President Trump has offered to forgive some student loan debt as part of a new $1.8 trillion stimulus proposal to House Democrats, indicating how rapidly the idea of cancelling student debt has gained broad, bipartisan appeal… And the public backs the concept. A recent poll conducted last month by Data for Progress found that 67% of respondents, including 58% of Republicans, support some form of widespread student loan forgiveness — whether it is universal, tied to income, or based on specific program eligibility. Only 26% of respondents said student loan debt should not be forgiven.

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by Adam Minsky, Forbes.

Posted: October 11th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The audit is based on a review of the university’s campuses at Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara from 2013-14 through 2018-19. In that time those campuses admitted 22 applicants as athletes “even though the students did not have the athletic qualifications to compete at the university,” the audit stated. Berkeley was found to have admitted 42 students, “most of whom were referred to the admissions office because of their families’ histories as donors or because they were related or connected to university staff, even though their records did not demonstrate competitive qualifications for admission.”

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by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed.

Posted: September 28th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The number of students wrongfully admitted to four University of California schools was small, at least the number uncovered by a state audit — 64 total over six years ending in 2018-19. But the outrage factor is major… Of the 64, 22 were side-door applicants involved in the now-familiar Varsity Blues scandal, in which non-athletes were recommended by coaches who had been bribed… But 42 more — all of them Berkeley applicants — weren’t athletes. They simply had some form of extraordinary privilege. Some were the offspring of parents who made big donations. Others had connections, family or otherwise, to campus staff, leaders or donors. Unsurprisingly, most were white and well-off financially.

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by The Times Editorial Board, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: September 24th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Richard Carpiano, a professor of sociology and public policy as well as a representative for the SPP on UCR’s Academic Senate… feels as if the BAC’s recommendation makes it appear that the SPP, “is a financial burden to the campus which is not the case.” Carpiano noted that the SPP is relatively new. In 2018, UCR transferred the undergraduate program in public policy from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences to the SPP. Carpiano noted that “it doesn’t make sense to eliminate a college that is only a couple of years old, thriving and plays a tremendous role to the campus.”

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by Amani Mahmoud, The Highlander.

Posted: September 18th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Trump announced almost two weeks ago that he was unilaterally providing student loan relief under a package of executive actions as cross-party negotiations over additional coronavirus aid fell apart. But the president’s Aug. 8 memorandum on student loans did not stipulate how the program would work, nor dictate how the Education Department would execute the order. The department will take a relatively broad interpretation of Trump’s directive, effectively extending the student loan benefits provided under the CARES Act until the end of the year. That relief was set to expire on Sept. 30, just weeks before the presidential election. DeVos’ department said it plans to continue the automatic suspension of monthly payments on all federally held student loans and will keep the interest rate on those loans set to zero through Dec. 31.

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by Michael Stratford, Politico.

Posted: August 21st, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

On Saturday, President Trump signed an executive memorandum that purports to extend student loan relief for millions of Americans. But the memorandum is vague, and it provides borrowers with little insight about borrowers’ rights, options, or obligations… Key questions remain unanswered about the latest presidential memorandum, including how the order will impact borrowers in default, whether the extension of relief would be automatic, and whether borrowers on track for loan forgiveness programs will still get credit. The U.S. Department of Education has not responded to a request for comment, and the Department’s Student Aid Coronavirus website has not been updated.

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by Adam S. Minsky, Esq., Forbes.

Posted: August 17th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Potentially, the most important part of the Justice Department letter is that it objects to the fact that: “Yale admits that it intends to continue its race-based admissions process for the ‘foreseeable future’.” Seventeen years ago, the Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s affirmative action plan but said: “The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.” No one knows how literally to take that sentence. The Justice Department obviously intends to ask the courts to give it real bite and demand that Yale and other colleges demonstrate that they have a plan to wind down their affirmative action programs over the next several years.

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by Evan Gerstmann, Forbes.

Posted: August 14th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

A two-year investigation into the Ivy League school found that “race is the determinative factor in hundreds of admissions decisions each year,” in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the DOJ said in a press release. The department said Yale must agree not to use race or national origin as criteria in its next admissions cycle, and that if it plans to consider race in the future, “it must first submit to the Department of Justice a plan demonstrating its proposal is narrowly tailored as required by law, including by identifying a date for the end of race discrimination.” Yale denied the allegation. Karen Peart, a spokeswoman for the university, said in a statement to CNBC that the Justice Department made its conclusions before Yale had provided enough information to show that its practices “absolutely comply with decades of Supreme Court precedent.”

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by Kevin Breuninger, CNBC.

Posted: August 13th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The system’s deeper concerns are over ongoing state support and tuition revenues, which form the lion’s share of funding for system’s educational mission. UC Berkeley’s chancellor, Carol Christ, said she expects to experience “serious financial challenges” for the next three years. Already, the state budget has cut its support for UC’s core operations by 8 percent, or $301 million. If Congress approves another round of federal stimulus by Oct. 15, the state will rescind a portion or all of those cuts.

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by Mikhail Zinshteyn, CalMatters.

Posted: August 3rd, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Over the past several years, the state has required the UC system to increase undergraduate enrollments markedly, but it has not provided sufficient monies to cover the true cost of students’ education. The mandate for growth is clearly independent of strategies to accommodate it, and each campus has developed its own strategy… We submit that the campus’ deficits could be better met by reconsidering the nature of campus growth. We believe that protecting the central mission of the University requires avoiding cuts to the academic core.

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by UCSD Faculty, Faculty Workgroup on Budget Priorities.

Posted: August 3rd, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.