Colleges are usually at the forefront of radical politics [The word “radical” suggests extreme and abrupt change driven by ideological rather than practical concerns. These days there is much more political radicalism on the Far Right than anywhere on the Left], but when it comes to their own privileges they become feudal empires [Loaded language…
The following chart shows total household debt in the United States, broken down into its major components, in the fourth quarter of 2014: In effect, although total household debt increased from $11.71 trillion to $11.83 trillion from the third to the fourth quarters of last year, student-loan debt remained a relatively flat percentage of that…
Here’s a headline from today’s New York Times: “Wisconsin Sees Presidential Ploy in Walker’s Push for University Cuts.” Only to be expected, of course: to his critics, Mr. Walker, in both his proposed cuts and his aborted effort to overhaul the Wisconsin Idea, is trying to capitalize on a view that is popular among many conservatives: that…
I have been chronicling the ever-increasing state budget deficit in Louisiana, Bobby Jindal’s ideologically doctrinaire and ineffectual attempts to find a solution to that deficit that does not involve raising any taxes, and the catastrophic impact that this situation will almost certainly have on Lousiana’s public colleges and universities. This past week Jindal floated another…
The hawkish Washington Post has actually published an op-ed advocating the abolition of the military academies. Having been involved in a career struggle a few years back with the Air Force Academy, or more precisely with its partisans, I did a double take to encounter this article in one of America’s “elite” newspapers. Its essential argument is the military…
Bobby Jindal is seeking the 2016 GOP presidential nomination; so Louisiana’s public colleges and universities may have to absorb $380 million in cuts and as many as nine institutions might be closed. In this last election cycle, much attention was paid to the disastrous effects of Sam Brownback’s “tax reforms” in Kansas. Everyone likes paying…
Does your university have troubles? At the risk of turning this post into the academic equivalent of Monty Python’s “Four Yorkshiremen” sketch, your school probably has nothing on Northern New Mexico College. The situation there has come up before on this blog, and to summarize let’s just say their administration hasn’t exactly covered itself in…