Download or read book Why Public Higher Education Should Be Free written by Robert Samuels and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Universities tend to be judged by the test scores of their incoming students and not on what students actually learn once they attend these institutions. While shared tests and surveys have been developed, most schools refuse to publish the results. Instead, they allow such publications as U.S. News & World Report to define educational quality. In order to raise their status in these rankings, institutions pour money into new facilities and extracurricular activities while underfunding their educational programs. In Why Public Higher Education Should Be Free, Robert Samuels argues that many institutions of higher education squander funds and mislead the public about such things as average class size, faculty-to-student ratios, number of faculty with PhDs, and other indicators of educational quality. Parents and students seem to have little knowledge of how colleges and universities have been restructured over the past thirty years. Samuels shows how research universities have begun to function as giant investment banks or hedge funds that spend money on athletics and administration while increasing tuition costs and actually lowering the quality of undergraduate education. In order to fight higher costs and lower quality, Samuels suggests, universities must reallocate these misused funds and concentrate on their core mission of instruction and related research. Throughout the book, Samuels argues that the future of our economy and democracy rests on our ability to train students to be thoughtful participants in the production and analysis of knowledge. If leading universities serve only to grant credentials and prestige, our society will suffer irrevocable harm. Presenting the problem of how universities make and spend money, Samuels provides solutions to make these important institutions less expensive and more vital. By using current resources in a more effective manner, we could even, he contends, make all public higher education free.
Download or read book Sustainable Resilient Free written by John Warner and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The coronavirus pandemic laid bare the unsustainability of our public higher education system. In Sustainable. Resilient. Free. , author and educator John Warner maps out a path for change. In 1983, U.S. News and Wor
Download or read book Paying the Price written by Sara Goldrick-Rab and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “bracing and well-argued” study of America’s college debt crisis—“necessary reading for anyone concerned about the fate of American higher education” (Kirkus). College is far too expensive for many people today, and the confusing mix of federal, state, institutional, and private financial aid leaves countless students without the resources they need to pay for it. In Paying the Price, education scholar Sara Goldrick-Rab reveals the devastating effect of these shortfalls. Goldrick-Rab examines a study of 3,000 students who used the support of federal aid and Pell Grants to enroll in public colleges and universities in Wisconsin in 2008. Half the students in the study left college without a degree, while less than 20 percent finished within five years. The cause of their problems, time and again, was lack of money. Unable to afford tuition, books, and living expenses, they worked too many hours at outside jobs, dropped classes, took time off to save money, and even went without adequate food or housing. In many heartbreaking cases, they simply left school—not with a degree, but with crippling debt. Goldrick-Rab combines that data with devastating stories of six individual students, whose struggles make clear the human and financial costs of our convoluted financial aid policies. In the final section of the book, Goldrick-Rab offers a range of possible solutions, from technical improvements to the financial aid application process, to a bold, public sector–focused “first degree free” program. "Honestly one of the most exciting books I've read, because [Goldrick-Rab has] solutions. It's a manual that I'd recommend to anyone out there, if you're a parent, if you're a teacher, if you're a student."—Trevor Noah, The Daily Show
Download or read book Higher Education Accountability written by Robert Kelchen and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with the earliest efforts to regulate schools, the author reveals the rationale behind accountability and outlines the historical development of how US federal and state policies, accreditation practices, private-sector interests, and internal requirements have become so important to institutional success and survival
Download or read book The Case against Education written by Bryan Caplan and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 551 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why we need to stop wasting public funds on education Despite being immensely popular—and immensely lucrative—education is grossly overrated. Now with a new afterword by Bryan Caplan, this explosive book argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skills but to signal the qualities of a good employee. Learn why students hunt for easy As only to forget most of what they learn after the final exam, why decades of growing access to education have not resulted in better jobs for average workers, how employers reward workers for costly schooling they rarely ever use, and why cutting education spending is the best remedy. Romantic notions about education being "good for the soul" must yield to careful research and common sense—The Case against Education points the way.
Download or read book Beyond Free College written by Eileen L. Strempel and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-01-15 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beyond Free College outlines an audacious national agenda—consistent with, but far more comprehensive than, the current “free college” movement—that builds on the best of US higher education’s populist history such as the G.I. Bill and the community college transfer function. The authors align a wide constellation of higher education trends—online learning, prior learning assessment, competency-based learning, high school college-credit— with a rapidly shifting student transfer environment that privileges college credit as the pivotal educational catalyst to boost access and completion. The book’s agenda seeks greater productive investment in postsecondary education by privileging a single metric—lower-cost-per-degree-granted—as the animating driver of a transfer pathway that will fulfill the potential of its historical, progressive innovators. Beyond Free College’s goal is as simple as it is urgent: To galvanize higher education advocates in an effort to reorganize, reorient, and reignite the transfer function to serve the needs of a neotraditional student population that now constitutes the majority of college-goers in America; and in ways that advance completion, not just access to higher education.
