The OSU is considering leasing the management of all parking at the University to a private operator. The rationale is: "Tough economics times mean we need to find new ways to pay for critical academic needs, including more tenured faculty and student scholarships." The estimates are the lease net $300-$400m for the University. Of course there is a catch. The terms of the lease would explicitly spell out the allowable changes in parking rates (I currently pay $60 per month for a permit). The lease agreement would state that "The company cannot raise rates more than 7.5 percent annually for the first 10 years, which is the average amount rates have gone up for the last 12 years." Anyone who has worked with compund interest knows that 7.2% compunded over 10 years is a doubling of the principal, so the lease agreement effectively allows a doubling of parking rates over a 10 year period.
Apparently, the idea of privatizing parking has caused an uproar among faculty on campus. In an effort to assess the thinking of faculty, the University Faculty Council decided to survey the 2,604 tenure-track faculty on their attitude toward privatization. Here is the complete survey:
1. Do you SUPPORT privatization of OSU parking operations?
- Yes
- No
- I don’t know enough about it
2. What is your status?
- Faculty
- Staff
- Student
After eliminating staff and students from the response pool, here are the shockingly predictable results:
|
Answer |
Frequency |
Percentage |
|
Yes |
86 |
6.9% |
|
No |
1047 |
83.6% |
|
I don’t know enough about it |
119 |
9.5% |
|
Total |
1252 |
100% |
Having years of experience manipulating survey responses through creative wording of questions writing unbiased survey questions, I'm wondering if the results would have been any different if the questions would have been phrased thusly:
The University is considering implementing a parking policy that would guarentee parking rates would increase by no more than 7.5% per year for the next 10 years (For reference, 7.5% is the the average rate of increase over the past 12 years). If the University were to put this policy to a faculty vote, would you vote for or against a policy that would cap parking rate increases at 7.5% per year for the next 10 years?
I would vote for the policy
I would vote against the policy
I don't have enough information
Just wondering.








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