State schools could give THOUSANDS of students full rides if they closed divisive DEI departments

In a new report, the University of California, Berkeley, spends $25 million on 400 DEI staff. AP

Spreading angry ideology is good work if you can get it.

At public universities nationwide, “diversity, equity and inclusion” officials make huge sums while spending even more pushing division and discrimination on students and faculty alike.

They claim they’re promoting disenfranchised groups, but they’re wasting money that would be better spent giving a broader range of students a high-quality education.

In a new report, I reviewed DEI spending at public universities across the country.

I focused on red and purple states since they are most likely to have the political will to reform higher education.

While DEI bureaucracies are generally largest at universities in blue states — see the $25 million the University of California, Berkeley, spends on 400 DEI staff — there’s no chance leaders such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom roll them back.

Blue states would probably allocate more money toward DEI, not less.

I conservatively estimate that total DEI spending at state schools is in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

But it’s conceivable that America’s roughly 1,600 public colleges and universities are spending more than a billion dollars a year on DEI.

Each institution would have to spend just $625,000 a year.

While many schools don’t report their DEI spending or otherwise publish information that can be analyzed, those that do generally show that public universities are spending far more.

The University of Alabama drops $2 million a year on salaries for DEI staff.

Georgia Tech pays $6.7 million a year.

These staff spend additional money running DEI programs and departments.

In South Carolina, Clemson University spends $2.5 million on DEI programs, while the University of South Carolina spends $1.7 million.

Then there’s the University of Michigan, which spends $30 million a year on its DEI team.

Whatever the school, the true cost is likely much higher.

Schools often report salaries for DEI staff but not the cost of the projects they run or vice versa.

Regardless, DEI administrators are extremely well paid.

Virginia Tech’s top diversity official makes $391,000, while the University of Virginia’s head DEI honcho makes nearly $375,000.

From Alabama to Kentucky to Louisiana to Ohio to Utah and beyond, DEI administrators routinely make more than $200,000.

The National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education brags that 84% of DEI officials make at least $100,000, while more than a third are pulling in $200,000-plus.

A 2021 survey found the average public university employs 45 DEI staff.

That fact alone indicates such schools are likely spending millions of dollars a year on politicized personnel.

Imagine how far that money could go if it went toward helping students instead of hammering ideology into their heads.

The salary of Virginia Tech’s top diversity official would fund nearly 13 full-ride scholarships, based on in-state tuition rates.

At Utah State University, getting rid of the DEI czar would pay for 14½ full rides.

And if the salaries and funding for all DEI staff and programs at public universities were spent on scholarships, huge numbers of students could benefit.

At the University of Michigan, 241 DEI staff are hogging resources that could pay the way for more than 1,700 students.

With so much money at stake, universities should focus on giving more students a better education at an affordable price, not politicized indoctrination at a higher price.

And by dismantling DEI from top to bottom, state leaders can help ensure no student gets indoctrinated at any price.

That’s the most important reason DEI deserves to be driven from campus.

It exists to stifle debate, pit people against each other and control the next generation’s political views.

The taxpayers who fund public colleges and universities (as well as private schools through federally backed student loans) think they’re helping today’s students become tomorrow’s leaders.

Instead, they’re paying hundreds of millions a year — at least — toward the intellectual and moral collapse of higher education and the eventual collapse of our society.

Surely it’s better to fund students instead of the DEI bureaucracies designed to corrupt them.

Liesel Crocker is a senior research fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability.