Tom Hayden recently wrote an article, entitled “We Can’t Afford to Be Quiet About the Rising Cost of College,” in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Hayden began by saying, “Students today, however — even those who hold two part-time jobs — fall tens of thousands of dollars into debt, a burden that limits their career … Continue reading »
An alternative funding model to support higher ed excellence
Cuts in state support and the subsequent increases in fees are leading many students to take out loans. This is very regrettable. Maybe there are other ideas that should be considered carefully, like the following. In a classic paper by the Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman (“The Role of Government in Education.” From Economics and … Continue reading »
Is It Fair for Education to Be Cheap
There is a great tension at the heart of American public higher education. On the one hand, the people who benefit from public and publicly-funded higher education are primarily people who are or will be relatively rich–they will, after all, have a college education, and we know now that people with four-year B.A.s have incomes … Continue reading »
Bail Out Our Schools
Any day now, the Obama administration will announce $4.35 billion in extra federal funds for under-performing public schools. That’s fine, but relative to the financial squeeze all the nation’s public schools now face it’s a cruel joke. The recession has ravaged state and local budgets, most of which aren’t allowed to run deficits. That’s meant … Continue reading »
Why can’t a university education be sold cheaper?
That, for me, is the question that all of us who are faculty at Berkeley– and colleagues across the country– are most obviously avoiding, and most deeply dreading. And it is time for us to answer that question because until we do, any argument we make for changes in how the state supports the university, … Continue reading »
Being really good vs. being really public: Is this our choice at UC Berkeley?
I post here with the gracious permission of Tony Cascardi (who commissioned it for the Townsend Center Newsletter) an advance copy of a brief opinion piece that will appear in the next issue of the Townsend Center Newsletter, toward the very end of the month. — David Hollinger Let me ask directly a question that … Continue reading »