So declared an administrator at Penn State late last year in a private meeting, explaining his view of the real purpose of Pennsylvania’s flagship land-grant university. This was his rather tenuous way of defending the lack of cost controls on tuition and fees.

What has surprised me over the years at Penn State is not so much the amount of institutional waste that exists at an ostensibly non-profit enterprise, but how frank so much of the school’s leadership is in admitting the failure of the institution to mind its founding mission: to provide an liberal and practical education to the working class sons and daughters of the Commonwealth.

The university’s annual budget stands at more than $3.4 billion. Ten years ago, it was barely $2 billion. There are other costs, too, like the interest on the nearly $1 billion worth of debt that the university has accrued over the years, largely as a result of its unending building binge.

And while the research-minded administrator quoted above is wrong about the school’s core mission today, time looks to be on his side. According to a recent policy report by the Commonwealth Foundation, a sizable 30 percent of Penn State’s operating budget in 2006 was devoted to research expenditures.

Then factor in the costs of agricultural outreach programs, and suddenly we find out that little more than half of the entire budget  is actually going toward educating the undergraduate. And Penn State’s not even the worst offender: University of Pittsburgh, another state-related college spent 38 percent of its budget on research in 2006.

Now, none of this would be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that colleges like Penn State and Pitt still market themselves as institutions mainly concerned with providing a rich education of both depth and breadth to young men and women at an affordable, worthwhile price.

The problem with higher education is not necessarily its indulgence on research and outreach, but fundamentally in its application of market models where they don’t belong and the absence of those models where they do belong.

Market models should not be used as an excuse to limit the ranks of tenured faculty in favor of cheaper, more interchangeable grad students. Market models should, though, be applied to departments and programs ancillary to classroom education.

Even as tenured faculty have diminished to only 35 percent of the teaching corps in higher education, schools like Penn State spend tens of millions each year on programs that not only have no relation to its mission, but fail even by their own metrics for success.

Condoms give-aways dominate student health center budgets as sexually transmitted diseases burgeon. Equity departments receive more funding to “manage” diversity, effectively asserting that the undergrad is either too racist or too helpless to peacefully exist or make friends on his own.

Vital to a modern university? Let’s see the administrator try to sell that idea to any reasonable Pennsylvanian, who has watched tuition at four-year public colleges increase more than 121 percent over the past two decades while per capita income has increased by a comparably modest 33 percent.

Average state tuition at a four-year public college in Pennsylvania was $9,672 for the 2007-08 academic year. That’s more than Ohio, Delaware, Maryland or West Virginia. It’s nearly $4,500 more than the average state tuition for New Yorkers. Pennsylvania is the fourth most expensive state in the nation if you’re looking to attend a four-year public college, and Penn State in particular is the costliest land-grant university the nation.

The economics just don’t support the concept of the modern resort-style college experience that focuses more on the quantity of its services rather than the quality of its educators and graduates. College administrators are probably right in thinking their institutions are more or less recession-proof, but responsible governance of a public good like higher education should be about more than market demand.

Gov. Ed Rendell put it best in recent remarks to student leaders at Penn State: “If there’s ever been a moral imperative of controlling tuition, it’s now.”

Amen.

Strange, then, that this increase in taxpayer funding of higher education will not result in fundamentally better colleges or universities. Our universities and colleges will likely be less affordable and largely the same academically despite this major investment.

First, let’s put things in perspective. In 2006, total federal taxpayer funding of the Department of Education amounted to $166 billion. The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act – the bailout – would nearly double that number, ballooning the budget by another $142 billion over the next 24 months.

Some of this influx of money being borrowed “from the future” would fund elementary and secondary programs and early childhood development – worthwhile initiatives.

The largest portion — $79 billion – will disappear into a “stabilization fund” for states to pay for education and public services. The problem? Only 61 percent of these funds must be used for education. The other 39 percent? A slush fund for state governments to fund “public services.”

