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.”

Read full article [here].
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.

Read full article [here].
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.

Read full article [here].
by UCSD Faculty, Faculty Workgroup on Budget Priorities.

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

While our immediate economic woes arise from the consequences of justified public health measures, this conceals a more somber truth: The problem of declining funds has deep policy and institutional roots at least two decades in the making. If we are forced to make another round of cuts to core instructional resources, the quality of education that we can guarantee our students will plummet. There are alternatives to steep cuts, and we must find them.

Read full article [here].
by Charles Hale, Katharyne Mitchell and Bill Maurer, CalMatters.

Posted: July 31st, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

In a highly unusual protest, University of California faculty leaders are collectively opposing a proposal to alter the search process for campus chancellors, which they believe will significantly reduce their role and potentially affect the quality of the UC system. Twenty past Academic Senate chairs, who have served since 1994, have signed a letter asking UC Board of Regents members to reject the proposal… the clash underscores concerns among some faculty over whether the board’s newer members respect their century-long tradition of unique authority to help govern the UC system. That system of “shared governance,” many say, has made UC faculty the most powerful in the nation and is key to the university system’s excellence. Park said UC traditions are important, but evolution is as well.

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by Teresa Watanabe, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: July 29th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

College students within California’s premier research university system are wondering if their privacy is safe after learning that the University of California (UC) made a commitment to invest $200 million in an investment firm that has access to vast troves of student data through a subsidiary. The private equity investment firm, Thoma Bravo, announcing that it was purchasing the educational software firm Instructure Inc. in December in an all-cash deal for roughly $2 billion, an acquisition that was completed in March. Instructure Inc. owns Canvas, a popular virtual classroom platform. Given the platform’s popularity within higher education institutions, Instructure has data on grades, lectures, tests, papers and more from tens of thousands of students.

Read full article [here].
by Matthew Rozsa, Salon.

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

Senator Warren is in the minority in the Senate but is influential in both the Senate and with many in the House. In fact, Warren got a number of Senate Democrats on board with the proposal, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate education committee ranking member Patty Murray (D-WA). House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House Democrats also supported the idea. Warren also persuaded former Vice President Joe Biden to back the $10,000 student loan forgiveness proposal. The CARES Act didn’t include student debt cancellation, but instead suspended payments for six months, interest-free. Now, Congress is considering another round of coronavirus relief and Warren and others are pushing for student debt cancellation to be included.

Read full article [here].
by Wesley Whistle, Forbes.

Posted: July 19th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The closure of campuses over the past few months has forced us to confront what is most valuable about a college experience, and it would be a missed opportunity if the greatest thing we learned in this pandemic is how to better wash our hands. To the extent we can profit from this dismal experience, we should use it to build greater access to a broad, pragmatic education in which students learn deeply not only from the delivery of course material but from one another as well.

Read full article [here].
by Michael S. Roth, Politico.

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

Many young people were duped by student loan programs, and it seems highly unfair to burden them with a lifetime of debt. Consequently, I am in favor of aggressive debt forgiveness for those graduates struggling in low and moderate wage employment. But without compelling universities to cut costs and faculty to teach more and be more relevant about what they teach, free tuition schemes will leave higher education a terrible burden to the federal government when rising deficits are already stressing the budget.

Posted: July 9th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Both the California State and University of California systems said that they don’t favor legacy or donor children in any way. Both systems said their policies are consistent with their values as public institutions. Nationally, more private than public institutions have legacy admissions, but preferences are not unheard-of. Some highly competitive private colleges also said they don’t consider alumni or donor ties in admissions. The California Institute of Technology and Pomona College are among them. But Stanford University, which admitted less than 5 percent of the 47,498 students who applied last year, does.

Read full article [here].
by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed.

Posted: July 6th, 2020, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.