Donald Trump on Higher Education

I know we haven’t really discussed any of the current presidential candidates’ higher education opinions too much, but I recently came across an article in which a staff member of the Trump campaign gave a brief outline of what they would do about higher education. First, they would significantly alter how student loans are handled. He said that Trump plans to eliminate Federal government loans to students, make colleges have a stake in the risk of student loans and (here’s where the Trump-ness kicks in) make it harder for liberal arts majors to get student loans.

First of all, I believe removing the the federal government from student loans is a terrible idea. In the personal finance course I’m taking this semester I learned that federal student loans are actually more advantageous for students than loans from private institutions. Federal loans have fixed interest rates while private interests rates could potentially increase, casing the student to incur more debt. Also, federal loans tend to be cheaper overall. Second of all, how could the Trump campaign think of cutting loans to liberal arts students?! They claim they plan to do this because liberal arts majors have a smaller chance of getting a decently paid job after graduation. Clearly, they don’t know what we know about the liberal arts. As we discussed, such an education gives you many of the skills that employers are actually looking for (problem solving ability, critical thinking etc.). If anything it can increase ones chances of getting a good job! Although, to be fair I do think he means well here. He doesn’t want to let students incur large amounts of debt without the chance to pay it back. Still, he might mean well, but he appears to be a bit ignorant of the true circumstances of the situation.

Another point spoken about in the article is Trump’s views on free speech. The Trump campaign representative mentioned how the they believe free speech is being restricted on colleges campuses. He mentioned how the campaign has noticed that people seem to get outraged when a student writes something like “Trump 2016” somewhere near or on campus. The representative then went on to say that colleges need to ensure that all students are given the right to express their opinion even if most people strongly disagree with them. In my opinion, the Trump campaign made (an almost) good point here. As we discussed in class, free speech is absolutely crucial to receiving a good education. Hearing other people’s thoughts and opinions can really give a student a chance to better develop their own opinions as well as give them the ability to appreciate and respect an other’s opinion that don’t actually share. So in that regard the Trump campaign made a good point. However, based on the Republican debates and many news clips I think it’s clear that Trump takes this idea too far. It’s one thing to expect people to respect opinions they do not agree it, but it’s another to expect people to be okay with you hurling a barrage insults at them. The latter case is not constructive to higher education and would probably even lead to polarization between groups of students.

I tried to keep this post about my assessment of the Trump campaign’s stance on higher education so I do apologize if I turned this into a bit of a rant. Anyway, feel free to comment and share your thoughts about the article. If anyone happens to disagree with me on these issues I’d actually really like to hear what you think (after all, hearing an opposing opinion could be eye opening)

Arkansas’ Medical School Shortage

Medical schools are notoriously competitive and have become increasingly more costly. But what happens when you no longer have enough doctors to service your community? Arkansas currently faces this issue, like many other statistically unhealthy states. There are not enough doctors, because there are not enough medical programs. Therefore NYIT has partnered with the University of Arkansas to rent out space at their campus and have students enroll, but still have their students receive an NYIT degree.
Recognizing this issue the two parties were able to find a solution that is mutually beneficial, as NYIT normally recruits from around the New York area, and Arkansas needs their own population to enroll. Therefore the two never overlap, and increase the number of doctors. However one issue that has not been able to be resolved is the amount of residency spots in Arkansas, which neither attracts students from different regions nor maintains the medical students already in Arkansas. Yet this is an issue that many medical students in different regions as well.
NYIT is a small school but this move to help bring doctors to underserved areas is truly innovative, especially since often times schools cannot afford a medical school. Hopefully, other regions who are facing shortages and are underserved can make similar connections and find solutions that are mutually beneficial to both parties.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/05/13/address-physician-shortage-medical-schools-expand-rural-area

Striking News

On May 12, 2016, Professional Staff Congress (CUNY’s Faculty Union) voted to authorize a strike that has been anticipated for months. As most of us, if not all of us, are aware, CUNY faculty have been out of contract for five years and gone without pay raises in six years. This means that, though living costs in New York City have risen by 23%, professors are living with salary rates made for six years ago.

The strike, authorized by 92% of 10,000 faculty members, is designed to avoid the academic year, but the union’s president Barbara Bowen says it may extend into the fall.

The 2015-2016 school year has been a year of protests, and after a busy November, PSC decided to hold a strike-authorization vote, despite the fact that public-sector workers in New York are not legally allowed to strike. Now, several months later, there has been no talk of compromise and CUNY professors have finalized their decision to strike. It is unclear whether or not their off-season strike will qualify the union for a fine as of yet.

