Avoid sending your children to college: besides the racism and rape culture, there is sauce. The bribery scandal has “just highlighted an incredibly dark side of what has become normative, which is making sure that your kid has the best, is exposed to the best, has every advantage — without understanding how disabling that can be,” said Madeline Levine, a psychologist and the author of “Teach...
Thiel: “Universities today are as corrupt as the Catholic Church of 500 years ago”
“Universities today are as corrupt as the Catholic Church of 500 years ago,” Thiel said. During his speech, he spoke of an academia that has shut down debate, excommunicated conservative scholars, and insisted a college degree is the only way to “salvation,” that being a good job and solid future. “The reformation is going to happen,” Thiel added, noting it won’t come from within, but from the...
Are there too many PhDs?
Apparently, 90% of all scientists that ever lived are alive today. And many of them need jobs!
“These 3 NC colleges drastically dropped tuition. The result was like a ‘booster rocket.’”
A new, lower tuition rate is drawing more students to three UNC campuses, resulting in record undergraduate enrollment growth this fall. The NC Promise program, funded by the legislature at $51 million this year, allowed Elizabeth City State University, UNC Pembroke and Western Carolina University to decrease their tuition to $1,000 a year for in-state undergraduates and $5,000 a year for out-of...
Beware the algorithm
[UPDATE: Aviso Retention was purchased by Watermark, and one of their media specialists has been harassing me to update my post to reflect that. I’m not sure why, because as the post below makes clear, the product is worthless; they claim they can predict student performance before classes begin, but his analysis showed that their model sucked. You’d almost be better off flipping a...
Colleges publicly offer to match tuition at rival schools
This has been going on for years in secret, as institutions track the pricing of their peers (when I was in IR, the most common question I heard was, “What are other schools doing?”) and by negotiating privately with admitted students. Now it’s finally in the open: Escalating the heated battle for students, some private colleges are offering to match public in-state tuition...
Vermont Law strips tenure from 14 professors
After being informed by the chair of Vermont Law School’s retention committee that the school stripped 14 law professors of tenure, the American Association of University Professors has questioned whether the school followed proper regulations. In a June 19 letter sent to the school’s tenure and retention committee chair, the AAUP conceded that under “extraordinary circumstances because of...
Half of American colleges will be bankrupt in 10 to 15 years?
There are over 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States, but Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen says that half are bound for bankruptcy in the next few decades. Christensen is known for coining the theory of disruptive innovation in his 1997 book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma.” Since then, he has applied his theory of disruption to a wide range of...
Faculty may review consultant’s report only in presence of Dean’s assistant after signing NDA!
In an effort to chart the future of the law school, SLU recently hired the consulting firm Alix Partners to compile potential changes to the law school’s operations. At least some of the recent staffing moves followed. Both the law school and Alix partners agreed to keep the report confidential. In an email obtained by the Post-Dispatch, Wolff told faculty and staff the report would be made...
Pensions costs are killing Northern Kentucky U
The university’s payments into the state pension system have skyrocketed from $3.9 million in 2010 to $15.3 million this year. The projected cost for 2018 is $19.4 million. Mearns, who laid out the budget situation in a presentation here, said 2 percent of NKU’s operating budget went into pension costs in 2010 and that nearly 10 percent of the budget will be dedicated to the pension...