World-Shaker

"Higher education loans are meant to subsidize the cost of higher education, not profit from them, especially at a time when students are facing record debt,” said Ethan Senack, the higher education advocate at the United States Public Interest Research Group, which is issuing the brief with the United States Student Association and Young Invincibles, an organization for people 18 to 34. “The revenue from student loans should be used to keep education affordable, and should never be used to pay down the deficit or for other federal programs,” Mr. Senack said."

— Student Loan Rate Set to Rise, Despite Lack of Support - NYTimes.com (via infoneer-pulse)

"The CBPP, a left-leaning economic think tank that focuses on state and federal budgets, found that states are spending, on average, 28 percent less per student in fiscal year 2013 than they were in 2008. Consequently, tuition at four-year public colleges has grown 27 percent since the 2007-08 year, though the report notes some states have increased tuition by considerably more. In the cases of Arizona and California, tuition at public universities has gone up by more than 70 percent over the same period. The decline in state appropriations has forced public colleges to rely more student tuition to pay for the cost of education, the report concluded."

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Higher Education Cuts Risk Damaging State Economies For Years To Come

This seems like a good opportunity to practice my surprised face.

"Many students from working-class families are influenced by limited financial resources and lack an economic safety net, and thus must rely on family and friends for support. Thus, these students’ expectations for college center around interdependent motives such as working together, connecting to others, and giving back,” said Stephens. “Given the largely independent college culture and the ways in which students’ social class backgrounds shape their motives for attending college, we questioned whether universities provide students from these different backgrounds with an equal chance of success."

— An unseen disadvantage: The focus on independence at American universities can undermine the academic performance of first-generation college students

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Real Tuition and Fees at a Public, Four-Year College and Average Earnings for Full-Time Workers aged 25-34 with Bachelor’s Degree Only [2000-2010]

"One of the challenges Scott and Florida’s education officials will surely have to grapple with is a criticism that Perry’s initial challenge—and the resulting efforts in Texas—surfaced: At what point do these kinds of bare bones—because that’s surely what it will be—college degrees turn the higher education experience into nothing more than a glorified diploma mill? Besides, the real issue is that state higher education systems aren’t fully funded. If they were, there’d be no need to pass operating costs on to students in the form of staggering tuition increases. Wouldn’t you like to see Rick Perry and Rick Scott tackle that?"

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The $10,000 College Degree? It Might Be Coming to Florida | Education on GOOD (via infoneer-pulse)

Besides, the real issue is that state higher education systems aren’t fully funded.

Boom. Done.

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College Students of 2012 [INFOGRAPHIC]

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How Laurier Students’ Union is using Pinterest better than you are

There are also links to 5 different Pinterest boards: The Campus, The Academics, The Eats, The City and The Social. Each one is a separate category of cool things around the campus or the city in general that upper year students have discovered during their time at Laurier, and things that they think a first year student that has never been to Waterloo or Brantford might find helpful.

For example, The Campus brings up all of the stuff around campus that you might find helpful. The Health Services post links you right to their website and from there you can look at booking an appointment or the different services they offer. Also on the board are ways to get involved on campus. This gets the first years interacting and learning all about Laurier before they even come to campus.

I love everything about this.

"How do we change this mindset going from high school into college?” Clement asked. “The number one way is to put your policy in writing in the syllabus. If the paper is due Monday, and the student is not in class that day, will the paper be accepted after Monday? Will it be accepted after Monday at all? If the answer is yes, until when and with what penalty?"

— This Isn’t High School: Advice for Faculty Teaching First-Year Students

Kent State student arrested for Twitter threat →

Kent State University police have arrested and charged a 19-year-old student after he sent a message out on Twitter saying he planned to “shoot up” campus.

William Koberna, 19, was arrested at his parents’ Brunswick home Sunday following the threatening message sent on the social media site.

Koberna has been charged with inducing panic, a felony, and aggravated menacing related to the tweet.

"The leadership coup at the University of Virginia was conducted by a governing board with profound financial means and limited professional educational experience. The members of the school’s Board of Visitors were appointed by two governors from different political parties and have donated more than $2.1 million to partisan political causes in recent years. Board members’ lack of academic expertise, and their messy ouster of UVA President Teresa Sullivan over the objections of students and faculty, underscore a trend in the leadership of public higher education institutions toward wealthy, politically connected executives."

— Teresa Sullivan University Of Virginia Ouster Led By Political Donors Lacking Academic Experience

"By 2025 we will need 20 million more two- and four-year-college graduates, a vast effort that, at our current productivity rates, will require somewhere between $150- and $200-billion in annual postsecondary spending. With Congress intent on pay-as-you-go financing, that’s enough of a shortfall to fuel several dozen $6-billion spats of the kind currently playing on Capitol Hill and on campuses everywhere. But if we don’t meet this projected shortfall in qualified postsecondary graduates, we will lose some half a trillion dollars every year in the form of new businesses that never open and technological advances that other countries will make instead of us."

— The Real Education Crisis Is Just Over That Cliff - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education (via smarterplanet)

Cleveland State University plans to raise tuition but eliminate charge for taking more credit hours →

Cleveland State University, like its counterparts across the state, plans to increase tuition this fall. But it wants to buck convention by eliminating the additional charge if a student takes more than 16 credit hours a semester.

The proposed move will cost the university about $500,000 a year, but officials say it is worth it if it helps students stay on track to graduate.

House passes bill to bar spending on political science research →

Rep. Jeff Flake tried and failed this week to get his colleagues in the House of Representatives to slash the budget of the National Science Foundation, proposing an amendment to a 2013 spending bill that would have cut more than $1 billion from the agency’s funds.

But unable to convince his fellow House members that the government needs less research on physics, engineering and other fields, he chose a lower-hanging target: social science studies with easy-to-ridicule titles.

And this time, he was persuasive.

By a vote of 218-208, the House Wednesday night backed an amendment that would bar the NSF from spending any of its 2013 funds on its political science program, which allocated about $11 million in peer-reviewed grants this year. Explaining the amendment on the House floor Wednesday evening, Flake said that given his colleagues’ reluctance to slash the agency’s overall budget — the House defeated his earlier amendment by a vote of 291 to 121 — Congress should ensure, “at the least, that the NSF does not waste taxpayer dollars on a meritless program.”

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How to freshen up your dorm room before you move out.

"Ms. Morgan borrows the phrase “free-range learning” to describe students’ behavior, and she finds that they generally shop around for content in places educators would endorse. Students seem most favorably inclined to materials from other universities. They mention lecture videos from Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology far more than the widely publicized Khan Academy, she says. If they’re on a pre-med or health-science track, they prefer recognized “brands” like the Mayo Clinic. Students often seek this outside content due to dissatisfaction with their own professors, Ms. Morgan says."

— ‘Free-Range Learners’: Study Opens Window Into How Students Hunt for Educational Content Online