More than 472,000 of the 2.4 million students in the California Community Colleges system were put on waiting lists for classes this fall, according to the results of a survey released on Wednesday by the system’s chancellor, Jack Scott. That statistic was one of a litany featured in the survey, which presented a picture of the state’s two-year colleges as struggling to maintain their missions after budget cuts totaling more than $809-million over the past three years, as well as uncertainty over possibly more cuts in 2013.

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by Lee Gardner, The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Posted: August 29th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The new proposal, Senate Bill 1040, would link a GOP push to repeal the fire prevention fee repeal with a key priority of Assembly Speaker John Pérez and most Democrats, Assembly Bill 1500, to impose a corporate tax formula known as the “single sales factor.” The proposed compromise also could pressure Senate Republicans to provide the necessary votes, at least two, to ensure that Pérez’s tax formula bill clears the upper house by the needed supermajority… Altering the corporate tax formula should generate an estimated $1 billion for the state each year. About $90 million would be used to backfill revenue lost by repealing the fire fee. The remainder would fund college scholarships for families earning less than $150,000 per year.

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by Jim Sanders, The Sacramento Bee.

Posted: August 24th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

UC Berkeley faces a cut of $50 million to its $2.2 billion budget if Gov. Jerry Brown’s ballot measure to increase taxes fails in November. That scenario would be a “very dark day” for students, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said at a back-to-school news conference Thursday. Birgeneau said students coming from middle- and upper-income families would be hurt the most. The failure of the tax measure would result in a tuition hike of 20 percent, UC Regents said earlier this summer. That would bump costs for undergraduate students to $14,670 a year.

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by Doug Oakley, The San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: August 23rd, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Colleges that want to set the stage for their students to succeed should stop hiring adjunct professors at the last minute and then denying those instructors access to the technology and resources they need to teach effectively, a new report suggests. “The ‘just-in-time’ staffing model is unjust for faculty and for students and clearly compromises education quality,” says the 26-page policy report from the Center for the Future of Higher Education, a virtual think tank of the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education. (The center plans to post the report on its Web site today.) Contingent faculty members who are hired just before the start of an academic term can opt to prep their classes while they’re not on the payroll or resign themselves to teach courses for which they’re not adequately prepared, the report says. Add a lack of access to personal office space, computers, library resources, and curriculum guidelines, among other things and “the education experience of students suffers, both inside and outside of the classroom,” it says

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by Audrey Williams June, The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Posted: August 23rd, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

One of the clear concerns of the police officer’s union is the concern that while Lt. Pike, Chief Spicuzza, and Officer Lee have all had their employment with the university terminated one way or another, no one from the administrative side of the aisle has. They write that they agree with the findings concerning Chancellor Linda Katehi, her leadership team, and their role and decisions surrounding the November 18, 2011. “There were indeed, “substantive mistakes at the administrative level,” they write. “The decisions made by Katehi’s leadership team during the days leading up to and on November 18th have caused long-term damage to the University of California and the UC Davis Police Department.” They note, “To this day, not one University Administrator has been demoted or terminated due to their decisions, which placed our police officers and the students of this university into an unnecessary and foreseeable confrontation.” The union adds, “What is troubling and ironic is that Lieutenant Pike had tried harder than anyone to prevent this confrontation from occurring, as evidenced from the investigations.”

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by David M. Greenwald, The People's Vanguard of Davis.

Posted: August 22nd, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The largest public university system in the United States is finally realizing a vision of a centralized online hub — but is doing so in a relatively contained way, at least at the start. The California State University System is announcing today that Cal State Online will begin offering classes in January, in partnership with Pearson… Filling also said he remains concerned that ultimately, the system will look to Cal State Online to enroll and educate students whose access to a Cal State education has been derailed by state budget cuts. Yes, system officials have insisted that’s not their goal, he said — “but all we have to go on at this point are carefully crafted press statements. We just don’t know where this is really heading.” Welty said that he understands the skepticism, and that all Cal State Online can do for now is educate its initial students as well as possible.

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by Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed.

Posted: August 22nd, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

The school would be the first research university to effectively abolish tenure, said officials of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), opening the door for other campuses under pressure from cuts in public spending to try similar moves. Traditionally, tenured faculty could be removed only after undergoing an extended peer review or in cases where the university is facing extreme financial stress. The contract language management proposed in late July, however, would effectively remove peer review and centralize the power to terminate faculty in administrators’ hands… According to Shor, the assault on tenure is another step in the “corporatization of the university.” Recent decisions like the appointment of Gilmour, the first Wayne president with no academic background, and the elimination of the Interdisciplinary Studies program that primarily served working-class people of color, have little to do with the economic realities facing the university, Shor said, and more to do with “politically motivated decisions about who the university should be serving.” Department closures, layoffs of non-academic staff, extreme increases in tuition, and increasing reliance on adjunct faculty all point toward a radical shift to what some union members have been calling a corporate model of higher education. The cost of attending Wayne State full-time has risen from $3,970 a year in 2000 to $10,188 a year now.

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by Aaron Petkov, Truthout.

Posted: August 22nd, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

A California ballot measure designed to avoid deep cuts in state spending on higher education, among other costs, currently enjoys the support of 55 percent of likely voters, according to the results of a poll released on Wednesday. But the poll, conducted on behalf of the University of Southern California and Policy Analysis for California Education, a nonpartisan research center, also suggests that support could weaken by Election Day. “Its prospects are partly cloudy with a chance of rain,” said Benjamin C. Tulchin, president of Tulchin Research, which conducted the poll along with M4 Strategies. The measure, known as Proposition 30, was put forth by Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. It would temporarily raise the state’s sales tax by a quarter cent and impose additional income taxes on top earners in order to close a $15.7-billion state-budget shortfall. If the measure fails to win voter support in November, the University of California system, the California State University system, and the California community colleges would face a “trigger cut” of $963-million in January, on top of several rounds of steep cuts since 2008.

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by Lee Gardner, The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Posted: August 22nd, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

College graduates typically earn more than non-college graduates over their lifetimes, yet the average 30-year-old who earned a bachelor’s degree in 2004 is most likely ineligible today for a home mortgage because of a high debt-to-income ratio… The report shows “how rising student debt may lead to significant economic impacts,” said Rory O’Sullivan, policy director at Young Invincibles. “As education debt grows, it pushes more borrowers out of the housing market, potentially adding another drag to an economy only just emerging from the Great Recession.”

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by Tim Grant, San Jose Mercury News.

Posted: August 21st, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.

Since 2001, the number of retirees who’ve seen benefits garnished has ballooned from about 20,000 to nearly 100,000. The worst part? Some of these retirees are simply among the growing number of older consumers who’ve taken on loans to help their kids or grandchildren through college. A recent report by the New York Federal Reserve found more than 17 percent of student loan borrowers are over the age of 50. And while slates for credit and other forms of debt can be wiped clean in bankruptcy, lawmakers have yet to add student loan debt to the list.

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by Mandi Woodruff, Business Insider.

Posted: August 20th, 2012, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.