Download or read book Lower Ed written by Tressie McMillan Cottom and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than two million students are enrolled in for-profit colleges, from the small family-run operations to the behemoths brandished on billboards, subway ads, and late-night commercials. These schools have been around just as long as their bucolic not-for-profit counterparts, yet shockingly little is known about why they have expanded so rapidly in recent years—during the so-called Wall Street era of for-profit colleges. In Lower Ed Tressie McMillan Cottom—a bold and rising public scholar, herself once a recruiter at two for-profit colleges—expertly parses the fraught dynamics of this big-money industry to show precisely how it is part and parcel of the growing inequality plaguing the country today. McMillan Cottom discloses the shrewd recruitment and marketing strategies that these schools deploy and explains how, despite the well-documented predatory practices of some and the campus closings of others, ending for-profit colleges won’t end the vulnerabilities that made them the fastest growing sector of higher education at the turn of the twenty-first century. And she doesn’t stop there. With sharp insight and deliberate acumen, McMillan Cottom delivers a comprehensive view of postsecondary for-profit education by illuminating the experiences of the everyday people behind the shareholder earnings, congressional battles, and student debt disasters. The relatable human stories in Lower Ed—from mothers struggling to pay for beauty school to working class guys seeking “good jobs” to accomplished professionals pursuing doctoral degrees—illustrate that the growth of for-profit colleges is inextricably linked to larger questions of race, gender, work, and the promise of opportunity in America. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews with students, employees, executives, and activists, Lower Ed tells the story of the benefits, pitfalls, and real costs of a for-profit education. It is a story about broken social contracts; about education transforming from a public interest to a private gain; and about all Americans and the challenges we face in our divided, unequal society.
Download or read book Who Should Pay written by Natasha Quadlin and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2022-01-14 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans now obtain college degrees at a higher rate than at any time in recent decades in the hopes of improving their career prospects. At the same time, the rising costs of an undergraduate education have increased dramatically, forcing students and families to take out often unmanageable levels of student debt. The cumulative amount of student debt reached nearly $1.5 trillion in 2017, and calls for student loan forgiveness have gained momentum. Yet public policy to address college affordability has been mixed. While some policymakers support more public funding to broaden educational access, others oppose this expansion. Noting that public opinion often shapes public policy, sociologists Natasha Quadlin and Brian Powell examine public opinion on who should shoulder the increasing costs of higher education and why. Who Should Pay? draws on a decade’s worth of public opinion surveys analyzing public attitudes about whether parents, students, or the government should be primarily responsible for funding higher education. Quadlin and Powell find that between 2010 and 2019, public opinion has shifted dramatically in favor of more government funding. In 2010, Americans overwhelming believed that parents and students were responsible for the costs of higher education. Less than a decade later, the percentage of Americans who believed that federal or state/local government should be the primary financial contributor has more than doubled. The authors contend that the rapidity of this change may be due to the effects of the 2008 financial crisis and the growing awareness of the social and economic costs of high levels of student debt. Quadlin and Powell also find increased public endorsement of shared responsibility between individuals and the government in paying for higher education. The authors additionally examine attitudes on the accessibility of college for all, whether higher education at public universities should be free, and whether college is worth the costs. Quadlin and Powell also explore why Americans hold these beliefs. They identify individualistic and collectivist world views that shape public perspectives on the questions of funding, accessibility, and worthiness of college. Those with more individualistic orientations believed parents and students should pay for college, and that if students want to attend college, then they should work hard and find ways to achieve their goals. Those with collectivist orientations believed in a model of shared responsibility – one in which the government takes a greater level of responsibility for funding education while acknowledging the social and economic barriers to obtaining a college degree for many students. The authors find that these belief systems differ among socio-demographic groups and that bias – sometimes unconscious and sometimes deliberate – regarding race and class affects responses from both individualistic and collectivist-oriented participants. Public opinion is typically very slow to change. Yet Who Should Pay? provides an illuminating account of just how quickly public opinion has shifted regarding the responsibility of paying for a college education and its implications for future generations of students.
Download or read book The Path to Free College written by Michelle Miller-Adams and published by Harvard Education Press. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Path to Free College, Michelle Miller-Adams argues that tuition-free college, if pursued strategically and in alignment with other sectors, can be a powerful agent of change. She makes the case that broadly accessible and affordable higher education is in the public interest, yielding dividends not just for individuals but also for the communities, states, and nation in which they reside. Miller-Adams offers a comprehensive analysis of the College Promise movement--its history, impacts, and unintended consequences--and its relationship to access, affordability, and workforce readiness. These factors are explored through data, analysis, and case studies of existing place-based scholarship programs. She also examines historical precursors of the free-college movement and evaluates the possibility of national action. The Path to Free College outlines how the design of free-college programs should relate to programmatic goals and explores the suitability of different approaches. In addition, the book describes both the need for and the challenges of implementing a nationwide free-college program, as well as the variety of models and research-based evidence. Given the raging national debate about tuition-free college, the moment is right for a book that assesses state and local efforts and offers policy leaders and practitioners guidance going forward. The Path to Free College asserts that the promise of private and public gains warrants public investment in tuition-free college.
