Don’t Shoot the Messenger 

Moody’s Investors Service released its outlook for higher education in 2014. Looking at Moody’s interpretation of a survey of net tuition revenues, Scott Carlson called the report “grim” in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Moody’s suggested that weak economy will impact families capacity to pay. They noted that federal budgetary concerns, including a potential sequestration…

House Hearings on the Impact of the ACA on Education: Part I: Maria Maisto’s Testimony on the Impact on Part-Time Faculty

In her testimony, Maria Maisto correctly emphasizes that the ACA itself is not the problem but, instead, the efforts by colleges and universities to avoid providing to their part-time faculty the health insurance that the ACA makes available. _________________________   1700 West Market Street #159 Akron, OH 44313 Testimony for the Record Submitted to the…

House Hearings on the Impact of the ACA on Education: Part II: News Release from the Committee on the Hearings

Not surprisingly, the following news release reflecting the ideological position of the GOP majority on the committee completely ignores Maria Maisto’s testimony and frames the hearings in which she participated as providing just further evidence of the supposedly devastating impact of the ACA. Notice that Maria’s testimony is not quoted even once in the excerpts…

House Hearings on the Impact of the ACA on Education: Part III: Rep. Miller Announces eForum on Adjunct Faculty in Higher Education

Nov 19, 2013 Issues: Education, Higher Education, Labor, Jobs and Job Training, Worker Rights,Wages and Benefits WASHINGTON – Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, today announced an eForum to investigate how an increased reliance on contingent faculty by colleges and universities nationwide has impacted the lives of…

The Point of the Review

A couple of years ago, when writing a review of a rather thin offering by a respectable scholar, I found myself struggling to keep from becoming snide and catty. I had learned that writing a professional review is quite different from tossing off cutting remarks on a blog post; I felt I had a responsibility…

Your (Black) Friday follow.

If you’re on Twitter, you probably know about a ritual called “Friday Follow.” It’s a tradition in which people recommend to their followers other people whose Tweets might interest them. While I know this isn’t Twitter, I thought I’d bring the work of one of my tweeps to the attention of readers here because it’s…

The Retirement Crisis Reflects a Crisis in Declining Wages and an Eroding Standard of Living

On Black Friday–the day on which Walmart workers and other underpaid U.S. workers are engaged in actions to bring attention to their exploitation by some of America’s largest corporations–the following speech by Senator Elizabeth Warren seems very apropos. Senator Warren speaks most pointedly about the need to sustain and even to expand Social Security, but…