Campus Generates $11 in Spending for Every Dollar the State Contributes

Aldo Svaldi of The Denver Post reports:

The three schools that make up the Auraria campus account for more than $1 billion in spending in the state a year, according to a new study.

In all, the campus generates $11 in spending for every dollar the state contributes, the study by Development Research Partners in Littleton found.

“For the first time, we have concrete evidence that shows what the impact of the campus is on the local community and on the state,” said Dean Wolf, executive director of the Auraria Foundation.

The state provided $95.8 million in the last fiscal year toward maintenance operations, grants and resident tuition at Auraria’s three schools — the University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State College of Denver and Community College of Denver.

In return, the campus generated $474.8 million in direct spending — or $5 for every dollar the state put in…Continue reading Auraria pays off for Colorado State Investment >>

Are you pricing education beyond the reach of most students?

Deborah Solomon, of the New York Times asks Mark Yudof, the president of the University of California about his recent proposal to raise in-state tuition nearly 25%.

As president of the University of California, the most prestigious of the state-university systems, you have proposed that in-state tuition be jacked up to more than $10,000, from $7,788. Are you pricing education beyond the reach of most students?

In 2009, U.C. adopted the Blue and Gold Program, guaranteeing that no student with a family income below $60,000 would pay any fees, and this guarantee will continue in 2010. That’s the short answer.

U.C. is facing a budget shortfall of at least $753 million, largely because of cuts in state financing. Do you blame Governor Schwarzenegger for your troubles?

I do not. This is a long-term secular trend across the entire country. Higher education is being squeezed out. It’s systemic. We have an aging population nationally. We have a lot of concern, as we should, with health care.

And education?

The shine is off of it. It’s really a question of being crowded out by other priorities…Continue reading this interview on Big Man on Campus >>

If my child is admitted…will I be able to afford it?

Jaques Steinberg and Theo Emery report this week this week from the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) in Baltimore, in the New York Times. Parents are increasingly concerned about the cost of college:

The talk this week at an annual gathering of college admissions officers and high school counselors included the usual topics, like how to deal with “difficult” parents and the names of hot student prospects. But the conversations — in panel discussions, in hallways and over crab cakes — always seemed to circle around to one subject: the economy.

High school counselors said that some parents who in other years worried mostly about whether their children could get into a particular college were now concerned about whether they could afford the price tag.

Admissions officers said they feared further price increases and cuts in university budgets, perhaps even in classes. They wondered whether this would create significant dips in yield, the number of accepted applicants who then choose to attend. For those at private colleges, one anxious worry prevailed: Will students even apply?

“We’re fearful,” said Paul M. Driscoll, the dean of admissions of the University of Redlands in California…Read College Officials Brace for Hit From Economy >>

Charter Schools Provide Choice and Competition in Public Ed

Mike Rosen wrote in the Denver Post last week:

The methodology and objectivity of the Lubienski study has been criticized by organizations — like the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute — that favor charter schools and other competitive alternatives to the government-school monopoly. This game of dueling studies between public school critics and apologists has been going on for years, with each side brandishing studies that serve its purposes.

The most revealing and significant measure of success for charter schools is the satisfaction and loyalty of those who send their kids there, like the Washington, D.C., private-school voucher program for poor minority kids that was recently killed by Democrats in Congress at the behest of the teacher unions over the pleas of parents, students and teachers.

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It’s not just the quality of schools and student achievement at issue here. It’s what’s being taught and how. The curricula, the values and the philosophical approach to education matter even more. Parents have strongly differing views on that….Continue reading Rosen: Making Choices in Education >>

Are hybrid courses better than eLearning or traditional classes?

Steve Kolowich reports on Inside Higher Ed today that a combination of web delivery and the traditional face-to-face environment may produce better results than either delivery system alone:

The question of whether distance education is as effective as classroom education is hotly debated in academe and largely unanswered by existing studies. However, new research from South Texas College suggests that hybrid courses — those that are offered online but also involve substantial face time — can produce better outcomes than those that are delivered exclusively on the Web or in the classroom.

Researchers at the community college, led by Brenda S. Cole, analyzed the spring 2009 grades of every student enrolled there. The scholars’ basis for assessing outcomes was straightforward: “A,” “B,” or “C” grades qualified as successful outcomes; “D” and “F” grades counted as unsuccessful.

The data showed that, over all, 82 percent of students of hybrid courses were successful, compared to 72 percent of classroom courses and 60 percent of distance courses…Continue reading Sustainable Hybrids >>

Is tuition discounting a ‘necessary evil’ to remain competitive?

Is tuition discounting a ‘necessary evil’ to remain competitive, or is does it consitute social engineering. Jack Stripling discusses this at Inside Higher Ed:

The summer headlines had private college trustees sweating. The bottom had fallen out of the economy, tightening credit markets spread fear about the availability of student loans, and students’ parents were getting pink slips in record numbers. As concerns grew about the prospect of faltering enrollments, many small, tuition-driven colleges decided to ratchet up a tried and true strategy: tuition discounting.

College presidents frequently lament that they have to engage in tuition discounting, but they say it’s a necessary evil to remain competitive. The increasingly common practice typically involves placing the sticker price of attendance beyond the reach of many families, only to effectively slash that price by offering institutionally funded financial aid to many or even most students. The practice is often criticized because much of the aid goes toward students without demonstrated financial need.

