The U.S. government projects to make more money off student loans this fiscal year than ExxonMobil, Apple, J.P. Morgan Chase or Fannie Mae made on their respective businesses last year, a new analysis shows. According to the Congressional Budget Office’s latest projections, the federal government projects a record $50-billion profit on student loans this year. ExxonMobil made $44.9 billion in 2012, according to published reports, making it the most profitable company in the country. And if Congress doesn’t stop rates on some loans from doubling on July 1, that profit will rise more, up to an additional $21 billion, a recent report found.
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by David Jesse, USA Today.
Posted: June 16th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Brown wanted to steadily increase funding for universities over the next four years as long as they met specific conditions — ensuring more students finish their degrees on time, enrolling more transfers from community colleges and other measures — and to withhold the money if tuition was raised. Representatives of the universities said Brown’s proposals were too rigid and unrealistic after years of budget cuts, and key lawmakers agreed. As a result of this week’s budget deal, the universities will be required simply to track the number of low-income students they have, the percentage of students who finish within four or six years, the number graduating with engineering and computer degrees and several other statistics.
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by Chris Megerian, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: June 13th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Williams said the bill, which has been amended four times since Steinberg introduced it in February, aims to provide “standards of quality control as a movement to online education happens.” “It’ll happen anyway — let’s set controls,” Williams continued. “Steinberg doesn’t want to undermine local control. He wants to bring the quality control to scale.” … However, it remains to be seen whether such public-private partnerships will save money. A recent San Jose Mercury News report questioned the cost advantages of the San Jose State/Udacity partnership, explaining that participating students at an Oakland charter school had to be issued laptops and required significant hands-on instruction. A formal study on the partnership is currently underway.
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by Whitney Phaneuf, The East Bay Express.
Posted: June 5th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
About two weeks into San Jose State’s online education experiment at an Oakland charter school, it became clear that something was wrong. Some of the students in the college’s for-credit math courses weren’t even logging on… The final results aren’t in yet, but the experiment exposed some challenges to the promise of a low-cost online education. And it showed there is still a divide between technology-driven educators and the low-income, first-generation college hopefuls they are trying to reach. To make it work, the institute had to issue laptops to students, set aside class time for them to focus on the online course, and assign teachers to make sure they stayed on task.
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by Katy Murphy, San Jose Mercury News.
Posted: June 2nd, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
High school students who are graduating this year and getting ready to enter college face a higher education system that still hasn’t rebounded from the budget cuts of the Great Recession. Every state except for North Dakota and Wyoming has cut funding for higher education since 2008, and nationwide state spending for public colleges is down 28 percent in the 2013 fiscal year, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Eleven states trimmed financial support per student by one-third, and Arizona and New Hampshire chopped higher education spending per student in half, the analysis found. The lack of financial support contributed to rising tuition costs, the CFBP found. As a result, 2013 college graduates are the most indebted class yet.
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by Tyler Kingkade, The Huffington Post.
Posted: May 28th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
When it agreed to work with Udacity to offer the online master’s degree in computer science, Georgia Tech expected to make millions of dollars in coming years, negotiated student-staff interaction down to the minute, promised to pay professors who create new online courses $30,000 or more, and created two new categories of educators — corporate “course assistants” tasked with handling student issues and a corps of teaching assistants hired by Georgia Tech who will be professionals rather than graduate students… An internal faculty report generated by professors in the College of Computing says there were “significant internal disagreements,” despite Georgia Tech’s portrayal of the deal as heavily supported by faculty. Interviews and documents also suggest that the full Georgia Tech Academic Senate had little chance to review the deal, which was negotiated at a “rapid pace,” according to the minutes of one faculty committee meeting. Many professors were unaware of the plans until they were announced at the end of the term, said the chairman of one faculty committee.
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by Ry Rivard, Inside Higher Ed.
Posted: May 28th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
A group of bankers have just dumped two more problems on the Federal Reserve’s plate. The Federal Advisory Council, made up of 12 bankers who meet quarterly to advise the central bank, warned that farmland prices are inflating “a bubble” and growth in student-loan debt has “parallels to the housing crisis,” which was the primary cause of the Great Recession in the U.S… As for student loans, recent growth has pushed debt levels to nearly $1 trillion, meaning it “now exceeds credit-card outstandings and has parallels to the housing crisis,” the council said after its Feb. 3, 2012, meeting.
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by Meghan Foley, USA Today.
Posted: May 11th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Instead, the president has been all too eager to “celebrate private enterprise at the expense of the university and its collegial form of government,” the memo asserts. Pat L. Harris, media-relations director at San Jose State, reiterated that professors have not been forced to use any materials from edX or Udacity. “In both cases, we have our faculty members behind the online efforts that the world is seeing,” said Ms. Harris. “We haven’t cut them out of it; in fact they’re at the core of what we’re doing.” Regarding the professors’ deeper concerns—that the partnerships with outside companies will, in the long run, lead to the elimination of some faculty jobs and encroachment on the academic freedom of those who remain—Ms. Harris said she had not been part of any such discussions, though she is “leery to predict the far future.”
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by Steve Kolowich, The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Posted: May 9th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Looking at data from 2011-2012, athletic departments at 99 major schools lost an average of $5 million once you take out revenue generated from “student fees” and “university subsidies.” If you take out “contributions and donations”—some of which might have gone to the universities had they not been lavished on the athletic departments—this drops to an average loss of $17 million, with just one school (Army) in the black. All this football/basketball revenue is sucked up by coach and AD salaries, by administrative and facility costs, and by the athletic department’s non-revenue generating sports; it’s not like it’s going to microscopes and Bunsen burners.
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by Reuben Fischer-Baum, Deadspin.
Posted: May 9th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The 11 students and one faculty member, known alternately as the “Bankers’ Dozen” and “Davis Dozen,” faced a single count of conspiracy and 20 counts of blocking access that were filed in March 2012 in connection with the demonstrations that occurred in January and February that year. But in a plea deal Monday, all 20 access charges were dismissed and the 12 pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace, an infraction, said Alexis Briggs, the San Francisco-based attorney for the dozen… “It’s very good for the defendants and for the taxpayers,” Briggs said. “An infraction in the case, is, in fact, an appropriate response. It’s a great resolution.” Briggs said two, six-week trials had been planned in the case “at a significant cost to the public.”
Posted: May 7th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