Even worse, the bill specifically states that, “No recipient . . . shall use such funds to provide financial assistance to students to attend private elementary or secondary schools.” Direct financial relief to struggling students and families? Too radical for Congress.

The second largest portion – some $66 billion – will go toward higher education. Of this, there are admirable improvements: Pell Grants will increase by $500, bringing them to $5,350 annually. There will also be a $2,500 “higher education tax credit” which could prove a helpful reform.

Unfortunately, these are small scale, short-term improvements. They fail by not addressing the larger questions of college affordability and responsibility on the part of the administrators charged with governing our colleges and universities.

In his historic inaugural address, President Barack Obama spoke of a renewed “ethic of responsibility” in America. This was an observation by our President both timely and elegant in its call for a more virtuous citizenry.

For the time being, though, Congress seems hell-bent on prolonging a culture of entitlement and reckless spending on feckless programs.

The stimulus bill actively works against the President’s goal of an “ethic of responsibility” by increasing Stafford loan limits by $2,000, allowing for students to pile on more debt at colleges that show no signs of keeping their costs in check.

If college administrators know that students can borrow $2,000 more, will there not be a strong desire to also increase tuition by a similar amount? They can be utterly profligate in their expansion of their campuses and programs, and while costs skyrocket, they can argue that loan programs exist to mitigate the burden.

Further, roughly $7 billion of the $66 billion slated for higher education will be almost directly funding campus building costs for renovation and maintenance.

On Jan. 23, The Chronicle of Higher Education ran an article titled, “Anticipating Stimulus Money for Campus Projects, Colleges Get ‘Shovel Ready.’”

In the article, Jane Oates, executive director of New Jersey’s Commission on Higher Education, the state’s coordinating board, said, “I don’t think we’ll have any problem spending it.”

No doubt. Still, shouldn’t colleges and universities have been able to pay for needed maintenance without a federal bailout courtesy of as-yet unborn taxpayers? If one hands you $7 billion, few would have trouble finding ways to spend it.

The more remarkable thing, though, would have been if the colleges and universities set to reap rewards they never sowed had managed themselves responsibility, and had the funds saved for maintenance they surely knew would be needed. Why should state school construction be the duty of Washington?

(Then again, who needs an ethic of responsibility if you can safely bet the federal government will pay your gambling debt when the bill for the buildings comes due?)

The Heritage Foundation recently highlighted a key fact about federal education spending that Congress has failed to accept: “increasing college subsidies have not solved the real problem of higher education affordability.”

In its Jan. 26 report, Dan Lips presents us with an uncomfortable set of facts. “In the academic year 2006-2007,” the Heritage report claims, “the federal government spent more than $86 billion on student aid for postsecondary education – a real increase of 77 percent over what was spent ten years ago.”

“Yet paying for college tuition continues to present a significant challenge for many American families. Over the past decade, the real cost of two semesters at four-year private and public colleges increased by 29 percent and 41 percent, respectively.”

Perhaps our college administrators are spending because they know students will come no matter the cost and debt burden they saddle themselves with as a result. After all, colleges hoard a real treasure: a monopoly on professional credentials.

This stimulus package is truly frustrating, an economic plan that guarantees greater taxpayer funding of administrators’ wish lists: grander buildings, increased funding for research programs and more physically attractive campuses.

The ivy tower now seeks self-aggrandizement even while tenured faculty and undergraduate academics dwindle and stagnate, afterthoughts at institutions once revered for higher learning.

For higher education, this is an anti-stimulus package – it will accomplish neither of its stated goals, either in increasing college responsibility in terms of more rigorous academic programs or in making access to college more attainable through tuition more affordable.

Congress very well may sentence our young people to a two-fold punishment with this bill: first, to suffer institutions of higher education less affordable, and second, to bear the responsibility of footing the bill for this borrowed, $1 trillion “stimulus.”

This column originally appeared in The Philadelphia Bulletin. Thomas A. Shakely can be reached at tom@tomshakely.com.