Between the early 1990s and 2007, average tuition discounts for first-time freshmen grew from 27 percent to 39 percent, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers. While there’s no survey data available for 2009, many college presidents say they offered even larger discounts this year — convinced that it was necessary to double down at a time when affordability was such a concern for families.

Increased discounting may have looked like an appealing strategy this year, but trustees at Marymount Manhattan College resisted. The college slowed its tuition increases, and also held down its discounting to an average of 21 percent — about half the rate of the 2007 NACUBO average. The 21 percent rate was only about a percentage point higher than last year, and despite what some might have predicted, Marymount didn’t take it on the chin. On the contrary, the college expects to enroll 1,766 students this year — 93 more than Marymount’s best-case-scenario projections.

The college’s expected enrollment levels don’t just exceed this year’s expectations — they exceed 2013 expectations…Continue reading Don’t (Dis)count Them Out >>

Wall Street Journal: Average Starting Salaries for College Grads Down

Sara Murray, of the Wall Street Journal, reports:

Those who graduated with bachelor’s degrees in 2009 received a $48,633 average starting salary offer, down 1.2% from last year, according to a survey of 140 college and university career-services offices. It is a stark change from 2008, when the average starting salary was 7.6% higher than those offered to the class of 2007…A preview of 2010 shows next year’s graduates may face similar hardships. Employers expect to cut college-graduate hiring by 7%…Read the entire report on the Wall Street Journal >>

Wall Street Journal: The Top M.B.A. Programs if You’re in a Hurry

Diana Middleton, of the Wall Street Journal, reports on a survey done to determine the best accelerated business programs:

In these tough times, lots of workers are stuck in a bind: They need an M.B.A. to boost their career, but they can’t afford the cost or the time out of the work force.

The solution? Many are turning to programs that let them earn a degree in half the time, often at a fraction of the cost.

[...]

Accelerated M.B.A. programs, which take between 10 and 15 months to complete, have been around for decades and are the norm in Europe. Although these programs are much less common in the U.S., they’re growing increasingly attractive especially among older students, who are becoming less willing to spend two years out of the work force.

These programs have rarely been evaluated by outsiders, in part because they’re still less ubiquitous than their two-year counterparts. About 90 accredited schools world-wide offer the accelerated M.B.A., and many of them only recently added the option.

But the degree’s growing popularity and reach led The Wall Street Journal to take its first close look at accelerated M.B.A. programs…Continue reading on the Wall Street Journal >>

Students having more difficulty paying back student loans during this recession.

Doug Lederman of Inside Higher Ed reports today that defaults on student loans are higher than they’ve been in a decade:

By last September, the economy had taken a dive, leaving many Americans in significantly worse financial circumstances than they had been in just a few months before. So it was little surprise that when the federal government presented its latest data on student loan defaults — which focused on a period ending in September 2008 — the numbers showed a sharp upturn reflecting borrowers’ increased economic distress, rising to their highest level in a decade.

The U.S. Education Department reported Monday that the 2007 “cohort default rate” — the proportion of federal loan borrowers who began loan repayments between October 2006 and September 2007, and who defaulted on their loans by the end of September 2008 — had risen to 6.7 percent, from 5.2 percent the year before…Continue reading on Inside Higher Ed >>

Thoughts on Labor Day: Real Possibilities not Possible Realities

The funeral of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) was an occasion that recalled a quotation that we identify with the progressive ideology we associate with the Kennedy family. The quotation, attributed to the English author, George Bernard Shaw, is “You see things; and you say, “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?”

Shaw was a Fabian socialist as were his compatriots, Sydney and Beatrice Webb. The Webbs were founders of the London School of Economics where I spent a pleasant year under the tutelage of Michael Oakeshott—certainly not a Fabian!—and was followed by the New School for Social Research in New York. These institutions were designed to accomplish a gradual social revolution adapted to English and American sensibilities.

The tactic recalls the Roman General Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator (ca. 280 BC–203 BC), who successfully out-foxed the Carthaginian invader Hannibal by simply waiting him out.

Though patience is the hallmark of Fabian Socialism, the roots of the ideology of Fabian socialism can be traced to a long history of millennial movements that erupted in Western Europe that attracted the disadvantaged, the poor and those given to “dream things that never were.”

At this Labor Day we should reflect on the history of radical speculations that moved society and countries when authority was challenged and weakened by failed military engagements, defeat and rapid social change. The terror of the French revolution, the Bolshevik coup d’état in Russia, Allende’s Chile and countless disturbances justified in the name of possible realities are precursors of the turbulence affecting America during the Obama Administration.

In God’s good time, all this shall pass and a salve that draws American society back from tendency to Fabian revolution motivated by a commitment to real possibilities shall appear. We will see that happen when political leaders who seek real possibilities, not possible realities, are elected to state and federal office. Realist foreign policy, balanced budgets, limited government and pushing back the administrative state in all its forms defines that cultural and political recovery. It remains to be seen how many political leaders who seek real possibilities, not possible realities, will step forward. Patience, good education and long suffering is required.

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