An “On the Issues” Post from the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education [http://futureofhighered.org] _______________ A recent report from the New America Foundation highlights one important way access to higher education is closing down for low-income students. Even after Pell grants are factored in, the net cost of college for many of these students is still…
I just realized that this is something that I posted previously. If you haven’t read it in its previous iteration, it is very much worth reading. If you have read it, I apologize. I am not deleting it simply to avoid e-mails from subscribers to the blog, asking where the post on administrative bloat is.…
The following paragraphs are quoted from an article written by Diane Dietz for the Register–Guard in Eugene, Oregon: “The GTFF [Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation] demanded two weeks of paid medical or parental leave, which the university refused to grant on the grounds that graduate students are first and foremost students—and because the university doesn’t want…
In an article today on the debacle at The New Republic, journalist (and former TNR staffer) Michael Kinsley is quoted in reference to new owner Chris Hughes, “It’s his magazine, and if he wants to wreck it, he can.” This could easily become the tagline for the current age. Certainly for the boards of trustees of our institutions of…
—or, If Moses Was a Founding Father, Then Was Charlton Heston’s Leadership of the NRA Divinely Preordained? Aaron’s post references the addition of new standardized tests in Texas. In an October 11 article for the British newspaper The Telegraph, Katherine Rushton opens a discussion of the UK-based conglomerate’s “challenges” with pointed references to the business…
Between 2008 and 2014, state support for higher education has decreased 30.7% in Pennsylvania, the 11th highest decrease among the states. The decrease has amounted to $2,206 per full-time-equivalent student. In 2014, while 42 of the 50 states have increased allocations for higher education, Pennsylvania has been one of eight states in which state funding…
Soon after I returned from Peace Corps service in 1990, I started to hear of a new organization called “Teach for America.” People fancied it as something of a domestic Peace Corps, which rankled. Not only did I remember the suspicion toward VISTA volunteers in Western North Carolina in the sixties, but I knew the reasons…
Who should teach? And who should decide who teaches? What should the learning environment look like? And who should decide how it looks–and should there even be just one “look”? These old questions came to mind today when I read Marty Nemko’s October 29 article in Time, “Why Ph.D.s Shouldn’t Teach College Students.” I went…
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is becoming a very pro-faculty, pro-adjunct, pro-academic freedom and anti-Garcetti v. Ceballos court. It continues to reverse or remand upon appeal several draconian decisions of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. Loretta Capeheart, a member of the Illinois Committee A…