Though Cuomo has dropped his efforts to cut CUNY’s budget by a third, his lack of prioritizing CUNY employees is not only worrisome and disrespectful, it is harmful to the city and the state. CUNY has not been prioritized for some time, and this situation begs us to ask the question how much longer can the system be sustained without funding? How can a university run effectively when its best professors are considering jumping ship, or have already done so, for higher pay? If the city and state were not acknowledging the fact that CUNY’s lack of contracts are a problem before, I certainly hope they will now.

In short, this development does not shock me, but it does leave me with many questions. If CUNY faculty members are still on strike come the fall semester, what will this mean for CUNY’s students? What will it mean for professors unwilling to return to work before negotiations?

Ballesteros, Carlos. “CUNY Faculty Authorizes a Strike Vote.” The Nation, 30 November 2015. Web. 13 May 2016.

Brown, Sarah. “CUNY’s Faculty Union Votes to Authorize Strike.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 12 May 2016. Web. 13 May 2016.

Racial Bias in the Tenure System

Not only is there racial bias in the college admission system, there seems to be a form of that in the tenure system as well. There has been an emergence of cases where minority professors are being denied tenure on the bases of their race. Such a case is that of Jennifer R. Warren, who was an assistant professor of communications at Rutgers University, and was denied tenure. She believes that it could have been based on her race. Rutgers discouraged her from writing a book and suggested that she change her teaching style, which caused her student ratings to drop. She couldn’t prove that the denial was on the basis of systemic racism, but with the help of student activists and rallies, Mr. Warren got another chance to apply for tenure in the spring of 2017. Another case of institutional racism in the system of tenure is Stephen Hong Sohn. Mr. Sohn is Asian American professor at Stanford, who identifies himself as queer, and has done extensive research on race and sexuality, which some say could have contributed to his tenure denial. Tenure has become a new issue for minority student activists because the process and data on faculty diversity is very obscure and takes a long time to understand. Not only in difficulty of understanding the process, but also trying to destroy the stereotypical image of what a tenure professor is. The image is traditionally white and is male, and they are the ones who have a say in deciding whether a professor from a minority origin is worthy of getting tenure, because they believe that they know exactly what professors do. But in actuality, it’s the minority-based professors that know what do to because they connect easier with students, especially students who also come from a minority based origins. Because this is such a huge issue, groups such as “Who’s Teaching Us” have tried to come up with solutions to avoid cases like Mr. Warren’s and Mr. Sohn’s. Solutions such as changing up the system of tenure, so that faculty members who go up for tenure can be clearly informed about what is expected of them and to receive feedback throughout their early careers. Another change is to have the university have minority scholars evaluated by colleagues who understand their academic interests. I believe that it’s good that students are becoming more involved in this, even though it pertains to faculty members, we have to keep in mind that what affects the faculty, our professors, will surely affect us as students. So in the end, students should be more involved with changing this old rigid system and make it better for the society we live in today, for students and faculty members.

Unrealistic Expectations from our College Presidents

The search for the right President is never an easy choice and its implications can have profound affects on the college itself. The University of Missouri is currently having this issue after several racial protests on campus were inappropriately handled, especially when a video recorded an assistant professor trying to prevent student journalists from researching the protests. The President, Timothy Wolfe, resigned and therefore the search is on. However, the required qualifications are not exactly achievable, not even for some of the best college presidents. In order to avoid a similar situation, the search committee has set demands that are impossible and have had very little luck in finding an adequate replacement.
After my discussion with President Gould, I do have a different appreciation for college presidents. They are often the ones forced to quit when in reality, the mistake was the result of an oversight by people far lower than him/her in the structural arrangement of his/her administration. For example, in the case of Missouri, the assistant professor’s, Melissa Click, video that proved her guilty added a lot of bad press to an already tumultuous situation. I sympathize with President Gould and other presidents who need to protect their students and their free speech but also protect their sometimes insubordinate faculty and colleagues. In the end, regardless of their choices it is the presidents who are blamed and sacrificed.
The article also discussed how enrollment has decreased due to the bad publicity. I wonder if Brooklyn College enrollment decreased after the incidents that occurred under Gould’s presidency. It also mentions the state’s threat to cut funding, which seems terribly unfair to the students who are not at all to blame in the battles between those who run the university.
http://chronicle.com/article/At-the-U-of-Missouri/236455

Circumventing NCAA Rules is Reaching New Levels of Conniving

As we have discussed in class one of the more controversial topics surrounding higher education is the NCAA and how the athletes on teams are dealing, or in some cases, breaking the NCAA rules for their own personal gain. For those unfamiliar, or who simply need a refresher, the NCAA has “strict” rules preventing their athletes from receiving any form of payment, both monetarily and materially. Athletes who have been caught breaking said rules received both massive fines and suspensions, part of the issue regarding athletes striving for more money incentives is the mindset that seems to be present that being paid to go to these expensive schools to learn isn’t a perk. This was evident in when Cardale Jones of OSU tweeted out that he is “here to play football not play school” and that classes are worthless. Personally, I think this kind of mindset should be tempered and schools should find ways to facilitate a learning culture throughout the university, including athletes who sometimes do not do any real work in their specific classes.

