right.
It's going to be an issue for her, especially among those who are struggling to earn enough money to finance college and pay off the massive debt afterward. It's not a good image for Clinton or the schools.
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Dan Thomasson is an op-ed columnist for McClatchy-Tribune.
Editorial on 07/24/2014