BY JOHN MCNAY One of the truly frustrating things about working for reforms in higher education is to get our college and university administrators to put education first and not allow the resources of the institutions to get hijacked for other purposes. The inability to focus on the real problems is widespread and yet the…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL At the most expensive U.S. colleges and universities, the advertised price now exceeds $70,000 per annum although most institutions are significantly below this level. Financial aid lowers the actual cost of attendance for many students. Still, American families are less willing to shoulder the expected family contributions that make a college…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH A sub-title for this post might be: Student Debt, DACA, and the Ottoman Defeat at the Gates of Vienna. These items have been culled from Pro Publica’s Capitol Words: Granted, Gohmert and King are not only on the Far Right end of the political spectrum, but even among those at that…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL One of the striking features of the new presidential administration appears to be the difference between fact and perception. On most levels, it seems that optics matter more than words.Facts seem to be afterthoughts to positions floated. Further, it looks like many positions shift regularly depending upon how the outcome is likely…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In an article sponsored jointly by ProPublica and the New York Times, Annie Waldman has reported the following: “New Jersey’s loans, which currently total $1.9 billion, are unlike those of any other government lending program for students in the country. They come with extraordinarily stringent rules that can easily lead to…
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…
Seeing the Department of Education’s Tweet of “Help Me. I’m Poor” with a picture of Kristen Wiig’s character in Bridesmaids memorably shnookered at first made me think yes, she is poor because she is saddled by student loan debts. But then I thought about an all-too-common occurrence these days. Increasingly kids are going to college…
By David Kociemba This is the seventh in a series of Academe Blog guest posts arranged by the AAUP Committee on Contingency and the Profession in celebration of Campus Equity Week. For information on and resources for CEW, see the national website at http://www.campusequityweek.org/2013/. There’s a new benefit worth tens of thousands of dollars that…
Much attention has been paid to the ballooning accumulation of student debt and its short- and long-term impact on the U.S. economy. As a response to the Great Recession, most states dramatically reduced their subsidies supporting public colleges and universities over a series of annual budgets. In the last year or two, some states have…
Paul Solman of PBS, says “Student loan debt is actually a crushing burden for many, especially in the current jobless maybe-it-is/maybe-it-isn’t recovery.” Students now starting college–or a year or two away–are absolutely aware of that burden. Their choices are going to be determined by how much of it they are willing to take on. Their…