Jan. 24

Quick Takes: Sallie Mae Explains Loan Changes, 2 Robert Morris Students Killed, Colby Replaces Loans With Grants, Growing Call for Science Debate, Refunds for U. of California Students, Key Senate Aide Departs

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Sallie Mae officials said Wednesday that they would shy away from lending money to students at institutions with poor graduation rates to try to limit the lender’s exposure to risky loans. In a conference call with reporters to release the company’s 2007 financial results, which were not pretty, Albert Lord, its chairman, said that “Sallie Mae has lent too much money to students who have gone to schools without very good graduation records,” suggesting that many of those loans had led to defaults. Several for-profit higher education companies said Tuesday that they had been told by Sallie Mae that their students would no longer receive loans from the company, and the policy announced by Sallie Mae Wednesday would be likely to affect historically black colleges and some other institutions, four-year private and two-year public, that enroll significant numbers of low-income students. Also Wednesday, Sallie Mae acknowledged in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the SEC had requested information about the company’s actions regarding sale of stock by Lord and other Sallie Mae executives last month, The New York Times reported.
Two students at Robert Morris University, in Pennsylvania, were shot dead Tuesday and a third was injured in a shooting in apartment building where they lived. A suspect who is in custody is not a Robert Morris student.
Colby College is replacing loans with grants in all financial aid packages, beginning in the fall. The new policy will apply to both new and continuing students.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science has joined the movement to encourage the presidential candidates for 2008 to have a debate about science issues. The effort, started by prominent researchers, also now has backing from key members of Congress.
The California Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal in a suit over tuition increases for some University of California students in 2003, clearing the way for students to receive refunds awarded by lower court rulings, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. The total could be $40 million, with some students receiving $10,000 or more.
U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the leading Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has made it a mission in recent years to question the behavior of colleges and other nonprofit groups on a variety of fronts — how they compensate their presidents, run their athletics programs and, most recently, spend down (or, in some cases, don’t spend down) their endowments. One of Grassley’s staff members has been widely seen as the driving force behind his boss’s mission — and now that aide, Dean Zerbe, is leaving Capitol Hill, to become national managing director of AlliantGroup, which provides tax services to accounting firms, a spokeswoman for the Senate Finance Committee confirmed Wednesday. Sources familiar with the committee’s work said they expected Grassley to replace Zerbe with another staffer charged with investigating the same issues, but some college lobbyists are quietly hoping that Zerbe’s departure will quell the senator’s ardor.

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Comments

Congressional interest in science support

We have seen the National Academies’ well-received report “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” ( http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11463 ) and the President’s “American Competitiveness Initiative” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2006/aci/ ) calling attention to the role of basic research in preserving the long-term prosperity of the United States. We read good legislation that is introduced repeatedly in order to program an increase in funding for basic research supported by the Dept. of Energy’s Office of Science as well as the National Science Foundation. But nothing new happens when it is time to appropriate funds.

And then we receive from those entrusted with managing the country’s path into the future that nightmare that is blandly named the Omnibus Spending Bill. It shut down U.S. participation in forefront research in nuclear fusion as an energy source. That’s fusion, not fission: Chernobyl was a fission reactor. This is something different, and will be something Franco-Japanese. Maybe we’ll be lucky and they’ll license the technology to us at an affordable price.

My field, elementary particle physics, found itself in the gun sights of some legislative aide who knew enough to identify the country’s flagship particle physics laboratory as residing in the district of the now-retired Speaker of the House. This vulnerability— the departure of a powerful Congressional supporter— left the jewel of US non-defense physics laboratories exposed to predators in search of pork. They were able to zero the funding for Fermilab’s most significant medium- and long-term projects. The lab will be forced to fire two hundred of its staff. The country’s other particle physics laboratory, on the Stanford campus, has had its high energy physics program shut off in order to let the current physics program at Fermilab limp along for a little while.

These are ...excuse me... were great scientific programs. They have provided the focus for thousands of researchers at over a hundred U.S. universities. Our excitement about basic research informs our undergraduate teaching and makes our disciplines alive to our young students. See Tom Devlin’s 1995 NY Times Op Ed piece “Top University Scientists Do Teach” ( http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~devlin/op-ed.html ) for a description of how this works, and that actually includes data to make its point.

We’re not a bunch of unhappy science geeks rewrapping the adhesive tape on our glasses as we wallow in self-pity. We teach the children of the United States about the beauty and majesty of the natural world, and, from time to time invent the transistor, or the worldwide web, or medical imaging technology, or the theory underpinnings for GPS navigation.

I am happy to see signs of federal interest in avoiding a train wreck. But an expression of interest in avoiding a train wreck is not the same thing as actually doing something productive to avoid the train wreck.

George Gollin, Professor of Physics at University of Illinois, at 4:00 pm EST on January 24, 2008

Student Lending to a Viable Market in Need

As the rules get tighter, it is important to recognize that in this situation the students do lose as well – not just the so-called ‘evil’ for-profits or lenders. This innovative proprietary education sector provides incredibly viable, market-driven education and skilled, employable labor to the workforce. They also provide opportunity for students left behind by the traditional education system and economics. It is no small issue to acknowledge such as this student group will no longer have the capability to manage the tuition gap unless the institutions can find viable financial options for young persons growing their credit and/or adults returning to their education and rebuilding their credit. This important group won’t get funding to invest in their education in the current market. Education companies can use internal funding putting their own financial viability at risk, or return to banking lenders only to garner slightly less restrictive loan options at best than those currently offered. Both of these options will still leave a viable and promising student and consumer group un-reached and an at-risk demographic undereducated and under-skilled. There are niche providers who can fill this void and provide experienced service to schools with interest rates and financial terms that won’t burden these students with long-term debt. Students and schools should seek these alternative financial service providers that specialize in student financing before the industry and its student market suffer beyond repair.

Josh Grinstead, Director of Business Development at TFC Credit Corporation, at 4:35 am EST on January 25, 2008

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Quick Takes: Sallie Mae Explains Loan Changes, 2 Robert Morris Students Killed, Colby Replaces Loans With Grants, Growing Call for Science Debate, Refunds for U. of California Students, Key Senate Aide Departs

Comments

Congressional interest in science support

Student Lending to a Viable Market in Need

Jobs Related to Quick Takes: Sallie Mae Explains Loan Changes, 2 Robert Morris Students Killed, Colby Replaces Loans With Grants, Growing Call for Science Debate, Refunds for U. of California Students, Key Senate Aide Departs

Food Service Worker, Forbes College, CASUAL Princeton University

Post Doctoral Fellow — 2024P Saint Louis University

Faculty, Mathematics (2 Positions), Tenure Track (9 1/2 Mths), Harrisburg Campus — Fall, 2009 Harrisburg Area Community College

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Physician — Health Center at Auraria University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center-Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora

Tenure-Track Professor — Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Cornell University

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Network Manager Kankakee Community College