 

Recent news broke in the case of Laremy Tusil who was able to receive money perks as well as a few unconfirmed perks such as a car and paying for his apartment. He was shunned for this and it resulted in him a first round projected player in the NFL draft to be drafted by Miami in the 2nd round losing out on millions of dollars. However, a new way to make money off of NCAA football has become evident and it can be well assumed that it will become more prevalent in the near future.

 

Introducing Breana Dodd. Dodd is a University of Tennessee student, yet her name is well known around the college football circle as “Hottest college football girlfriend of the season” by Barstool. Dodd is currently dating Josh Smith a wide receiver on the University’s team who of course cannot receive any payment. That doesn’t stop businesses from using Dodd who is tangently connected to the NCAA in order to advertise their brand. Jolly Rancher is using Dodd’s fame and recognition as a football girlfriend to help sell their product, and advertise to her 23,000 instagram followers. Important and absolutely imperative to note that Jolly Rancher said they didn’t choose Breana Dodd because she is dating a football player but rather she was just one of around 30 students chosen to help advertise. Personally, I find this hard to believe but to play Devil’s advocate, lets say they didn’t solely choose Breana due to her relationship but her massive following, wouldn’t you argue that her massive following was a sub-product of dating the football player? It is truly odd to me that a Football player cannot receive any payment but someone who has reached a level of prominence through a relationship facilitated by football can. However, I truly do commend Dodd for being able to make money off of her brand, its truly impressive and I find nothing wrong with her doing it personally.

 

LINK: http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2016/05/breana_dodd_can_get_paid_to_endorse_candy_her_boyfriend_college_football.html

Interview with President Gould

Our interview last week with President Gould was not exactly what we expected it to be. We assumed that she would already have well-prepared, written down answers and that she wouldn’t answer any questions other than those we had sent her earlier. At first, before we met with her, her secretary wanted to make sure we didn’t have any extra questions, but when we sat down with her, she was very open and seemed happy to answer and address additional questions that we had that were not sent to her before. Also, when we came in, she said that she only glanced at the questions that we sent her several minutes prior to our arrival, and she didn’t have prepared answers or any notes written down. In the beginning, she told us that she will be completely open when she answers the questions, and she wants to make sure that nothing she says will appear on social media or the school newspaper. The interview lasted for more than an hour and a half.

What I particularly liked about the interview was that President Gould was addressing the specific issues that we had talked about throughout the semester in class. Rather than merely answering our questions in a simple manner, only addressing exactly what was in the question, she went into great detail when answering our questions, and after answering our questions she would often go on tangents talking about other things in higher education that she felt were important. She talked about how being in the NCAA division III has made her job a lot easier because she has been in universities that are in NCAA division I and that she has seen all the corruption that goes on with the college coaches and the people high up in the university that inflate grades of student athletes and put classes on their transcript that they don’t take in order to cover up their failing grades. This way the student athletes can help the university team win and the university will get more money from different contracts with broadcasters, athletic companies, etc. In Division III, President Gould said, none of this happens and sports are played “for the right reasons”. This is exactly what we had talked about during one of our classes this semster.

In addition to this, President Gould kept on emphasizing the importance of innovation and change in higher education. She gave an example of how some professors “don’t know what to do” because students aren’t very interested in French anymore and prefer to take other foreign languages such as Spanish or Arabic. She says that the wrong response is to try to get more people in the French class, rather, they needed to add more Spanish and Arabic classes. If more students want to learn languages that would be helpful to them and more relevant to them after they leave college, then the college should change and cater to the needs/wants of the students and not insist that since this is the way its been done for so many years we might as well continue. President Gould also talked about the importance of MOOCs and online courses and that colleges must realize that a lot of students that aren’t able to come to a physical campus would be able to get their degree from these online courses. She said that the majority of Brooklyn College students are not the traditional freshmen that attend school for four years; there are transfer students, there are students balancing work with school including students with families that they need to support at the same time, and the college needs to break away from its traditional ways and change and innovate in order to fit the needs of these students as well.

A lot of what President Gould spoke about were issues that we talked about in class, and I realized that I really learned a lot from this class because if I were to have this interview before the semester started, I wouldn’t have understood anything that would have been talked about.

