BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Every solution offered by a college or university faces a pending crisis in a different way. Wealthy institutions have the resources to weather challenges by kicking the can down the road, often for decades. That’s why it is significant that Harvard University last week issued a warning about its financial constraints…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In an article for University Business magazine, Jodi Helmer addresses the question “Is early college working?” She provides the following broad statistics: In 2002, 1.2 million students were earning college credits while still in high school. A decade later, the number of those participating in dual enrollment courses had almost doubled,…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Opponent Testimony for H.B. 66 Submitted By Dr. Amy Thompson, Professor of Public Health Chairman Duffy, Vice Chairman Antani, Ranking Member Sweeney, Members of the House Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee, my name is Dr. Amy Thompson. For identification purposes, I am a tenured Professor of Public Health and the…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL As reported last week by Ashley A. Smith in Inside Higher Education, one of the most interesting developments in higher education is how the growing concern over high tuition sticker prices is playing out in state and national politics. Much of the discussion is a good-hearted effort to make college more…
BY HANK REICHMAN In January a wide variety of academic and labor organizations, including the California conference of the AAUP and the California Faculty Association (CFA), released a report, “The $48 fix: Reclaiming California’s Master Plan for Higher Education,” which demonstrated that tuition could be eliminated at the University of California (UC) and the California…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Scott Jaschik recently interpreted the findings from the 2017 Survey of Admission Directors, sponsored by Inside Higher Education and Gallup and drawn from a sample of 453 admission directors. While the full discussion of these findings is too complex for this space, the general conclusions, especially those specific to enrollment patterns,…
BY MICHAEL MERANZE The following is reposted with permission from the Remaking the University blog. Michael Meranze is professor of history at UCLA. He co-authors Remaking the University with Christopher Newfield, professor of english at UC, Santa Barbara. The farce that was MiloFest has now frittered away into failure. Of course, that will not be…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH All state budget impasses do not have the same causes, but, at the risk of oversimplification, there are basically two main categories of causes. The first is fiscal irresponsibility that involves overspending on special-interest projects and underfunding of major continuing costs. The second is fiscal irresponsibility that places such a priority…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In an article for CNBC, Abigail Hess reports on why international students are applying to and enrolling at Canadian colleges and universities instead of U.S. institutions. Hess provides the following statistics: The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers surveyed over 250 American colleges and universities and found that 39…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL The first indications are in on how the academic year is likely to go. In the pomp and ceremony that surrounds the opening of the school year, deep concerns emerge behind-the-scenes in all but the best endowed institutions as the numbers come in. There are no alternative facts to hide what…