Obviously, colleges don’t deserve all the credit for their graduates’ success. But they do deserve a healthy portion of it. Other research that has tried to tease out the actual effects of higher education finds them to be large. And they’re not limited to money: Graduates are also happier and healthier. No wonder that virtually all affluent children go to college, and nearly all graduate. The question is how to enable more working-class students to do so. “It’s really the way democracy regenerates itself,” said Ted Mitchell, Obama’s under secretary of education. The new research shows that plenty of successful models exist, yet many of them are struggling to maintain the status quo, let alone grow. It’s true in red states as well as in many blue and purple states, and it’s a grave mistake. There is a reason that City College and California’s universities evoke such warm nostalgia: They fulfilled the country’s highest ideals — of excellence, progress and opportunity.

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by David Leonhardt, The New York Times.

Posted: January 18th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Sanders: Will you work with me and others to make public colleges and universities tuition-free through federal and state efforts? DeVos: Senator, I think that is a really interesting idea and it’s really great to consider and think about. But we also have to consider the fact that there is nothing in life that’s truly free. Somebody has got to pay for it. Sanders: Right now we have proposals in front of us to substantially lower tax breaks for billionaires in this country, while at the same time low-income kids can’t afford to college. Do you think that makes sense? DeVos: If your question is really around how can we help higher education and college be more affordable– Sanders: That wasn’t my question. My question is: should we make public college and universities tuition free so that every family in America, regardless of income, will have the ability to have their kids get a higher education? DeVos: We can work together and we can work hard on making sure college or higher education in some form is affordable for all young people that want to pursue it.

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by Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, The Washington Post.

Posted: January 18th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The governor, who has never been a major supporter of UC, basically resisted anything that would help the university bring in more money — higher tuition, better funding from the state or admitting more out-of-state students, who bring geographic diversity to campus in addition to paying a higher tuition that helps fund financial aid for low-income Californians. Instead, Brown expressed his preference for a more austere UC, one that saves money by pushing more online courses and prodding professors into teaching more classes while engaging less in research and other academic pursuits. That’s not a vision, though. It’s short-sighted frugality that would strip down one of the state’s best-run and most admired institutions… The state needs a true vision, one that is realistic yet as bold as that outlined in the Master Plan for Higher Education, and which includes major reinvestment in California’s jewel of higher education.

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by The Editorial Board, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: January 16th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

In states Donald Trump won, the poll found support for state-level tuition-free programs was at 69 percent. It was 78 percent in states that went for Hillary Clinton. Support for free tuition at public institutions for anyone who is academically qualified was 73 percent. The online poll was conducted by Penn Schoen Berland in December. It included 834 participants with a 2.8 percent margin of error. “The poll indicates making public college tuition free for those academically qualified is embraced across the political spectrum,” said Morley Winograd, chief executive officer and president of the campaign, in a news release.

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by Ashley A. Smith, Inside Higher Ed.

Posted: January 13th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The UC Student Association’s Fund the UC Campaign looks to find alternate ways to increase funding for UC schools. It focuses mainly on reforming Proposition 13 to create more funds… Rafi Sands, undergraduate student government external vice president, said raising property taxes on commercial properties could potentially refund $9 billion for California state funds, which could increase funding for higher education and possibly reduce tuition. Sands added he thinks Prop 13 has had devastating effects on California state tax revenue, which has affected health care, criminal justice and created school-to-prison pipelines. “This is not a temporary problem, and it needs to be campaigned for year-round,” Sands said.

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by Dina Stumpf, The Daily Bruin.

Posted: January 11th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Brown is proposing phasing out the scholarship entirely. Under his plan, only the students who have already received awards would be eligible for new money. Brown estimates that by the 2020 budget year, the phase-out would reduce costs to the state’s general fund by nearly $116 million. During Rendon’s response Tuesday afternoon to Brown’s budget proposal, the Democrat from Paramount singled out the Middle Class Scholarship as a program he wants to protect.

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by Melanie Mason, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: January 10th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2017-18 budget proposals for higher education continue his campaign for more efficiency and access at California’s public college and universities, funding ongoing programs to make it easier to transfer from community colleges, improve graduation rates and shorten time to degrees. But Brown triggered some controversy by advocating cuts in aid to middle class students and supporting tuition increases at the University of California and the California State University systems. If UC and CSU continue efforts to widen access and lower costs, Brown said he would not oppose the first tuition hikes in six years at those two university systems, describing such increases as “probably needed.” He wants to keep community college fees frozen at $46 a credit, among the lowest in the nation…

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by Larry Gordon, EdSource.

Posted: January 10th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Using a visa loophole to fire well-paid U.S. information technology workers and replace them with low-paid immigrants from India… Experts in the abuse of so-called H-1B visas say UC is the first public university to send the jobs of American IT staff offshore. That’s not a distinction UC should wear proudly… UCSF officials say the decision to outsource 97 IT jobs, about 20% to the total IT headcount, was forced on it by daunting economic challenges… The California Legislature has systematically reduced to pennies the state’s share of the budgets of UCSF and the rest of UC, which once was proudly supported by Sacramento. Meanwhile, Congress has consistently failed to close a glaring loophole allowing U.S. employers to send good American jobs overseas — instead, it has moved to expand the H1-B program at the behest of tech firms claiming, dubiously, that they can’t find enough good engineers in the U.S.

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by Michael Hiltzik, The Los Angeles Times.

Posted: January 6th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The leaders of the University of California system — unsatisfied with funding provided by Gov. Jerry Brown and the state Legislature and interested in ambitious new initiatives — are seeking significant tuition hikes. For the 2017-18 school year, the 10-campus UC system wants a 2.5 percent increase in in-state tuition, to $11,502, and a 5 percent increase in the student services fee, to $1,128. But the governor and lawmakers should oppose any increases until they get meaningful answers to a meaty question: How does the UC system justify the explosion in its number of administrators?

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by The Editorial Board, The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Posted: January 6th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

For five years, UC has said its annual tuition for California undergraduates was $12,192, a figure widely reported by news outlets, including The Chronicle, and used by state lawmakers, state auditors and UC officials themselves. But in announcing their tuition proposal Wednesday, UC officials insisted that current tuition was $11,220. They said that if the regents approve the raise later this month, tuition would grow to $11,502 for the 2017-18 school year, an increase of 2.5 percent… It turns out that UC’s often-cited tuition figure of $12,192 has always included a “student services” fee. Now, however, UC is separating out that fee from the tuition figure. That’s because UC is proposing to increase that student services fee by a higher percentage (5 percent) than the base tuition increase (2.5 percent).

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by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: January 5th, 2017, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.