June 9, 2006

Hiring Professors for Less

To the Editor:

John C. Cavanaugh and Christine K. Cavanaugh's "Franchising Higher Education" (The Chronicle Review, April 21) discusses a Starbucks-inspired outsourcing plan to lower the costs of hiring faculty members: An American university establishes a foreign campus whose professors (educated in the West) can offer good and cheap online courses.

There is an equally cost-effective alternative that is less likely to raise hackles: Hire American professors who are retired,