A Closer Look

(Editorial cartoon by Joel Pett / Lexington Herald-Leader (June 8, 2012) and featured at McClatchy DC. Click on image and then please return.)

The cost of higher education has skyrocketed over the past several decades. College students (and graduate students and professional degree students) are starting off their careers with student loan debts measured in the tens of thousands of dollars and some even in the one hundred thousand dollar range. That's bad enough, but right now, the job market is such that most can't find any work, much less work in their field. The best they can hope for is an internship, usually unpaid, to fill in any potential gap.

So why the huge expense? Why are graduates facing such daunting debt? As I've noted above, the costs of tuition, books, room and board, and fees have all risen over the years. And four years in and then out is no longer the norm: the number of class offerings has dropped, which means students are taking five and even six years to meet graduation requirements. Well, this isn't exactly new news, but I don't think I've seen much to explain in hard terms what precisely is going on.

That is, until today.

The University of Minnesota decided to take a close look at this issue and to actually crunch the numbers.

Leaders of the University of Minnesota got answers Thursday to a question they've been posing for years: How much does it cost to educate a student?

The short answer: $12,055 in 2009-10, on average, for an undergraduate. But the full cost of instruction -- including everything from faculty salaries to electricity -- varies by college, campus and level of study. For undergrads, tuition rarely covered the full cost.

The new analysis is the most precise accounting the university has ever done and will fuel debate between the Board of Regents and President Eric Kaler about where and how to become more efficient as state funding falls. Kaler called the new data "absolutely critical." [Emphasis added]

The University of Minnesota, like most state university systems, has multiple campuses, so the study extended to each:

On the Twin Cities campus, the most expensive undergraduate degree to provide is in the Carlson School of Management: $16,049. The least expensive is in the College of Education and Human Development: $9,625. Those in charge of the analysis were surprised by the relatively low cost of the College of Science and Engineering, with its many labs: $10,721.

There, courses are set, with a predictable number of students. "The curriculum is a little more lockstep," said Lincoln Kallsen, director of financial research.

Other variables include faculty salaries, cost of equipment and how many courses are taught by teaching assistants.

But wait, there's more: the University has also looked at administrative costs in a more honest way than it had been viewed in the past:

The presentation about costs followed another about the U's plan to redefine employee groups.

Last year, the board debated an internal report that showed a 52 percent increase in the number of jobs labeled "administrative." The report showed 2,157 full-time administrative positions, up by 742 since 2001. Meanwhile, total employment at the U grew less than 11 percent.

But university leaders argue that "professional and administrative" definition is outdated, unreliable and imprecise. They have proposed seven new job categories -- including "direct academic providers," "organizational support," and "university leadership." [Emphasis added]

Go read the entire article for more detail, it's well worth the effort.

What the University of Minnesota has done is admirable. It has also set the standard for other state systems to do likewise. It's clear to me that one of the biggest problems facing higher education is the lack of financial support from state governments and the federal government. The excuses given are no comfort: we don't have the money.

Well, that won't wash, not when the two candidates for president can raise $135 million in one month and a governor in a smallish fly-over state can raise $6+ million to fight a recall election. There's money out there, just not for the education of our young people.

And that is shameful.

Your Cheating Heart

Most schools and educators spend a great deal of time impressing upon students that cheating is wrong and that it won't be tolerated. Some, however, have apparently decided that cheating is OK, and even assist their students in the process. This shocking turn of events is playing out in Southern California as one charter school operator with six charter schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District may very well lose those charters because of such activity.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The Los Angeles Board of Education voted Tuesday to shut down six charter schools that were accused of widespread cheating on last year's standardized tests, citing the malfeasance and an insufficient response to it. ...

Crescendo founder/executive director John Allen allegedly ordered principals and teachers to prepare students for last year's exams with the actual test questions. Several teachers at the schools alerted the district about the cheating.

There are a couple of things operating here. The first is the whole nonsense of hiring private operators to come in to take over the job of public education at the taxpayers' expense. These operators promise to replace under-achieving schools with smaller classes and improved pedagogical techniques. The result is supposed to be a better education for students than what they would get at the public schools being replaced for less money than it would take if the public school system were doing its job. Given the accusations leveled at Crescendo, I'm not so certain the parents should be happy at the type of improved education their children are receiving.

