As she prepares to leave office, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos urged Congress not to enact President-elect Joe Biden’s proposals to eliminate tuition at public colleges or cancel student debt. “I hope you also reject misguided calls to make college ‘free’ and require the two-thirds of Americans who didn’t take on student debt or who responsibly paid off their student loans to pay for the loans of those who have not done the same,” DeVos wrote in a letter to congressional leaders, as well as to the members of the House and Senate appropriations committees on Monday.
Read full article [here].
by Kery Murakami, Inside Higher Ed.
Posted: January 5th, 2021, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
At the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, California students led the nation in creating college ethnic studies programs that explored the histories and cultures of people overlooked by the dominant European-centric curriculum… But support for those programs has been uneven, prompting lawmakers and California’s Democratic governor to require that students at all 23 Cal State campuses take at least one ethnic studies course to graduate. CSUs should have their courses ready by fall of 2021.
Read full article [here].
by Nick Roberts and Mikhail Zinshteyn, CalMatters.
Posted: December 30th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Harnisch said the relief will certainly help colleges and universities at a time when they need it most, the amount won’t be enough for them to stabilize themselves from the financial blow caused by the pandemic. “It’s really unprecedented, the financial stress that institutions are under with losses in auxiliary revenues, increased student need, unanticipated expenses and state budget cuts,” he said. “And while it’s important that this bill passed, it doesn’t go far enough.” … The relief bill also doesn’t provide any money to states for education, which will strain those governments as they craft their budgets for next year, Harnisch said. “We’re looking at collectively $450 billion or more in state budget shortfalls, and higher education will be the most vulnerable items in state budgets in the months ahead,” he said.
Read full article [here].
by Betsy Foresman, Ed Scoop.
Posted: December 29th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
After last month’s defeat of a California ballot measure to revive affirmative action in higher education admissions and hiring, other ways to increase diversity among faculty and students at the state’s colleges and universities are moving front and center… Here are ten of those ideas, culled from interviews and email exchanges. Each of the ten surely has political, financial and educational challenges and maybe even unexpected consequences. Some are as easy as a change in nomenclature; others, such as a vast expansion of financial aid, would be extraordinarily expensive. But in the New Year’s spirit of optimistic resolutions and turning the page to something different, we present them without judgment here more as discussion points than as fully weighed options.
Read full article [here].
by Larry Gordon, Ed Source.
Posted: December 29th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
“I’m going to get in trouble for saying this, [but] it’s arguable that the president may have the executive power to forgive up to $50,000 in student debt,” Biden told the Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty. “Well, I think that’s pretty questionable. I’m unsure of that. I’d be unlikely to do that.” … With the status of Congress uncertain and the possibility that it will remain divided if Democrats fall short in the runoffs for Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats next month, student-debt cancellation has emerged as a policy approach that the incoming administration could use to provide some relief to borrowers without Congress.
Read full article [here].
by Jillian Berman, Market Watch.
Posted: December 24th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The implications for higher education of Cardona’s nomination are not immediately clear. His lack of an agenda or longtime experience in the academy will do nothing to ease the anticipation about the biggest question facing Biden on higher education in the short term: whether he will take action to unilaterally forgive tens of thousands of dollars in student-loan debt for millions of borrowers, as some progressive Democrats have urged. Wesley Whistle, senior adviser for policy and strategy at New America, said he would be glad to see someone at the Education Department who understands the “types of colleges that most people attend.”
Posted: December 22nd, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The transfer report highlights two enrollment disparities that have repeatedly emerged in the various studies the Center has released this fall. First, is the disproportionate declines in the number of Black and Hispanics students, who not only are enrolling less often than other students overall, but who are also showing less mobility in their attendance patterns. In contrast, more Asian students are transferring into public and nonprofit four-year institutions than they were pre-pandemic. The second notable pattern is the substantial enrollment declines experienced at community colleges compared to their four-year counterparts.
Read full article [here].
by Michael T. Nietzel, Forbes.
Posted: December 21st, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
While the latest legislation will provide more money than the March package did, the amount is just a fraction of the $120 billion that higher-education associations have sought in recent months. Since last spring, colleges have shed more than half a million jobs — the largest decline in the higher-education work force since the federal government began collecting such data… Another disappointment for some was the removal of a provision to extend the pause on student-loan repayment until April. The U.S. Department of Education has allowed borrowers to refrain from making such payments through the end of January, so the administration of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will have to issue an order to extend that period. The result will be weeks of unnecessary chaos and uncertainty…
Read full article [here].
by Eric Kelderman, The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Posted: December 21st, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Chancellors and senior leaders at five of the nine UC undergraduate campuses told The Times that the staggering financial hit to their operations triggered by the coronavirus crisis and a $300.8-million proposed state budget cut this year have underscored the pressing need to open talks about tuition rates — which regents have increased just once for California students since 2011. The financial squeeze has prompted campuses to slash budgets, dig into reserves, borrow funds, substantially halt hiring — and, at UC Riverside, propose axing its athletic program, drawing hundreds of protest letters, emails and calls.
Read full article [here].
by Teresa Watanabe, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: December 12th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Mr. Biden has endorsed canceling $10,000 in federal student debt per borrower through legislation, and insisted that chipping away at the $1.7 trillion in loan debt held by more than 43 million borrowers is integral to his economic plan. But Democratic leaders, backed by the party’s left flank, are pressing for up to $50,000 of debt relief per borrower, executed on Day 1 of his presidency… To truly break the debt cycle, though, forgiveness would need to be paired with policy changes addressing the underlying cause of America’s skyrocketing student debt: affordability, an issue Democrats have tried to address… Mr. Biden’s campaign platform proposed making public universities tuition-free for families making less than $125,000 a year.
Read full article [here].
by Erica L. Green, Luke Broadwater and Stacy Cowley, The New York Times.
Posted: December 10th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
