Public universities commonly pay fees to its guest speakers with amounts on the average, higher than four years of a student's tuition. Speeches normally last from 30 minutes to an hour. this practice has been scrutinized by most people due to its insensitive nature.
Last April, actor Kevin Bacon gave a speech at the University of South Florida on the topic of philantropy and social engagement. The actor was paid $70,000 for that lecture alone.
Last June, University of Nevada in Las Vegas invited Hillary Clinton and reportedly paid her a whooping $225,000 which gained much public scrutiny.
Celebrities and personalities are being paid and pampered by universities to give speeches regardless of their academic background and accomplishments. Often the content of the speeches are light in matter and less of substance. They normally discuss their childhood, roads to success, family matter, do some jokes and sometimes even signing or doing some performance.
California, for example, had shelled out more than $7.5 million for invited speakers and performances since 2012. some of the guests were actor William Shatner who was paid $75,000 and singer Tony Bennett who was given $110,000.
Florida campuses paid more than $2 million to celebrities such as Sarah Silverman, Larry King and Ron Paul.
Although it is amusing to see celebrities and personalities grace the university with their presence, it is insensitive for the school to offer big amount of money to the celebrities' respective agencies when there are lots of students who could not be given scholarships and there are those forced to take out big loans.
The cost of college is increasing every year. Public university tuition has increased by 163 percent since 1994. The question we should be asking ourselves is, is it worth it to pay thousands of dollars for a 30-minute celebrity speech compared to how many students the school could have given scholarships to?
