Category Archives: Commentary

MR Zine: The Decline of Public Higher Education

by Rick Wolff

Over the last quarter century, Americans got used to the idea of their children going on to colleges and universities. In the early 1970s, about 8.5 million Americans attended such institutions; by 2004 the number had doubled. The US population across this time rose by less than 50%. This spectacular growth in our student population reflected the pent-up demand of the mass of Americans for what they had viewed as a luxury as well as a ticket to better jobs and higher incomes. The demand would have far exceeded the supply had not most of the states rapidly increased facilities for public higher education. Today, the vast majority of US college and university students attend public, not private, institutions. Yet therein lies precisely the problem.

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National CrossTalk: The New Accountability

By William Zumeta

Why all the talk about accountability in higher education in recent years? The days of the isolated “ivory tower” distanced from the rest of society seem long gone. Although this chagrins some, upon reflection it is hardly surprising. The globalization of fierce economic competition focused on quality, rapid innovation and cost, and fueled by the stunningly fast pace of technological change, have had a profound impact on American business and, more recently, on thinking in government.

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The New York Sun: The Revolt Against Academe

At journalism school I flunked my class in “Trends: How to Identify Them, How to Invent Them.”

So I’m not qualified to peg what follows as a genuine social or cultural trend. But it’s happened in four state legislatures already. And we can always hope.

Most recently it’s been percolating in Missouri, where Rep. Jane Cunningham introduced a bill that will surely unnerve many of her state’s higher education bureaucrats.

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San Francisco Chronicle: Students left behind

IT’S LIKE inviting someone to dinner — and then only serving them a salad.

California is extraordinarily generous in welcoming students to community colleges, but does a lousy job helping many of them satisfy their educational aspirations.

A core part of the California mythology is that the doors to public higher education are open to anyone who wants to enter them. Community colleges fees especially have been kept very low — a mere $20 per unit. Nearly one-third of students get waivers, so they don’t pay any fees at all. Virtually anyone can enroll, even those who don’t have a high school diploma.

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Houston Chronicle: Righting wrongs at TSU

By J. TIMOTHY BODDIE JR.

Accountability is the new order of the day at Texas Southern University (TSU). You are not experiencingIt is not a mirage. This is a message to the Houston community that’s intended to be the first of many communication exchanges as we work to save one of the nation’s most precious educational resources and treasures.

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Wall Street Journal: What’s Wrong With Vocational School?

The topic yesterday was education and children in the lower half of the intelligence distribution. Today I turn to the upper half, people with IQs of 100 or higher. Today’s simple truth is that far too many of them are going to four-year colleges.

Begin with those barely into the top half, those with average intelligence. To have an IQ of 100 means that a tough high-school course pushes you about as far as your academic talents will take you. If you are average in math ability, you may struggle with algebra and probably fail a calculus course. If you are average in verbal skills, you often misinterpret complex text and make errors in logic.

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The New York Times: Top Grades, Without the Classes

The House Ways and Means Committee sent shock waves through college sports when it asked the National Collegiate Athletic Association to justify its federal tax exemption by explaining how cash-consuming, win-at-all-cost athletics departments serve educational purposes.

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The Boston Herald: Time to reform public higher ed

The National Conference of State Legislatures is out with a new report on the state of higher education across the United States, and the picture isn’t pretty.
State lawmakers haven’t set clear goals for their higher ed systems, they haven’t exerted leadership, and they’ve funded public colleges and universities reactively, rather than proactively, a bipartisan NCSL panel found.

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Christian Science Monitor: Balancing the races by racial edicts

The Supreme Court Monday heard arguments in a case involving the use of skin color to decide where a student attends school. The hearing comes after Michigan voters banned such types of racial preferences, following California and Washington.

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Christian Science Monitor: America’s indentured graduates

Adults often complain about mixed signals they get from teens, but what about the messages teens get? Here’s one with major life implications: Go to college, but graduate with a load of debt. Oh yeah, like that makes getting a degree look real attractive.

The economic health of America’s information-driven society depends on how well it educates its young people. So it can’t afford to shrug off the mounting student-debt problem with a mere “whatever.”

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Los Angeles Times: Black, white and Brown
FIFTY-TWO YEARS after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” the court still can’t agree on what that landmark decision really meant. That was painfully clear Monday when the Brown ruling was cited by justices on both sides of a debate over the constitutionality of programs that try to maintain a racial balance in public schools.

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The Boston Globe: Unlearning literature

By Elizabeth Kantor | November 30, 2006
IT’S OFFICIAL: You spend tens of thousands of dollars to send your children to college. In return, the colleges turn out graduates who are more ignorant than when they enrolled.

According to a recent survey by the University of Connecticut and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute of more than 14,000 randomly selected college freshman and seniors at 50 colleges across the country, seniors actually know less about American history and government than entering freshmen.

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