BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL In “Colleges Should Not Allow Students to Pay With a Percentage of Future Earnings”, Forbes contributor Derek Newton got both the intent and purpose of an income share agreement (ISA) wrong. In conversations with higher education leaders across America, my experience indicates that there has been a dramatic shift over the past…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL American colleges and universities operate on an unsustainable financial model. They are heavily tuition-dependent at all but the best-endowed institutions. In fact, of the more than 4,000 non-profit colleges and universities, the number that have the flexibility to rely on revenue, whether from endowment drawdowns or other sources, may be less…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL For the American consumer, there is a good deal of persistent confusion about the cost of higher education. Media reports usually point to the high “sticker price,” which does not reflect the actual cost of an education that most American families pay. On the public side, it fails to incorporate the…
BY KELLY HAND We already knew from the Trump administration’s initial “skinny” budget proposal, released in March, that higher education would be on the chopping block. The fleshed-out budget proposal released on May 22 details cuts that would have a devastating impact on student aid, the arts and humanities, scientific research, and international education. Following up…
POSTED BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL The results of the most recent Tuition Discounting Study from the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) are telling and worrisome. The study, released last week, examined how much colleges and universities awarded students in scholarship and grants and how deep tuition discounting has become. The NACUBO study…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Everyone knows that money plays a major role in students’ college enrollment decisions. How big a role? According to a recent study by Royall & Co., the enrollment management and alumni fundraising arm of EAB, “almost one-fifth of students who were admitted to their top choice of college or university in…
The following is a link to an article I published about textbooks. I resolve to do something concrete about this problem, and one part of the solution will be abandoning the practice of using textbooks for certain courses. I hope others will follow and offer suggestions. I hope others may already be teaching without “required” textbooks. http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/22/the-trouble-with-textbooks-a-great-american-rip-off/
It seems everywhere we turn these days, we have to listen to someone or read about someone getting screwed. And it’s never a good screw, or if it is a good screw, that means the person still got shafted. Perhaps the only really good screw will be about someone actually having great consensual sex in…
Full disclosure, up front: I drink Starbucks every day, Sumatra if you must know, but I brew it at home because I like the affordability factor this option provides me. I have always liked the way Starbucks goes the extra mile when it comes to its employees, especially when I consider the working environment it…
Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell wants to be a reverse-Robin Hood, stealing from the poor to give to the rich and forcing public colleges to obey his terrible ideas. Gov. McDonnell is proposing that public colleges should not be allowed to increase the revenue allocated from tuition funds for financial aid to help the poor. According…