Download or read book Reexamining the Federal Role in Higher Education written by Rebecca S. Natow and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive description of the federal government's relationship with higher education and how that relationship became so expansive and indispensable over time. Drawing from constitutional law, social science research, federal policy documents, and original interviews with key policy insiders, the author explores the U.S. government's role in regulating, financing, and otherwise influencing higher education. Natow analyzes how the government's role has evolved over time, the activities of specific governmental branches and agencies that affect higher education, the nature of the government's influence today, and prospects for the future of federal involvement in higher education. Chapters examine the politics and practices that shape policies affecting nondiscrimination and civil rights, student financial aid, educational quality and student success, campus crime, research and development, intellectual property, student privacy, and more. Book Features: Provides a contemporary and thorough understanding of how federal higher education policies are created, implemented, and influenced by federal and nonfederal policy actors. Situates higher education policy within the constitutional, political, and historical contexts of the federal government. Offers nuanced perspectives informed by insider information about what occurs behind the scenes in the federal higher education policy arena. Includes case studies illustrating the profound effects federal policy processes have on the everyday lives of college students, their families, institutions, and other higher education stakeholders.
Download or read book Why Does College Cost So Much written by Robert B. Archibald and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: College tuition has risen more rapidly than the overall inflation rate for much of the past century. To explain rising college cost, the authors place the higher education industry firmly within the larger economic history of the United States.
Download or read book Public Policy and Higher Education written by Edward P. St. John and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amid changing economic and social contexts, radical changes have occurred in public higher education policies over the past three decades. Public Policy and Higher Educationprovides readers with new ways to analyze these complex state policies and offers the tools to examine how policies affect students’ access and success in college. Rather than arguing for a single approach, the authors examine how policymakers and higher education administrators can work to inform and influence change within systems of higher education using research-based evidence along with consideration of political and historical values and beliefs. Special Features: Case Studies—allow readers to examine strategies used by different types of colleges to improve access and retention. Reflective Exercises—encourage readers to discuss state and campus context for policy decisions and to think about the strategies used in a state or institution. Approachable Explanations—unpack complex public policies and financial strategies for readers who seek understanding of public policy in higher education. Research-Based Recommendations—explore how policymakers, higher education administrators and faculty can work together to improve quality, diversity, and financial stewardship. This textbook is an invaluable resource for graduate students, administrators, policymakers, and researchers who seek to learn more about the crucial contexts underlying policy decisions and college access.
Download or read book Higher Learning Greater Good written by Walter W. McMahon and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2009-03-18 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The chronic underinvestment in higher education has serious ramifications for both individuals and society. Winner, Best Book in Education, 2009 PROSE Awards, Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, Association of American Publishers Winner, Best Book in Education, PROSE Awards, Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, Association of American Publishers A college education has long been acknowledged as essential for both personal success and economic growth. But the measurable value of its nonmonetary benefits has until now been poorly understood. In Higher Learning, Greater Good, leading education economist Walter W. McMahon carefully describes these benefits and suggests that higher education accrues significant social and private benefits. McMahon's research uncovers a major skill deficit and college premium in the United States and other OECD countries due to technical change and globalization, which, according to a new preface to the 2017 edition, continues unabated. A college degree brings better job opportunities, higher earnings, and even improved health and longevity. Higher education also promotes democracy and sustainable growth and contributes to reduced crime and lower state welfare and prison costs. These social benefits are substantial in relation to the costs of a college education. Offering a human capital perspective on these and other higher education policy issues, McMahon suggests that poor understanding of the value of nonmarket benefits leads to private underinvestment. He offers policy options that can enable state and federal governments to increase investment in higher education.
