Author: Lindie Jiang

Reflection on Our Final Paper

I really liked how Asif shared his college design so for my extra-cred blog post, I will share some of the difficulties I had when I was designing mine. At first, I had trouble figuring out the budgeting and I realized that although the $100 Million endowment seemed like a lot, it would’ve been disastrous (had it been a real college) if I didn’t budget things carefully. My college is a small college with only 1000 students and reflected what I personally wanted from Brooklyn College: counselors and professors who are available to help students and be able to become their mentors, a performing art center (so that students can take free dance, art, music, acting lessons and even photography lessons and learn how to express themselves freely), self-paced MOOCs to serve as certain class equivalents so that students can graduate early, be full time and stress-free while working two jobs and many more. Also, who would’ve thought building college buildings were so expensive? Fortunately my campus was small.

My next struggle was when I realized that my college slowly began to shift back into the traditional college structure mold. Thankfully I managed to get a hold of the reins and pulled it in place and finally created a college design that proved to my satisfaction. I also had lots of fun creating the admission criteria, which because of the few seats available (250 seats per year) and factoring in the average number of applicants for a private college in NYC, made the acceptance rate of my college super selective (5%). I found myself incorporating many of the things we learned in class: about governance etc…and had fun doing the extra research on which MOOC company and research facility to invest in. It was a nice project to end our final seminar. :'(

Have a great summer everyone!

Ole Miss Response to NCAA Notice of Allegations

This post is about what’s been happening with University of Mississippi’s (Ole Miss) Athletic Department. Apparently, many of the school’s coaches violated the rules and regulations of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). One Football coach falsified ACT scores back in 2010 so that three prospective student athletes could be admitted to the school. The school accepted full responsibility for the violations and fired many of the coaches and boosters, who were wrongfully paying the athletics. They banned their women’s basketball team for a season, reduced football scholarships, cut off campus visits for both football and track and field and on top of that, paid around $160,000 in fines.

Personally, I’m not really interested in football nor am I on any athletics teams but I felt that the school or rather the NCAA, overreacted a little. For one thing, I was intrigued how they never caught the violation of the ACT scores till now, 4 years later, and why the University did not monitor its Athletics Department closely. As we discussed in class, many universities prize their Athletics teams (which suddenly reminds me of how President Gould was adamant on making the Bulldogs mascot her thing.) I also feel that it was an overreaction when the University imposed a postseason ban on their women’s basketball team, when it was actually the football coach who falsified the ACT scores. Perhaps it was because the women athletes were paid for their participation, but then again, is that really a terrible thing? This reminds me of a post I did about paying athletes. What do you guys think of this article?

Link: http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/ole-miss-admits-former-assistant-football-coach-helped-falsify-act-scores/111698

Breaking away from the 4 year college structure into something more promising

I’m back with another blog but I just had to share this article by Selingo (not posted on this week’s Higher Ed or readings) with everyone, curtesy of professor Hainline. During our earlier class discussions, we questioned the college model and why students have to attend for four years, straight out of highschool. Well, apparently it doesn’t always have to be this way. In this article, Selingo introduces Stanford’s new “open loop university” model which basically allows for a personalized and ultimately more effective education for students. Under the model, students would be able to chose when they are ready to attend college, whether it be at age 18 or even 26. Miriam posted a blog about the three types of students  (the sprinter, wanderer and strangler) and I agreed that one of the issue is that some college students aren’t ready to go attend college straight out of high school. Though college does provide the time for them to discover their passions and interests and mature into adults, in some cases such as with the stranglers, it may not be the best idea. Going back onto the Open Loop system, students could rearrange the 6 year program time frame however they want so that they could break in between to work in Silicon Valley startup jobs for a year or so and if they want to “loop” back in and explore something new, students could do seamlessly.

The new model would also incorporate enriching changes to the traditional classroom (like we discussed in class) such as free open online courses and other outside-the-classroom skill building courses to supplement lessons taught (like how we wanted some of the general education requirements to be focused more on “useful” applications like financial literacy and developing excel/Microsoft skills etc). Students would no longer be fixated to a strict immobile structure of traditional higher education but instead be free to personalize their college experience to be just the right pace for them. The open loop university model is definitely very promising and really brightens the future of higher ed.  What do you guys think?

Article link: http://www.ecampusnews.com/mcclatchy/beyond-4-degree/

Should colleges make changes to their athletes program?

I am reacting to one of this week’s Higher Ed readings because as a former softball player in high school, I felt a compelling response towards this article, which basically argues for the “mistreatment” of college athletes. I found the college athletes’ problem to be very similar to our class discussion about students who are full time but have to manage multiple jobs and working hours. The article argues it is simply impractical and “exploitative” to have the athletes dedicate every waking hour to the team because it deprives them from their academia and other college opportunities that they have a right to participate in as students. I agree that colleges should scale back on the intensity of the athletic programs but at the same time, I don’t understand what the big issue really is… Don’t the college athletes know what they are getting themselves into when they signed up for the scholarship and the program? And by doing so, isn’t at least safe to assume that these students actually want to spend their time and full dedication to the college sport and eventually pursuing a future career in as a professional athlete player in their sport? I mean, if not, then the program isn’t really for these students, no?