The second issue if just as important and has to do with how success is being measured in education these days. The standardized tests which are a result of that horrid measure known as "No Child Left Behind" seems to be the sole yardstick. If our schools have to "teach to the test" to avoid being labeled as a "failed school," then there is no time to teach critical thinking, logic, theory. Only facts matter, with no room for evaluation of those facts or the context in which they are being asserted.

This isn't education, not by a long shot.

This They Got Right

There'll be no carping today. The Democrats in Congress, the White House, and, yes, even the "center-left" editorial board of the Los Angeles Times got it right with respect to the new laws on federally funded student loans.

The federal government has spent extraordinary sums each year for student loans that helped put more Americans through college. But much of that money, it turns out, has been wasted. Unbelievably enough, the government has spent billions on interest payments to private banks instead of on needy students. This wasteful and at times scandal-plagued expenditure of taxpayer money finally ended with the approval this week of the federal budget reconciliation act. The new law will eliminate the private-lender subsidy and have the government make loans directly to students.

The change is expected to save more than $60 billion over 11 years, money that will be plowed into more student aid.

Up to now, the federal money was used to subsidize interest payments to the private lenders who actually made the loans. The government also guaranteed the loans. This has been a lucrative, risk-free profit center for private lenders, so desirable a business that they at times provided kickbacks to universities that would list them as preferred lenders. In some cases, financial aid officers at certain colleges held stock options in lending companies. After accusations by the attorney general of New York, several lenders and universities paid fines and agreed to a new code of conduct. [Emphasis added]

Once again, we've had to learn the hard way that outsourcing government functions to the private sector doesn't save money or increase efficiency. In fact, it winds up costing us taxpayers a whole lot more money. In this case, it also cost students a whole lot of angst when it came to paying that money back after graduation at interest rates that are just a tad higher than the new law will allow.

The banksters fought hard against the bill, lobbying Congress intensely right up to the last minute. This time it didn't work. The record of shoddy and downright illegal practices finally caught up with them. Republicans tried to stop the bill, but even their efforts were half-hearted at best, probably because the health care bill provided them with better ammunition.

And this time the L.A. Times didn't equivocate or engage in any false equivalencies.

Any smart business leader knows that to cut costs, you cut out the middleman, yet this system persisted for years after the public became aware that billions of dollars were being spent to create banking profits rather than a better-educated nation. The profits in the student loan business were good enough for lenders to invest in lobbyists and campaign contributions, largely to GOP congressmen who now complain that the new law is a killer of private-sector jobs. In fact, the jobs were private sector only in name; they were paid for by taxpayers.

That's more like it. In fact, I'd say we need more like it from Congress and from the Times.

Those Sneaky Democrats

Tucked in the health care reform bill passed Sunday evening by the House of Representatives was a measure not in any way connected to health care access. Those sneaky critters in the House approved a measure to cut out the middlemen (i.e., the banksters) from the federal student loan program.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The federal government is moving toward the most sweeping overhaul of college financial aid in decades.

The House of Representatives voted for the measure as part of its passage of healthcare legislation Sunday.

Under the proposal, private lenders would no longer make federally subsidized student loans. Instead, the government would make all such loans itself, instead of only some as it does now.

Eliminating the middleman would save the government an estimated $61 billion over the next decade. About $36 billion of that would be used to increase so-called Pell grants for lower-income students. The legislation also allocates $2.5 billion to historically black colleges, $2 billion to community colleges and at least $10 billion to reduce the federal deficit. [Emphasis added]

The savings comes from the service contracts paid the banks for making the federally subsidized and guaranteed loans. I guess some in government are finally learning that outsourcing not only doesn't save the taxpayers, it costs a lot more over the long run (something we're discovering with Medicare Advantage as well).

What is especially gratifying is that the money saved is being poured back into education, with a bit set aside to reduce the federal deficit. What's not to like? Well, the banks certainly don't like it, and lobbied hard to defeat the bill and will continue their efforts this week in the Senate which still has to vote on it. Their argument? They will have to layoff people, thereby increasing unemployment. For those unfortunate enough to face that eventuality I would simply suggest that they consider applying for the same job with the government. It's going to need some folks to process those Pell Grant applications.

We're not home free yet on this bill, however. We still have to get the Senate onboard, which, given the nature of the world's most exclusive country club, may not be a walk in the park. A little pressure from constituents, however, just might help.

