[I]n a state with historically low college attainment among African Americans, any drop concerns advocates. It’s especially pressing as California tries to close an expected shortage of 1 million college degrees necessary to fuel its economy by 2025. Less than 23 percent of black adults have a bachelor’s degree, according to census estimates – about half the rate of white Californians, and a third have some college but no degree.

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by Alexei Koseff, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: December 26th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

There is little doubt that the increased use of technology has displaced large numbers of workers over the past several decades, in industries such as steel, manufacturing and textiles, and that large groups of people have been adversely affected by these seismic economic changes, which has bred understandable resistance to a new economic reality in which they don’t have the appropriate skills to compete. While much of this was evident in the voting pattern in the recent election, it has been a visible and often-ignored problem for decades. Education and appropriate training are the answers.

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by David Wilson, The Baltimore Sun.

Posted: December 24th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

UC Riverside Provost Paul J. D’Anieri announced Friday that he would step down from his administrative post, just days after the faculty said it would meet to consider a vote of no confidence in his leadership. Some faculty members believed that D’Anieri — who has served as the university’s chief academic officer and executive vice chancellor since 2014 — had mismanaged a major campus growth plan, failed to adequately consult faculty in hiring decisions, brought too many outsiders into key positions and created a climate of mistrust and fear… D’Anieri will resign as provost next June and return to his faculty appointment in the Department of Political Science and the School of Public Policy.

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by Teresa Watanabe, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: December 16th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

They are first-semester freshmen at UC Berkeley, 18- and 19-year-olds who — instead of stumbling a few steps from their dorms to class — are commuting sometimes two and a half hours daily to and from class in an office building in San Francisco… After opening its doors wider, UC Berkeley has 1,122 more freshmen and transfer students this fall — a 4 percent increase — and nearly 400 more students than it planned for, as more accepted admission offers than expected, according to official enrollment figures released late last month by the campus.

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by Katy Murphy, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: December 12th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

State lawmakers had voted in 2001 to grant in-state tuition to all students, regardless of immigration status, at all of California’s public colleges and universities. But because of UC’s independent status under the state Constitution, the legislation applied only to fees at California State University and community college campuses. The regents, UC’s governing body, then voted to take the same step for students at their campuses who had attended high school in California and had applied to legalize their immigration status. Fewer than 1 percent of the students at all three institutions were unauthorized immigrants eligible for those lower costs, according to a legislative staff report.

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by Bob Egelko, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: December 10th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

More than 700,000 immigrants have no idea what their lives are going to look like six weeks from now. They’re currently protected from deportation and allowed to work legally in the US under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program (which began in 2012), but President-elect Donald Trump could revoke those protections on day one of his presidency if he so chose. Trump reassured Time magazine on Wednesday that he’d “work something out” to help those immigrants. Now, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) are giving Trump a way to do that: the BRIDGE Act, a bill that would grant three more years of protection to the immigrants Obama protected, replacing his executive actions with a legislative one. It’s not clear whether the bill will pass Congress — or whether Trump would want to sign it if it did. And even if it did pass, the BRIDGE Act would only protect a fraction of the unauthorized immigrants currently worrying about their futures under Trump.

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by Dara Lind, Vox.

Posted: December 9th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Since the lofty idealism of the 1960s, the goal of making college affordable for all Californians has been in dogged decline. Tuition at both the University of California and California State systems has tripled over the last 15 years. And now, leaders of both institutions are pondering another increase… To critics, he worries are more evidence of a betrayal of mission enshrined in California’s higher education system: that any resident who worked hard enough would be guaranteed a first-rate university education.

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by Mike McPhate, The New York Times.

Posted: December 9th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

“How are we going to make sure Californians are going to afford the cost of higher education is first and foremost on people’s minds,” Baldassare said. “There’s a strong belief that the state needs to invest more.” Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed — spanning all political parties, race, ethnicities, incomes and education levels — said they believed that college costs prevent qualified and motivated young people from pursuing higher education and backed making community colleges tuition-free… But it is uncertain whether that public support will translate into more state money for the two systems, which have been excluded from funding increases that voters have approved over the years for community colleges and primary and secondary schools.

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by Teresa Watanabe and Rosanna Xia, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: December 8th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

With tuition hikes being discussed for California’s public universities, a new poll shows a strong majority of residents identifying college affordability as a big problem, including at least half of adults across wide partisan, income, and age groups. The survey, released by the Public Policy Institute of California late Thursday, asked respondents to name the most important issue facing public colleges and universities – and 46 percent mentioned the costs, affordability, or student tuition and fees. Other issues received mentions from less than 10 percent of adults.

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by Christopher Cadelago, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: December 8th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

“While we still do not know what policies and practices the incoming federal administration may adopt, given the many public pronouncements made during the presidential campaign and its aftermath, we felt it necessary to reaffirm that UC will act upon its deeply held conviction that all members of our community have the right to work, study, and live safely and without fear at all UC locations,” UC President Janet Napolitano said in a statement. Napolitano said the university would “vigorously protect the privacy and civil rights of the undocumented members of the UC community.”

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by Teresa Watanabe, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: November 30th, 2016, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.