An “On the Issues” Post from the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education [http://futureofhighered.org] _______________ The staggering level of college loan debt in our country finally seems to be getting some long-overdue national attention. Among the proposals for how to deal with this issue is one called “Pay It Forward,” a program that would substitute…
An “On the Issues” Post from the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education [http://futureofhighered.org] _______________ The enormous ramifications—personal, national, social, and economic—of the college loan crisis are just now being widely and fully discussed. The consequences are serious for us all, whether or not we are paying back college loans for ourselves or our…
Writing for the New York Times (June 24, 2014), in a column titled “The Reality of Student Debt Is Different than the Cliches,” David Leonhardt reviews a recent study released by the Brookings Institute. These are the main assertions: (1) Student debt, on average, has actually not increased significantly. (2) Because the earnings of college…
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…
An article with the attention-grabbing headline of “Home Depot, The Place to Go for Toilet Paper?” in Friday’s issue of The Wall Street Journal made some interesting points about how to drive consumer traffic. Yes, I do not like to use that term either or to apply it to higher education, but that seems to be where…
Once upon in the ’80s, a time of undergraduate education I experienced as a student and can vouch for, dorm rooms at colleges looked surprisingly dingy. This was the case also at very expensive liberal arts schools, one of which I attended. I remember being slightly taken aback upon seeing my dorm room for the…
I doubt my college is unique in having offered over the years “events” too numerous to count where free pizza, ice cream, or doughnuts have been, if not the main course, at least one served up as part of some kind of learning experience. The publicity posters–first paper, now double-blasts of paper and email graphics–have…
At the end of the 2013-2014 academic year, total outstanding student debt in the United States is estimated to be $1.08 trillion. About.com, which is quoting information provided in U.S. Treasury reports [http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/moneymatters/ss/How-Much-US-Debt-Does-China-Own.htm], provides the following overview of who holds U.S. government debt: “About 32 cents for every dollar of U.S. debt, or $4.6 trillion,…
In “Here’s a New Way to Pay for College,” an article published in USA Today [http://college.usatoday.com/2014/04/17/heres-a-new-way-to-pay-for-college/], Daniel Wheaton reports on a new Far-Right proposal to address the student-debt crisis. In a bill that they have called “The Student Success Act,” Marco Rubio, the Republican Senator from Florida, and Jim Petri, a Republican House member from…
February 18, 2014 At the 2013 convention in Los Angeles, the AFL-CIO reaffirmed its historical commitment to increasing access to post-secondary education and alleviating the financial burden that now too often is part of that education. Accordingly, we call on federal and state policymakers to make post-secondary training and education more accessible by ending the…