Plus, I definitely don’t think it is impossible to be both a great athlete and have good grades–I know a very dedicated basketball superstar and biology major who has a 4.0 GPA, right on our campus–that’s right…go Brooklyn College! Anyways, though I agree that some schools may be expecting too much from their athlete students, I think that students also play an important part in making the decision. I feel like it ultimately boils down to the student’s motivation. If athletics are becoming unmanageable, they should consider focusing on what matters to them the most, instead of trying to juggle both academia and sports. During my time on the softball team in high school, I had the exact same dilemma. But then again, I had no one to “blame” but myself because I chose to take on the challenge. What do you guys think?

Article link: https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2016/03/22/college-athletes-must-spend-unreasonable-amount-time-their-sports-essay#.Vw935yzcYmA.mailto

Week 2: Chapter 3–The Trillion Dollar Problem

This chapter essentially goes over the total amount of loan debt students have accumulated throughout their years in school, which has now passed the 1 trillion dollars mark. Questions/discussion topics:

I feel as if Selingo is always pointing fingers at somebody but then he is a little bit hypocritical as he switches the blame. To explain, I guess I first have to say that I was a bit offended when Selingo called financial aid offices “another cog in the wheel” in the anecdote where he describes a high school student speaking with his counselor about the financial aid that is offered in the colleges. There was a question that the mother of the student asked that boggles my mind. She asked why the schools factor in loans as part of the offered financial aid instead of asking how much the parents are willing to contribute to the tuition payments. Selingo then makes it seem that the schools are almost forcing the loans on the students which I don’t believe it is true. Working as a financial aid representative, one thing I can say is that loans are “factored” in the package deal presented to students only because technically loans fall under the term “financial aid” which is offered. As for the offices that don’t “explain” things well enough for students, it’s not as if the students nor the parents don’t know that they are taking out loans. In fact, at this point in the story, Selingo introduces another student who he claims, like most others, is delusion and her judgement is clouded, unable to let the reality of taking on future debt sink in until it is too late and the only thing left for most students to do is to complain and file unsuccessful lawsuits. This is why I found him to be hypocritical almost. That said, who do you think is primarily at fault for the trillion dollar problem-the schools or the students for taking out those loans?

My second question of interest would be about financial aid offices. Selingo does not (or barely) discuss improvements that financial aid officials should make to improve student satisfaction. A biased part of me believes that it is because no evident changes can be made and that the problem is not at the offices. I feel that Selingo puts financial aid offices at such a bad light (maybe this is true for most of the schools, I guess but I really don’t like his sassy tone) that it almost seems like financial aid offices are the ones at fault for enticing students to take out loans when rather, students and parents are provided enough information to start with, and the offices are only informing them of all of their options, which includes loans. Students these days, and I know from direct experience with them, are taking out loans as if they are grants not to be paid back. There was a great anecdote in the chapter where a student could not afford to pay the deposit fee and the college had to advise the delusional mother that if the family could not even afford the deposit fee, how could they possibly afford to pay tuition or the loans back? If students don’t have the money now, what makes them think that they would have the money for repayment 6 months after they graduate with a bachelors degree? Cutting to the chase, my question is on what improvements should be made (if needed) to the financial aid offices at schools?

My third question is how do you think we should go about reducing the trillion dollar loan debt? Selingo does suggest that schools limit the amount of loans students can take out but as far as I know, at Brooklyn College, even if there is a limit to loans (and there is) students would still take out more alternative loans from private companies like banks to pay for tuition instead (and there is no limit to those, I think). Since alternative loans typically have a high interest rate, the students end up having to pay back more. In this case, the capping of federal loans as Selingo suggests is not a good solution. What do you think we should do to reduce the loan debt?

There is a section in the chapter about a hypothesis that was proposed to explain why tuition has been increasing. Basically, tuition is increasing because federal financial aid is increasing, driving the colleges to increase the tuition. However, one can argue that the amount of aid has been increasing because the tuition has been increasing (so the other way around). It is basically a vicious cycle that has no end in sight. What do you think we should do about it?

The last thing I have on my mind for this chapter has to deal with the delusional thinking Selingo is saying most students have towards loans and future debt. Paying for college is obviously an investment and taking out loans is really no different than paying with a credit card. My question is this: why do you think some students are “delusional” towards accepting the fact that they would have to go into deep debt for their college degree? Do you think it is because colleges tend to “distract” the students from this reality or could it be because of the student’s pride? Or maybe it is because taking out loans and paying off student loan debt is now considered part of the “essential” college experience along with dorming, a rite of passage, that students long for?

– Lindie