We cannot understand the drive toward pension “reform” by looking only at the liability side of the balance sheet: how much we owe workers and what it will cost to pay them. We must look at the asset side, too: how these pensions invest their money, and their ability to exercise shareholder voice that the rest of us lack. If the Kochs and their allies succeed in smashing and scattering these last remaining pension funds into millions of 401(k)s, they will do more than just undermine the retirement security of millions of Americans. They will silence their economic voice. The pension reform drive should be understood, at least in part, as a campaign of economic voter suppression.

Read full article [here].
by David Webber, The New York Times.

Posted: March 5th, 2018, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The new chairman of the Federal Reserve questioned why struggling borrowers can’t discharge their student loans in bankruptcy. “Alone among all kinds of debt, we don’t allow student loan debt to be discharged in bankruptcy,” Jerome Powell told members of the Senate Banking Committee Thursday. “I’d be at a loss to explain why that should be the case.” Powell’s comments came in response to a question from Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, about whether high levels of student debt create a drag on the economy. More than 40 million Americans hold nearly $1.4 trillion in outstanding student loans.

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by Jillian Berman, Market Watch.

Posted: March 4th, 2018, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

International students are America’s “golden goose.” They provide billions of dollars to the U.S. economy every year, subsidize the education of U.S. students and are a key source of talent that help make American tech companies the envy of the world. So why is the Trump administration trying to drive away international students? More important, is the administration succeeding? New data suggest the answer may be “yes.” … Research has shown a positive connection between international students and U.S. student enrollment. “At the graduate level, international students do not crowd-out, but actually increase domestic enrollment,” according to a study by economist Kevin Shih. “Foreign student tuition revenue is used to subsidize the cost of enrolling additional domestic students.”

Read full article [here].
by Stuart Anderson, Forbes.

Posted: March 2nd, 2018, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The University of California has slipped in the rankings of an annual global survey of higher education, escalating concerns that funding woes and growing international competition are beginning to erode the quality of the nation’s top public research university. The survey released Wednesday by QS Quacquarelli Symonds, assessed nine UC campuses in more than three dozen subjects. Ratings dropped in 80 categories and improved in 24… UC’s funding woes, White said, are beginning to cripple the university’s ability to keep top-notch faculty members from jumping to rivals with deeper pockets.

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by Teresa Watanabe, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: February 28th, 2018, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Professors earn about 15 percent less than others with advanced degrees, finds a study circulated Tuesday by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The study, “Why Are Professors ‘Poorly Paid’?,” uses data from the Current Population Survey to compare the salaries and other characteristics of those with Ph.D., Ed.D., J.D. or M.D. degrees. Those who reported their profession as “postsecondary teacher” were compared to everyone else… Although on average professors appear poorly paid compared to other highly-educated workers, their average weekly earnings are 44 percent higher than those of workers without advanced degrees… To any who might imagine that lawyers and doctors work longer hours than professors, Hamermesh uses data from the American Time Use Survey to demonstrate that this is not the case.

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by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed.

Posted: February 21st, 2018, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Delaine Eastin, the former superintendent of California Public Instruction and current candidate for Governor of California, supports the $48 Fix. She believes in free, quality education from kindergarten through higher education and the reinvestment in these resources which have since been poured into incarceration. “Budgets are statements of values,” Eastin said. “I’m horrified to tell you that this afternoon we are 41st in per people spending and number one in prisoner expenditures. If budgets are statements of values, what does that tell you? I have not met a single person in California that thinks that’s their values.” She invokes the need for new higher education campuses that are accessible to rural Californians, not new prisons, 23 of which she said have been built since 1985. “The best crime prevention program in the state is education,” Eastin said.

Read full article [here].
by Stella Sappington, The California Aggie.

Posted: February 20th, 2018, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The College for All Act, a grassroots measure proposed for the 2018 ballot, would use an estate tax on the wealthiest 0.2 percent of Californians to supplement California’s current higher education budget. The tax would start at 12 percent on estates and gifts of $3.5 million and increase until 22 percent with the increased value of an estate or gift. This would make in-state, public undergraduate higher education tuition-free for all California residents, supplementing the current education budget by about $4 billion per year.

Read full article [here].
by Shinae Lee, City On A Hill Press.

Posted: February 15th, 2018, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

he work-study formula has long been criticized for unfairly favoring elite private colleges in the Northeast. Under the PROSPER Act — as House Republicans have deemed their bill — those are the institutions that would lose out the most on funding, according to an analysis by the American Council on Education. The new formula would distribute funding in some surprising ways, however… for-profits would see the most new funding as a sector (a $71.8 million increase in the sector’s annual allocation six years after the new formula takes effect) and the largest average increase in awards per college ($188,000). However, the biggest losers under the new formula would include some large public institutions that enroll large numbers of low-income students… like University of California, Los Angeles…

Read full article [here].
by Andrew Kreighbaum, Inside Higher Ed.

Posted: February 14th, 2018, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The act would generate an estimated $4 billion a year in revenue. This revenue would go directly to funding free public college for the 2.6 million students at California’s community colleges and universities. Funds would come from the reinstatement of the state’s estate tax, paid solely by the state’s multimillionaires and billionaires. The tax was eliminated in 2005. Interestingly, this was not because state voters or legislators decided to eliminate the tax, but rather resulted from the Bush tax cuts—for reasons that I’ll explain later. Up until the 1970s, public higher education in California was virtually free…

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by Chuck Collins, The Nation.

Posted: February 6th, 2018, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Far from the comfort of an ivory tower, the world of academia has led many Bay Area part-time college instructors into secret lives of hardship. Brad Balukjian is an adjunct biology instructor at Laney College in Oakland. He has a Ph.D and earned just under $25,000 from teaching in 2017. To survive at age 36 in the Bay Area, he rents a room with a senior couple in Alameda… Hai Nguyen teaches six classes between five campuses in three South Bay college districts. He works every day and often grades more than 200 student papers during each test cycle — something he says he is not compensated for. On the weekends, Nguyen works at a supermarket.

Read full article [here].
by Ted Andersen, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: February 5th, 2018, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.