Imagine you go to the grocery store and find long lines at the checkout. A clerk approaches and says, “You can wait in line, or if you’re willing to pay four times more, we can get you out right away.” That, in essence, is what Assemblyman Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara, is proposing for California’s community colleges in Assembly Bill 955. Can’t get into a high-demand course? Pay a $600 fee for a three-credit course and take it during the summer or winter intersession. Students in the regular class would pay the usual $138. Parallel courses, but different prices… The bill’s sponsor is trying to mitigate the damage of two-tier pricing by setting aside one-third of fee revenue from the higher-cost courses for lower-income students. That doesn’t change the basic problem, however — setting up a “hot lane” instead of working slowly to reverse the cuts and the waiting lines that resulted from the economic downturn.
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by The Editorial Board, The Modesto Bee.
Posted: May 6th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The commission that could revoke City College of San Francisco’s accreditation this summer should rescind its threat and reform its entire agenda to be more fair to all colleges under scrutiny, says a 298-page complaint from the California Federation of Teachers. The union representing community college faculty across California filed the formal complaint on Monday with the Accrediting Commission of Community and Junior Colleges in Novato and with the U.S. Department of Education, which oversees the commission… The commission is one of the nation’s six regional accrediting agencies overseen by the federal government but which are nevertheless private businesses.
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by Nanette Asimov, The San Francisco Chronicle.
Posted: May 1st, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
“It’s the wrong solution to the wrong problem,” said Robert Meister, chair of the Council of UC Faculty Associations and professor at UC Santa Cruz, in a phone interview. He argued that the problem is inadequate funding and the solution is to increase it. “The legislature and the governor have been cutting higher education on a per-student basis for ten years,” he said. “The universities and colleges have been reducing the number of admissions, especially at the community college level, and also reducing the number of seats in required courses. Those problems wouldn’t exist if the university, and particularly the community colleges, were adequately funded.” Meister said he believes the state of California could easily restore funding for all three public higher education systems to the levels they were at in 2000, referring to a statement on the Web site of the Council of UC Faculty Associations, which states that “for the median California tax return (individual or joint), restoring the entire system while rolling back student fees to what they were a decade ago would cost $48 next April 15.”
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by Leila Meyer, Campus Technology.
Posted: April 30th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Duke University faculty members, frustrated with their administration and skeptical of the degrees to be awarded, have forced the institution to back out of a deal with nine other universities and 2U to create a pool of for-credit online classes for undergraduates… the vote does not represent an outright rejection of online education but rather specific concerns about for-credit online education offered by third-parties. Faculty also expressed concern about the administration’s handling of the deal and 2U’s cut of the revenue. While there has been considerable hype in the last year about leading colleges and universities embracing partnerships that redefine the way education is delivered, the Duke faculty vote marks the second time in a month that professors at an elite institution have studied one of these partnerships and turned it down. Amherst College’s faculty this month voted down a proposal to join the MOOC provider edX.
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by Ry Rivard, Inside Higher Ed.
Posted: April 30th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
“I think that phase has passed, and the folks who are starting to do the work are starting to realize that these efforts … have real costs for the institution,” says Mr. Stokes. “And I think that’s creating a little bit more sobriety about how folks view the opportunity.” Offering MOOCs through edX is hardly free. There are options available to institutions that want to build their own courses on the edX platform at no charge, but for partners who want help developing their courses, edX charges a base rate of $250,000 per course, then $50,000 for each additional time that course is offered; edX also takes a cut of any revenue the course generates. There are also significant labor costs that come with offering MOOCs. A recent Chronicle survey found that professors typically spent 100 hours, sometimes much more, to develop their massive online courses, and then eight to 10 hours each week while the courses were in session. This commitment amounted to a major drain on their normal campus responsibilities.