Delayed Reaction

Ahmed Zewail, a professor at Caltech, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, and recent appointee to President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, has a wonderful op-ed column in today's Boston Globe. The starting point of this essay is the recent speech given by President Obama in Cairo, Egypt, Mr. Zewail's homeland. Mr. Zewail returned to Egypt after that speech and checked into the Egyptian response to that speech. He discovered that the response was mostly positive, that the US president showed the right amount of respect for Egypt and for Islam, but that people there were still waiting for President Obama to make the first next move.

Mr. Zewail was clearly disappointed in the response because he felt that his former compatriots missed the point, a point he thinks is crucial to the revitalization of Egypt and other Muslim countries. In Mr. Zewail's view President Obama's speech was about education in its deepest sense.

Egypt should take its cue from the fact that the president chose to speak not before government officials, but before an audience of educated young people. As a scientist educated in both Egypt and America, I appreciate the president’s call for new education and science partnerships between Muslim nations and the West, for it is these areas that have the greatest potential to move a society forward.

Mr. Zewail detailed his education in Egypt, which occurred during the "Nasser Revolution" which emphasized education for all Egyptians, including women and non-Muslims. The result was a renaissance in both secular and religious learning, and the country reaped a bountiful harvest from that revolution.

This was the environment that propelled me to enroll at the University of Alexandria, excel in my science studies with outstanding professors, win a scholarship for graduate study at the University of Pennsylvania, and become a professor at the California Institute of Technology.

My experience was hardly unique, and it offers an instructive example of what a commitment to education, unfettered by religious orthodoxies, can accomplish. When optimists speak of cultivating a spirit of progress among Muslim nations, we need look no farther back than the Egypt of my childhood, when the country had the best universities and richest cultural milieu in the region, and was a center of secular and religious learning.

What struck me most about Mr. Zewail's essay is that his thesis is hardly limited to Egypt or even to Muslim countries. Change a few key words in the following extract and you'll see what I mean:

Today in Egypt and throughout much of the Muslim world, more than a quarter of the population is under the age of 30. Neither Muslim governments nor the West can afford to overlook this immense reservoir of human talent and potential.

The most effective way to tap it is through a revitalized educational system, from the elementary grades through college, that is willing to capitalize on the best of both Muslim and Western traditions of learning, with a new emphasis on science and technology, and a recognition that assimilating new ideas represents not a departure from an authentic Muslim heritage but a return to it. A sustained investment in education is what will ultimately lead to greater economic prosperity, enhanced quality of life, and true democratic reform.

There are many regions in the US which continue the battle against teaching certain parts of science (evolution) for religious reasons. Textbooks are still being bowdlerized in the name of orthodoxy. Children, as a result, are getting a third-rate education in a country which, when challenged by President Kennedy after the launch of Sputnik, responded with its own renaissance in scientific education. Yet now, the best the government can come up with is the "teach to the test" debacle of No Child Left Behind or high school exit exams.

President Obama was wise to go to Cairo to deliver his speech, and he was even wiser to appoint Professor Zewail to his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Now he would do well to make the same commitment to education in this country that he urged for Egypt. He has a full plate right now, but surely there is enough room to include a new education initiative, one that focuses on real learning for the real world.

Who Loves You?

Something that has really impressed me about these Yurpeen socialist countries is that the schools are such a point of caring. In our U.S. schools, from my experience, we are doing nothing to help, and often a lot to cripple, our future.

In Malta, I learned that if you get into the academies there, you are sent by the state, and as long as you are doing well, you even get a stipend. If you have to repeat a grade, you can do it, but the financial support isn't given.

Today in Sardinia, at the top of the hill at the port, the main feature of the area is its school. The university has the highest and most distinguished structure, an old fort overlooking the bay. It's a focal point for their support, and shows caring that just doesn't apply for us.

The success stories bear out the source of our increasing economic and social failures, our lack of interest in our kids and their education.

Top of the class, the latest report from the OECD’s PISA assessments, shows Finland and New Zealand in the lead for science excellence, with one in five 15-year-olds reaching top levels of science proficiency. In Greece, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and Turkey, by contrast, fewer than one in 20 students make top grades.

