21st Century Scholar

Last week, Governor Jerry Brown described his 2012 budget proposal, which included a $5.2 billion cut in education if voters do not approve a tax increase on the ballot this November. Of the total, Brown plans to cut $4.8 billion in K–12 public school funding—the equivalent of three weeks of schooling—and $200 million to the [...]

Why Does College Cost So Much? by Mark DeFusco, Ph.D. Last month, I addressed the fact that in many cases, states were contributing a paltry amount of help to their higher education systems. The notion that the Governor of Pennsylvania is proposing to slash nearly 50% of the state’s contribution to Penn State—from 8% of [...]

Is it Time to Privatize?  How to Compete in Lean Years   by Mark DeFusco, Ph.D. I was struck by a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that discussed Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett’s plan to cut appropriations by around 50% to four state related institutions including Penn State.   This would be the biggest one [...]

French 75 and Pell Grant 5550: Secret confessions from New Orleans I just returned from the American Educational Research Association’s Annual conference in New Orleans. I had a super productive time and connected with a number of people that I admire for their work in higher education and because they are just great individuals. I [...]

by Bill Tierney, Guilbert (Gib) Hentschke, and Mark DeFusco Arguably, higher education is facing the toughest times it has faced in the last century.  Public institutions have seen their budgets decimated.  Private institutions have seen donations decline and consumers unable to pay tuition.  Endowments are just beginning to rebound.  For-profit colleges and universities have come [...]

by Bill Tierney The most expensive component of teaching is a PhD program.  Classes are generally smaller – much smaller – than undergraduate classes, and doctoral students require individualized instruction.  Doctoral students also do not pay full tuition as their undergraduate peers frequently do.  Indeed, they cost money.  Faculty like working with graduate students, however, [...]

by Bill Tierney Certain topics tend to generate a great deal of controversy. Speech codes, infringements on academic freedom, issues related to diversity and affirmative action are likely to provoke readers to respond to an article with a torrent of opinions. Other topics, however important, generate only the most pro forma of discussions. Pension reform [...]

by Yvonna S. Lincoln Distinguished Professor of Higher Education Department of Educational Administration and Human Resource Development Texas A&M University By and large, one of the few responsibilities that has been left to faculty has been the shape and structure of the curriculum.  Departments and faculties, having slowly lost ground in the stalwart fight for [...]

by Bill Tierney Last week lots of people protested in California (although the protests were much smaller than I had anticipated).  The protesters are rightly angry at Sacramento.  People are also angry with their administrations.  Mark Yudof, head of the UC, and Charlie Reed, Yudof’s CSU counterpart, have not been the most eloquent of spokesmen.  [...]

By Randy Clemens Since last spring I have blogged about the Race to the Top Fund, the federal government’s $4.35 billion dollar competitive grant program (The Race Begins Today, With “Race to the Top,” We All Lose, Part I and Part II, and A History of Reform, a History of Failure). The fund supports four goals: Adopting internationally-benchmarked standards [...]