The Campaign for the Future of Higher Education [http://futureofhighered.org/ ] is a loose association of the major faculty unions and faculty associations in the United States. These groups have come together several times each year to share information on issues affecting high education and to shape responses to those issues that emphasize the paramount importance…
In an attempt to rein in rising tuition and skyrocketing debt President Obama has announced a plan for performance based funding for higher education. Under his plan colleges would be rated on affordability, graduation rates and earnings of graduates. While we applaud the President for raising concerns over rising tuition and student debt, concerns that…
This seems to be the day for infographics. What follows has just been released by the White House: Although President Obama may be very well-intentioned in his continuing determination to forge some sort of bi-partisan agreements, this plan simply incorporates the major features of the proposals being put forward by those most interested in gutting…
Note: On Monday of this week I posted an article about plans to cut 40 jobs, including 22 faculty members at Clarion University of Pennsylvania. Earlier today, I posted another article on the situation at Clarion on Raging Chicken Press. This article features an interview with the President of the Clarion chapter of the faculty…
The following letter to the editor appeared in the Columbus Dispatch in response to an article that placed some of the blame for increases in tuition and in student debt on inflated faculty salaries and continuing salary increases. ______________ Sunday, August 4, 2013 As president of the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University…
Certainly since Lyndon Johnson pushed through the social safety-net programs known collectively as the Great Society, but even since FDR began to create the first of those safety-net programs as part of his New Deal, the Far Right has been arguing vehemently that such programs are tantamount to communism, that they represent an unethical and…
In my first two posts in this series (links provided at the end of this post), I commented on the excessive compensation being received by David Petraeus for teaching a course as an adjunct faculty member at a CUNY campus and by Gordon Gee as president of Ohio State. This post provides updates on both…
Many commentators on what is undermining higher education have focused on administrative bloat, on the increasing allocation of revenues to non-instructional or administrative positions. Some have pointed to the increasing exploitation of adjunct faculty at most institutions, citing the very minimal compensation, the non-existent benefits, the general lack of staff support, and the complete lack…
Much attention has been paid to the ballooning accumulation of student debt and its short- and long-term impact on the U.S. economy. As a response to the Great Recession, most states dramatically reduced their subsidies supporting public colleges and universities over a series of annual budgets. In the last year or two, some states have…
This is a re-post from the “On the Issues” blog of the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education [http://futureofhighered.org/on-the-issues/] I encourage you to become more involved in this national advocacy group. ******************** It’s almost a truism in many places today that colleges and universities ought to be run more like businesses. But should they? …