Countries with more top-level science students do best in science overall. In United States, the average performance of 15-year-olds is below the OECD average because of a large number of low performers. But the US has the same proportion of top performers as Korea, one of the best performing education systems overall but with weaker performance at the top.

In Japan, Finland and Austria, more than one in three students from disadvantaged backgrounds become top performers. In many other countries, by contrast, social barriers to excellence in education remain very high.

The study shows that while many high performing 15-year-olds have a general interest in scientific careers, about half are not well informed about what this entails. Less motivated high-performing students tend not to enjoy science lessons and not to get involved in science outside school, even if they do well on a test.
(snip)
Schools and careers services should do more to improve knowledge of science as a career, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said. Schools should make an effort to make science studies enjoyable. Outside school, societies can also do more to engage students in science....“It is important for the future strength of economies to develop a large and diverse talent pool ready to take up the challenge of a career in science,”Gurría said.

The years of domination by our ignorant element, claiming that business interests were advanced by neglecting our educational system and the kids in it, have set back the country substantially. Watching the careful nurturing that those Yurpeens are effecting, I want to smack down the wingnuts and their negative family values permanently.

What hilltop haven do you see where our kids are put on the pedestal they ought to have, and the effort directed at making their lives as good as they can be? I don't see that happening. As a result, our economy and our society is on the skids.

We can't continue to be that leading nation while we dig holes to pitch our future in. It's time to get back into the business of a future, not pitching it away on the pretense that that's going to make it easier for those job creating fantasies of the past maladministration.

There's no excuse for throwing our good taxpayer dollars after the bad of the past failures.

Going on All Fours

An electorate that prefers feudalism often tends to give Texas education a slant back into the dark ages. Yesterday, the state narrowly avoided becoming more of a joke than it already is. By a margin of nothing, a tie vote from our state's School Board kept evolution from being hounded out of science curricula.

That may sound like an item from the early nineteenth century, but you see in our state we have a huge number of voters who are afraid of anything rational. It contradicts the foundations of their entire system. If we go rational it injures their sense of worth.

In a decision watched by science educators across the nation, the State Board of Education on Thursday narrowly turned aside a last-ditch effort by social conservatives to require that "weaknesses" in the theory of evolution be taught in science classes in Texas.

Board members deadlocked 7-7 on a motion to restore a longtime curriculum rule that "strengths and weaknesses" of all scientific theories – notably Charles Darwin's theory of evolution – be covered in science classes and textbooks for those subjects.

The tie vote upheld a preliminary decision by the board in January to delete the strengths-and-weaknesses rule in the new curriculum standards for science classes that will be in force for the next decade. That decision, if finalized in a last vote today, changes 20 years of Texas education policy.

Because the standards spell out what must be covered in textbooks, science educators and publishers have been monitoring the Texas debate closely. As one of the largest textbook purchasers in the nation, Texas influences what is sold in other states.

The science standards adopted by the board also will figure into questions used on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.

Voting for the requirement were the seven Republican board members aligned with social conservative groups. Against the proposal were three other Republicans and four Democrats. Critics of evolution managed to add a few small caveats to the curriculum, but none as sweeping as the strengths-and-weaknesses rule.

Board member Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, proposed that the rule be put back into the standards, arguing that evolution advocates were trying to stifle classroom discussion of Darwin's theory that humans gradually developed from lower life forms.

"I don't see how we can say there is no disagreement about evolution. There is disagreement," said Mercer, taking issue with science teachers and academics who told the board that the theory of evolution is universally accepted in the scientific community. He cited a document by hundreds of scientists questioning some of Darwin's tenets.

He also charged that evolution advocates have a history of falsifying evidence and drawing erroneous conclusions to support their position.
(snip)
The language adopted by board members on evolution and other scientific theories states that students shall "analyze and evaluate scientific explanations using empirical evidence, logical reasoning and experimental and observational testing."

Action on the science standards caps several months of debate. The issue last flared up when the board adopted new biology textbooks in 2003, when social conservatives tried to reject books that were deemed too pro-evolution but failed.

This being a new century really threatens those elements that prefer faith, because it's comfortable, to functional. Sadly, the same elements who proclaim their faith sustains them insist that we have to act on its basis too.

The right wing likes to think if they just had the rest of us under control, it would make the world work out better for them. The shame of it all is that we have to keep combating rampant ignorance to keep their kids, as well as ours, from being denied their rights to education.