The Advantages of a Small College

http://chronicle.com/article/Video-Finding-Advantages-in/236340

In this interview, Darron Collins, who is the president of a 350-student university called “College of the Atlantic” discusses the steps that he takes in order to ensure that his college succeeds, as well has how being a smaller school has its benefits. He talks about how being a small school gives a much bigger sense of community between the students. It allows the students to build a better relationship with the faculty, and its easier for the faculty to maintain these relationships. The students are also able to have a bigger impact on the school by voicing their opinions and actually being a part of how the school is run. Even though they aren’t able to raise a lot of money through tuition, they receive a lot of support through scholarships and other organizations. The students here are primarily need-based and receive many scholarships for attending this school. Students here come from the US as well as 40 other countries around the world, showing how difficult it is to get into this school with only 350 students.

This school has definitely succeeded in terms of allowing top-tier students who can’t afford a normal private university to have a close-knit college experience, while receiving a lot of scholarship as a student. With only 350 kids, the students get a good college experience, being close knit with their peers as well as the college faculty. The school is better able to cater to the student population, even cater to their personal needs. This can allow students to have a better learning experience as well, as they are able to have a personal connection with their professors.

I feel that this a university is a great example of a comfortable college experience. With a low student population, low prices, a more selective acceptance process, as well as a great student-faculty ratio, students are able to fully access the school’s resources and push their education to its maximum potential.

Proportional Financial Aid

Recently, I attended and interview with Matthew Sapienza with a few others as part of the class. We had an interesting discussion with him about tuition and the different ways students could be able to afford college. We also gained some interesting tidbits of information about the inner workings of his field like how the image of the former Chancellor getting a golden parachute is not as ridiculous as we made it out to be. Apparently he denied a raise several times over his career and the golden parachute was a way for the board to honor him and to make up for all the times that he sacrificed his raise and did his job as well as he could.

With that, I would like to present an idea for us to contemplate when writing our papers as a potential funding model for students. We have already seen the Lumina Foundation’s interpretation of what students should pay for college (for those that do not remember, remember the model of 10). Coupled with the discussions with him and these considerations, I recently saw a random post from Tumblr on my news feed on Facebook. It had this idea for making tuition proportional to one’s grades. Basically, the idea is that in conjunction with financial aid, you have a school where the better grades you get, the higher amount of financial aid you receive. If you have a 4.0 for example, you would get a free tuition scholarship akin to Macaulay on top of the financial aid you would normally receive. Any grade lower would have you pay tuition equivalent to the proportional amount. The financial aid would still be there to deter poorer students from struggling disproportionately. Additionally, like law school, a buffer could be in place that counts A+ grades as weighted grades. This means that when receiving an A+, you would get more money in your financial aid package as an incentive for doing better. A+ grades can also make up for lower grades in other areas and can help make up the difference in aid.

This is by no means a crazy idea. Some states pay their students for getting good grades on AP exams and paying students is a considered idea for people. Such an idea would cut the need for students who cannot afford college to get a job and it would allow them to focus on their schoolwork more in order to get the requisite grades needed to afford it fully. It serves as reinforcement so that students work to the best of their potential.

What do you guys think? Could this be a potential financial model for your hypothetical “dream” college?

Beyond the Box

I found this article to be very interesting because it points out an issue that needs to be addressed in today’s society. The U.S education department released a report called “Beyond the Box.” In this report, it speaks about how college admissions should not judge a student’s admission on the basis of their criminal or disciplinary records. I agree with this completely. We see mistakes in the criminal justice system today, so if someone was to be wrongfully convicted and that was put on their record, that record could ruin that person’s chances of getting quality education. And in these records are convictions and arrests. So college admission offices can deny admission to student just because of an arrest, even though arrests can happen for the most non-violent/petty crimes, such as possession. And not only are there mistakes in the criminal justice system, there are also biases towards certain races, which can cause wrongful/racially biased arrests and/or convictions. And because these people were arrested/convicted based on their race, they become unable to be admitted into college. A third point I would like to make is that, the whole point of the prison system is that convicted felon’s owe a debt to society. That isolation from society and temporary loss of rights is their punishment. Once these convicted felons are released, their debt to society has been completed. So to subject them to the denial of education, to deny them the integration back into society is something wrong, because if they have paid their debt to society, why are we still punishing them once they have been released? The department of education provides suggestions to colleges that I believe would be helpful, such as, making sure that anyone who checks that box on their application indicating a criminal or disciplinary record has a chance to explain the circumstances, because sometimes it could be a petty crime that led to that record. Or that colleges that wish to ask such questions should consider doing so after an initial decision has been made about admission to avoid a “chilling effect” on applicants whose backgrounds may not be relevant to admissions. This is done so that their acceptance or denial of application can be based on things other than their criminal/disciplinary record.

The link is here https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/05/09/education-department-report-urges-colleges-reconsider-admissions-questions-criminal