Category Archives: Economics

The Boston Globe: Record industry targets colleges

College students who faced lawsuits for illegally sharing large music collections over campus computer networks increasingly risk being unplugged from the Internet or even suspended over lesser complaints by the recording industry.

A few schools — Ohio University and Purdue University are at the top of the list — already have received more than 1,000 complaints accusing individual students since last fall. For students who are caught, punishments vary from e-mail warnings to semester-long suspensions.

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ZNet: Neo-Liberal Economic Policies in the United States: The Impact on American Workers

by Kim Scipes

Although most discussions of the impact of neo-liberal economic policies focus on the countries of the Global South, these policies have been implemented in the United States as well. This began in 1982, when the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, launched a vicious attack on inflation in the US money supply—and caused the deepest US recession since the Great Depression of the late 1920s-1930s.

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Inside Higher Ed: Anti-Lobbying Fever? Not in Higher Ed

Lobbying and lobbyists may appear to be on the defensive in Washington, as invective and legislation to limit efforts to influence the federal government both have been tossed around with abandon of late. But higher education shows no signs of weaning itself of the practice, which is clearly on the rise.

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Inside Higher Ed: Open the Books, Professors Plead

A faculty and staff union at the Community College of Philadelphia plans to pose one major question to the institution’s administration at a demonstration scheduled for today: Teachers and students open their books every day — why won’t administrators?

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Houston Chronicle: Since deregulation, college tuition costs 39% more than 3 years ago

Tuition and fees at state-supported universities in Texas have jumped an average 39 percent in the three years since the Legislature gave college governing boards the authority to set their own tuition rates.

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The Chronicle: Panel Looks to Need-Based Aid and Community Colleges to Improve College Access
American colleges and universities can improve access for financially needy students by preserving need-based financial-aid programs and increasing understanding of the role of community colleges, a panel of experts said on Friday.

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The New York Times: Killing off the American future

America’s domination of the global information economy did not come about by accident. It flowed directly from policies that allowed the largest generation in the nation’s history broad access to a first-rate college education regardless of ability to pay. By subsidizing public universities to keep tuition low, and providing federal tuition aid to poor and working-class students, this country vaulted tens of millions of people into the middle class while building the best-educated work force in the world.

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