Download or read book The Real World of College written by Wendy Fischman and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why higher education in the United States has lost its way, and how universities and colleges can focus sharply on their core mission. For The Real World of College, Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner analyzed in-depth interviews with more than 2,000 students, alumni, faculty, administrators, parents, trustees, and others, which were conducted at ten institutions ranging from highly selective liberal arts colleges to less-selective state schools. What they found challenged characterizations in the media: students are not preoccupied by political correctness, free speech, or even the cost of college. They are most concerned about their GPA and their resumes; they see jobs and earning potential as more important than learning. Many say they face mental health challenges, fear that they don’t belong, and feel a deep sense of alienation. Given this daily reality for students, has higher education lost its way? Fischman and Gardner contend that US universities and colleges must focus sharply on their core educational mission. Fischman and Gardner, both recognized authorities on education and learning, argue that higher education in the United States has lost sight of its principal reason for existing: not vocational training, not the provision of campus amenities, but to increase what Fischman and Gardner call “higher education capital”—to help students think well and broadly, express themselves clearly, explore new areas, and be open to possible transformations. Fischman and Gardner offer cogent recommendations for how every college can become a community of learners who are open to change as thinkers, citizens, and human beings.
Download or read book Tuition Rising written by Ronald G. Ehrenberg and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America’s colleges and universities are the best in the world. They are also the most expensive. Tuition has risen faster than the rate of inflation for the past thirty years. There is no indication that this trend will abate. Ronald G. Ehrenberg explores the causes of this tuition inflation, drawing on his many years as a teacher and researcher of the economics of higher education and as a senior administrator at Cornell University. Using incidents and examples from his own experience, he discusses a wide range of topics including endowment policies, admissions and financial aid policies, the funding of research, tenure and the end of mandatory retirement, information technology, libraries and distance learning, student housing, and intercollegiate athletics. He shows that colleges and universities, having multiple, relatively independent constituencies, suffer from ineffective central control of their costs. And in a fascinating analysis of their response to the ratings published by magazines such as U.S. News & World Report, he shows how they engage in a dysfunctional competition for students. In the short run, colleges and universities have little need to worry about rising tuitions, since the number of qualified students applying for entrance is rising even faster. But in the long run, it is not at all clear that the increases can be sustained. Ehrenberg concludes by proposing a set of policies to slow the institutions’ rising tuitions without damaging their quality.
Download or read book Debt Free U written by Zac Bissonnette and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-08-31 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book can save you more than $100,000. These days, most people assume you need to pay a boatload of money for a quality college education. As a result, students and their parents are willing to go into years of debt and potentially sabotage their entire financial futures just to get a fancy name on their diploma. But Zac Bissonnette is walking proof that this assumption is not only false, but dangerous-a class con game designed to rip you off and doom your student to a post-graduation life of near poverty . From his unique double perspective-he's a personal finance expert (at Daily Finance) AND a current senior at the University of Massachusetts-Zac figured out how to get an outstanding education at a public college, without bankrupting his parents or taking on massive loans. Armed with his personal knowledge, the latest data, and smart analysis, Zac takes on the sacred cows of the higher education establishment. He reveals why a lot of the conventional wisdom about choosing and financing college is not only wrong but hazardous to you and your child's financial future. You'll discover, for instance, that: * Student loans are NOT a necessary evil. Ordinary middle class families can- and must-find ways to avoid them, even without scholarships. * College "rankings" are useless-designed to sell magazines and generate hype. If you trust one of the major guides when picking a college, you face a potential financial disaster. * The elite graduate programs accept lots of people with non-elite bachelors degrees. So do America's most selective employers. The name on a diploma ultimately won't help your child have a more successful career or earn more money. Zac can prove every one of those bold assertions - and more. No matter what your current financial situation, he has a simple message for parents: "RELAX! Your kid will be able to get a champagne education on a beer budget!"
Download or read book Fugitive Pedagogy written by Jarvis R. Givens and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh portrayal of one of the architects of the African American intellectual tradition, whose faith in the subversive power of education will inspire teachers and learners today. Black education was a subversive act from its inception. African Americans pursued education through clandestine means, often in defiance of law and custom, even under threat of violence. They developed what Jarvis Givens calls a tradition of “fugitive pedagogy”—a theory and practice of Black education in America. The enslaved learned to read in spite of widespread prohibitions; newly emancipated people braved the dangers of integrating all-White schools and the hardships of building Black schools. Teachers developed covert instructional strategies, creative responses to the persistence of White opposition. From slavery through the Jim Crow era, Black people passed down this educational heritage. There is perhaps no better exemplar of this heritage than Carter G. Woodson—groundbreaking historian, founder of Black History Month, and legendary educator under Jim Crow. Givens shows that Woodson succeeded because of the world of Black teachers to which he belonged: Woodson’s first teachers were his formerly enslaved uncles; he himself taught for nearly thirty years; and he spent his life partnering with educators to transform the lives of Black students. Fugitive Pedagogy chronicles Woodson’s efforts to fight against the “mis-education of the Negro” by helping teachers and students to see themselves and their mission as set apart from an anti-Black world. Teachers, students, families, and communities worked together, using Woodson’s materials and methods as they fought for power in schools and continued the work of fugitive pedagogy. Forged in slavery, embodied by Woodson, this tradition of escape remains essential for teachers and students today.
