Higher education leaders have a major problem from which they cannot hide. The transfer pathway from community colleges to four-year colleges and universities is badly broken. And, it’s partly their fault. The facts are clear. Just 20 percent of first-time, full-time community college students seeking an associate degree earn one within three years. Only 35…
Yesterday I posted a piece on California Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed budget, with specific reference to higher education. Today UCLA History professor Michael Meranze posted his response to the Brown proposal on the Remaking the University blog that he runs with UC Santa Barbara English professor Christopher Newfield. Michael’s take is similar to mine, but…
Crumley, James. The Last Good Kiss. New York: Random House, 1978. Like the novelist Robert Stone, James Crumley has synthesized the conventions of the hardboiled tradition with elements of counterculture fiction. In his mystery-detective novels, he has alternated between two Montana detectives, C. W. Sughrue and Milo Milodragovitch, though the two detectives join forces…
This past fall, I somehow failed to post this notice on the most recent working paper published by the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education (CFHE). The CFHE website is located at http://futureofhighered.org/ _________________________ Executive Summary Although 50 years of research has shown that faculty/student interaction is crucial to student success, recent trends and…
Two days ago, I wrote a post titled “You Get What You Pay For Even When You’re Thinking Outside the Box: An Addendum to Brian Mitchell’s Post on an ‘Innovative’ Pricing Strategy from Maine” [https://academeblog.org/2016/01/06/you-get-what-you-pay-for-even-when-youre-thinking-outside-the-box-an-addendum-to-brian-mitchells-post-on-an-innovative-pricing-strategy-from-maine/]. The post closed: “With more specific reference to what is occurring in Maine, a state cannot hope to sustain a…
In Oregon, self-designated militiamen have been occupying a federal nature center that had been closed for the winter. This act of civil disobedience is being led by two of Cliven Bundy’s sons, who are singularly inept and inarticulate. The Bundys are not from Oregon. They are acting on behalf of two ranchers who don’t know…
I have long contended that California’s Democratic Governor Jerry Brown is the only true fiscal conservative in American politics. In many ways Brown is a liberal, and an often admirable one, but for decades perhaps his most distinctive characteristic has been his hesitancy to spend money. It would not be out of line to call…
For the third year in a row, Young Invincibles, a national organization working to engage young adults on issues such as higher education, health care, and jobs, has released a state-by-state report card on state commitments to higher education, finding major disinvestment by states and a growing gap in degree attainment between the white population…
In an article written for the New York Times, Dan Bilefsky has reported that “Donald J. Trump has threatened to abandon plans to invest more than $1 billion in Scotland if Britain bars him from entering the country over his comments that Muslim foreigners should not be allowed into the United States.” (Permit me a digression. I cannot help…