Higher Education Quick Takes

Quick Takes

April 29, 2009

The U.S. Education Department announced Tuesday that it was sending about $1.3 billion to five states as some of the initial distributions from the State Stabilization Fund, which is designed to help governments backfill cuts they've made to their elementary, secondary and higher education systems. The states and the amounts they are to receive are Maine ($130 million), Minnesota ($547 million), Mississippi ($321 million), Oregon ($382 million) and Utah ($321 million).

April 29, 2009

California veterans will be eligible for up to… $0 to cover their tuition under the new GI Bill. The figure, recently updated, is a striking reflection of the frustration many have had with the separation of tuition from fees in the process of calculating veterans’ educational benefits. The maximum benefits payable to veterans vary (pretty dramatically) by state, and are based on the highest resident, undergraduate public tuition and fees (respectively) charged in a state. But, as the Department of Veterans Affairs chart points out, California public colleges don’t charge resident undergraduate tuition. In lieu of tuition, they charge fees, and California veterans are in fact eligible to have up to $6,586.54 in fees covered per term under the new GI Bill. All of this is semantics (tuition versus fees) for veterans enrolled in undergraduate programs at public colleges, but for veterans hoping to apply their benefits to private colleges in California, the distinction being made here between tuition and fees matters. It means they’ll be able to apply $0 toward the tuition portion of a private college bill, and up to $6,586.54 toward the fee portion (and of course most private colleges heavily weight their costs on the tuition side of the ledger). It also means that private colleges in California may be less likely to enter into a federal matching program, the Yellow Ribbon Program, to cover the balance between what the standard veterans’ benefit covers and what private colleges charge. “Ultimately the fees in California work like tuition and the veterans administration ought to understand that,” said Jonathan Brown, president of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities. “We actively encouraged a lot of our institutions who have skill in this area to apply to the Yellow Ribbon Program and to participate actively but I think what a lot of them are going to do is politely write back to the veterans department and say, 'Gee we’re sorry but times are very tight financially and you’ve put us in an unreasonable situation. And we’re sorry.' ” The new GI Bill goes into effect in August.

April 29, 2009

Due to growing concerns about swine flu, some universities have begun canceling study abroad programs in Mexico, including the University of Minnesota, which on Tuesday announced that the 21 students currently in Mexico were being advised to return home and that academic programs beginning in late May had been canceled (affecting 52 students). Various news outlets have also reported the canceling of programs at North Carolina State University and the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire, to name a few examples. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week recommended that U.S. travelers avoid all nonessential travel to Mexico.

April 28, 2009

Providence College has denied student groups permission to have Tom Tancredo, a former member of Congress who is an outspoken proponent of tough enforcement of immigration laws, speak on campus, The Providence Journal reported. A spokeswoman for the college noted that the request came late, and that one of the requests came from a group -- Youth for Western Civilization -- that is not recognized by the college. (The group has started to appear, with some controversy, at campuses this year.) The spokeswoman also said that Tancredo's views conflicted with those of the Roman Catholic Church, with which the college is affiliated. The spokeswoman said that if a request for Tancredo to speak were to come, in a timely way, in the future, the college would try to arrange for multiple perspectives on immigration to be heard at the same time. Tancredo is still headed to Rhode Island, but will speak off campus.

April 28, 2009

As of Monday, American higher education was not feeling a direct impact from the worries internationally about swine flu -- but colleges are preparing and trying to educate students about risks. Yale University sent this information to all students, urging them to seek medical attention if they experience any flu-like symptoms. LeMoyne College has stockpiled Tylenol and face masks, but has not experienced any outbreak, News 9 reported. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, more students than normal are seeking treatment for the flu, and officials attribute the increase to worries about swine flu, but no cases have turned up, the Associated Press reported. The American College Health Association has posted links to relevant information for college officials.

April 28, 2009

Part of the Bologna Process involves the standardization of three-year undergraduate degrees across Europe -- prompting debates in the United States about how three-year degrees should be viewed in graduate admissions. A new survey of U.S. graduate schools by the Institute of International Education finds that 53 percent of respondents have official graduate admissions policies regarding three-year, "Bologna-compliant" degrees, while 47 percent do not. Among those institutions that do have policies, 33 percent view them as equivalent to U.S. undergraduate degrees, 14 percent say they're not equivalent, 35 percent say the determination varies by department or field, and 18 percent say "other" (with most of those saying "other" explaining that faculty usually make the determination on a case-by-case basis).

April 28, 2009

Northern Illinois University last week gave a special alumni honor to the Sereno Family -- two brothers and four sisters who came from modest means, earned their undergraduate degrees at the institution, and went on to earn Ph.D.'s from top programs and to pursue academic careers. The siblings (in order of graduation) and their current academic homes and disciplines are: Martin (psychology, University College London), Paul (paleontology, University of Chicago), Joan (linguistics, University of Kansas), Margaret (psychology, University of Oregon), Anne (neurobiology, University of Texas Medical School at Houston and Rice University) and Sara (psychology, University of Glasgow). The Chicago Tribune ran a profile on the family.

April 28, 2009

The University of Oregon's oversight board for club sports has ended the Ultimate Frisbee team's season -- although the squad was a leading contender for a national championship -- following complaints that team members played in the nude in a recent match against Oregon State University, The Eugene Register-Guard reported. Officials noted that the team had previously been involved in drinking incidents and had received speeding tickets. Team leaders didn't deny the various infractions, but requested that they be viewed in context. The Register-Guard reported that Dusty Becker, a co-captain, told the board: "Speeding, drinking, nudity — they’re not bad things... They’re things a big portion of the community doesn’t think are wrong.”

April 28, 2009

The ailing national economy led Moody's Investors Service to downgrade 12 of the colleges and nonprofit groups whose debt it rated in the first quarter of 2009, and upgrade none, the ratings agency said in a report Monday. The report, which looked broadly at what Moody's calls "public finance," which includes municipalities and states as well as hospitals and other non-corporate entities, said that the general downward trend of its revisions of credit ratings "were attributable to the broad economic, rather than issuer-specific, conditions." In other words, the colleges and universities whose credit ratings Moody's downgraded suffered that fate more because of the larger financial picture than because their specific situations were so terrible.

April 28, 2009

The Commonfund Institute on Monday announced that it is currently projecting a 2.8 percent increase in the Higher Education Price Index -- an inflation rate for colleges and universities -- for fiscal 2009. The figure will continue to be refined. Commonfund also announced that it is revising the way it calculates the rate so that all data are aligned with a July-June academic fiscal year. Until now, different calendars have sometimes been used for some of the spending that goes into the rate, resulting in the rate at times appearing too high or too low.

Pages

Back to Top