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by Steve Kolowich, The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Posted: April 29th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Historically, the University of California has often proved a weathervane for global trends in higher education. It was at the forefront of creating a mass public higher education system in the 1960s, and disinvestment from the 1980s onward generated dramatic fee increases, layoffs, protests and occupations that subsequently spread around the world. So when Californian politicians (led by Governor Jerry Brown, who has pledged $37m for online initiatives) and university administrators still believe online platforms are a golden bullet that promises to expand access while reducing costs and students’ time to degree, we have to take them seriously. It is not often that the interests of vote-hungry politicians, resource-starved administrators and academics entranced by the democratic potential of open online courses all converge. And yet when a Californian senator outlined a bill that would allow students in the state to take online classes from a private provider for credit, it unleashed a storm of criticism. A UC faculty petition collected more than 1,000 signatures in 48 hours. As news spread across the US, condemnation came from the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education and a New York Times editorial. Those who teach in California’s system of higher education are not luddites. Neither were they simply alarmed at the attempts to bypass established mechanisms of peer review and quality control of classes. In the face of the uproar, these have now been dropped. But the stakes are far greater than faculty control and oversight.
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by James Vernon, The Guardian.
Posted: April 29th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
A panel discussion Friday at UC Santa Cruz explored some key issues surrounding online classes at the college level with speakers Daphne Koller, a Stanford computer science professor who co-founded Cousera — an online platform that offers free college classes; Alison Galloway, UCSC’s executive vice chancellor and a forensic anthropology professor; longtime UCSC professor Robert Meister; education professor Rodney Ogawa; and molecular biology student Matt Hong. Koller explained Cousera and the virtues of expanding online access to higher education to people all over the world who might not otherwise be able to afford it, especially those living in developing countries. UCSC is one of 62 university campuses globally to offer some of Cousera’s free online classes. The partnership was launched in February. Meister, who is critical of Cousera, said free online university classes could pose problems with student eligibility and assessment and academic freedom for professors. Meister, a professor of History of Consciousness, said he fears platforms such as Cousera could impede public education and lead it down a road to privatization.
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by Shanna McCord, The Santa Cruz Sentinel.
Posted: April 26th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Gov. Jerry Brown wants to tie some state funding for California’s public universities to a host of new requirements, including 10% increases in the number of transfer students from community colleges and the percentage of freshmen graduating within four years. Brown, who has repeatedly said the universities should be leaner and serve more students, is asking for equivalent increases in several other areas as well, according to a copy of his plan obtained by The Times. Those include raising the overall number of graduates and a stipulation that more students coming from community colleges finish their studies within two years. The document, which updates Brown’s January budget proposal for overhauling higher education, also reiterates his demand for a four-year freeze on tuition and fees for undergraduate and graduate students.
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by Chris Megerian and Larry Gordon, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: April 23rd, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
The bill, AB 955, is similar to a controversial plan attempted by Santa Monica College last summer to offer core education classes such as English, math and history at a cost of about $180 per unit, alongside state-funded courses set by the Legislature at $46 per unit. The school argued that extension courses would give students who couldn’t get into regular classes another option to complete their education. The plan was derided by opponents as a pathway to a two-tier education system favoring those who can pay. The Santa Monica campus retreated after the community colleges’ chancellor’s office said the plan violated education codes that prohibit differential fees and after some protesters tried to force entry into a board of trustees meeting and were pepper-sprayed. The current bill’s author, Assemblyman Das Williams (D-Santa Barbara), said he revived the idea because colleges are still suffering from severe state funding cuts that have prevented the schools from increasing course offerings and led many of them to drop summer and winter sessions.
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by Carla Rivera, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: April 20th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
Gov. Jerry Brown is pushing forward with plans to shake up California’s higher education system, including strict rules on tuition and fees, according to an administration spokesman… In addition to holding the line on costs, Brown wants universities to ensure that students — particularly incoming freshmen, transfers and low-income students who use federal Pell grants — are able to finish their studies more quickly, reducing student expenses and wait times for critical classes. “The ideal time for graduation is four years,” said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for Brown’s Department of Finance. Palmer said the administration will detail specific targets for universities next week, when the governor’s proposals is scheduled to be vetted by a legislative committee.
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by Chris Megerian, The Los Angeles Times.
Posted: April 20th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.