P.Z. Myers had a rant worth sharing this morning on the occasion of a winger who waxed self-righteous over the death of children on their way to a ski trip in Montana.

Once again, I am confirmed in my opinion that Christianity is a breeder of evil, a cesspit in which the most hateful and inhuman commitment to lies and delusions can ferment. Don't ever preach at me about Christian morality: I've seen it, and it is empty of love for humanity, replaced with sanctimonious idolatry and commitment to dead, dumb superstition.

While I think there are exceptions, it is always a source of amazement that so many base a belief system devoid of acceptance for their fellow men on teachings that emphasize love and tolerance.

Higher Education Gets Sold Down the River

We make jokes about the Texas legislature, famous for such idiocies as the bill to allow blind people to hunt, and such idiosyncrasies as the DeLay redistricting that the former Supreme Court struck down as not providing equal representations to people of all races. The legislature here is part-time and often it is suggested that if it were fulltime, the extra time would just mean more damage.

Our lege has outdone itself this time. It has provided so inadequate funding programs for education that many rising college freshmen, after working for the grades to be admitted to colleges and qualifying for scholarships that would be interest free to entice them to finish in four years, are being informed that there isn't money to fund those scholarships. It was a great idea. Much too great for the Texas political criminals who will throw billions at their friends' businesses, and TXU, but cheat the deserving students.

This week – just a month before heading off to the University of Texas at Austin – Brad Barmer got an unwelcome surprise. That $5,170 interest-free loan he was counting on this year? He won't be getting it.

Instead, Mr. Barmer and some 700 other incoming freshmen at UT – and thousands more college-bound students across the state – won't see a dime from the Texas "B On Time" loan program.

Just this month, the state notified college financial aid offices that the program doesn't have enough money to go around. So new students must go without.

Colleges are now scrambling to tell students, many of whom have already paid admissions deposits and signed apartment leases.

Mr. Barmer said he and his future roommate, who's in the same leaky financial boat, are upset.

"I thought for sure I was going to get the money," he said Friday, recalling the award letter UT sent him in April. "I accepted it."

He doesn't want to take out a different loan. What other loan is interest-free – and totally forgiven if you graduate on time with at least a B average?

Campus financial aid officers say they're offering students other types of loans, and that this setback shouldn't prevent them from going to college. But other loans can charge upwards of 6 or 8 percent, with no forgiveness for good grades and timely graduation.

"Basically, I'm trying to earn $5,000 by the end of the summer. I'm working an insane amount of overtime," said Mr. Barmer, who graduated from South Grand Prairie High School and lives in DeSoto.

$8 million short

The state spent $49 million on B On Time loans in the last school year, enough for 12,800 students. But for the school year about to start, there's only an estimated $41 million, enough for 9,900 students.

So the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, in a letter to college financial aid officials last week, said there's no loan money for new students.

And some students who got the loans last year – around 650 – won't get them renewed. State officials haven't figured out which returning students will lose out.

Both UT-Austin and Texas A&M University, the state's two largest campuses, are notifying incoming freshmen who won't be getting the loans as expected. Texas A&M sent a letter out to more than 100 students this week. UT is about to tell its students. Mr. Barmer got an early heads-up from a friend who learned from a
financial aid office.
(snip)
But financial aid officers have a tricky job. Families typically apply for financial aid by February. Around April, colleges notify students of their expected financial aid packages. In many cases, students pick a college based on the aid it offers.
But the state budget isn't approved until the end of May (every two years).

"The financial aid cycle doesn't mesh with the budget cycle either in Washington or in Austin," said Henry Urick, interim associate director of financial aid at UT.
He said families appreciate the early notice so they can plan.

Either way, the loss of B On Time loans will be challenging for some. Mr. Urick said freshmen and their parents are vulnerable, because for many this is their first experience navigating financial aid and paying tuition.

In so many ways, the freshmen/women and some of the upperclassmen/women are just out of luck because they don't have lots of money to spend on lobbying and other forms of influence. These kids are our future, they will contribute more for every hour of education. But the legislature is interested in pleasing their big money interests, not in building a future for the state. They need to hear a lot of complaints, and be taken to task whenever they appear, for this demonstration of graft and corruption. There isn't much worse they can do for our future than to lose students to higher education.