Costs

American colleges and universities spend billions of dollars a year from state, federal, and private sources. The following articles identify ways to cut costs and ensure that public investment in higher education provides value to students, taxpayers, and society.

Things We Could Do Without in the State Budget

Jul 31, 2007 ·

On Monday, legislators gave final approval of a $20.7 billion budget for the 2007-08 Fiscal Year. Less than a day later, Gov. Mike Easley signed and sealed the package.

The budget appropriates $2.6 billion to the University of North Carolina system and $938 million for the community colleges.

“We have put reality behind the vision of an affordable, debt-free education from pre-kindergarten to an undergraduate degree at a state university,” Easley said in a statement. “Out of this budget, North Carolina emerges a leader in education on the national scene. History will note the courage and foresight of those who did not just make easy promises, but did the hard work to keep those promises and stand up for the future of our state.”

Among the items included in the budget are some that Gov. Easley and budget writers should be proud of, in my opinion. The budget spends $1.5 million to allow part-time private college students to participate in the legislative tuition grant program and $177,000 to provide additional funding for the Gateway Technology Center on the campus of North Carolina Wesleyan College. It also makes reductions to follow the recommendations of the President’s Advisory Committee on Efficiency and Effectiveness.

House, Senate leaders approve $20.7 billion budget

Jul 30, 2007 ·

House and Senate leaders have approved a $20.7 billion budget plan for the 2008 fiscal year. It’s a spending package that includes $2.6 billion for the UNC system and $938 million for community colleges.

UNC’s Fiscal Year 2007 budget was $2.2 billion.

The spending package comes one month into the 2008 fiscal year. Legislators had approved a continuing budget authorization in June after negotiators could not come to an agreement on critical aspects in the budget. Gov. Mike Easley is expected to sign the bill once it arrives at his desk.

About the Speakers

Jul 27, 2007 ·

Stephen H. Balch is the founder and president of the National Association of Scholars, America’s largest membership organization of scholars committed to higher education reform. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Berkeley and for fourteen years taught at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. He is a trustee of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and has helped found four other higher education reform organizations.

Richard J. Bishirjian is president and professor of government at Yorktown University, an online university that espouses classical education. Bishirjian has a Ph.D. in government and international studies from the University of Notre Dame and has studied under philosopher Eric Voegelin and political theorist Michael Oakeshott. He is the author of a history of political theory and editor of A Public Philosophy Reader.

Keeping College Grads in the State

Jul 25, 2007 ·

Politicians will try just about anything that might boost their state’s economy. There aren’t many measures that will actually do that, so they resort to policies that they can plausibly say will produce economic benefits.

One idea that has been cropping up a lot in recent years is that a state can give its economy a lift by trying to keep students who graduate from colleges within its borders from taking jobs elsewhere. Several states have gone down that path, most recently Maine and West Virginia.

In Maine, Governor John Baldacci recently signed legislation that makes residents who graduate from a college or university in the state eligible for ten years of state tax credits of about $2,100 annually as long as the individual works in Maine. In West Virginia, Governor Joe Manchin recently said that in order to get “more of a return” on his state’s investment in higher education, he would like to see residents who have graduated from a college in the state be exempted from the West Virginia income tax until they turn 26. He also suggested giving students who remain in the state tax credits for money devoted to repaying student loans.

College Summer Reading Can Be Useful – Or Not

Jul 20, 2007 · and

Many colleges and universities these days have a “summer reading” program for incoming students, which requires them to read a book and be prepared to discuss it during the first few days of class. The programs are designed to create a common ground among new students, challenge them to think critically about new ideas and introduce them to university work and intellectual life at a university.

This is a splendid idea. Done well, such reading programs can help to get college students off to a good start by concentrating their minds on the nature of and reasons for academic study.

Unfortunately, if it is done poorly this becomes at least a missed opportunity. If a school chooses a book that has no timeless message, it will fail to make any lasting impression on the students. And if a school selects a book that is faddish or polemical, it is worse than a missed opportunity. It conveys to the students the idea that college is more about what to think than about how to think. Sadly, at some institutions that happens to be the case in many of the courses taught, but still it’s best to start freshmen off with a good impression.

Lloyd Hackley is UNC’s problem solver

Jul 18, 2007 ·

Lloyd Hackley is on the job again.

After serving as interim chancellor for a year at N.C. A&T, Hackley was named last week to serve in the same position at Fayetteville State University. This after Chancellor T.J. Bryan resigned under pressure due to concerns about the school’s nursing program and financial condition.

Media reports following Bryan’s resignation indicate that UNC President Erskine Bowles asked for her resignation in a meeting in Chapel Hill.

The Student Loan Scandal – A Problem of Leadership

Jun 27, 2007 ·

Editor’s Note: Peter Wood is executive director of the National Association of Scholars. A longer version of this essay was originally published May 14, 2007 on Minding the Campus

In mid-January, a brief item appeared on an inside page of The New York Times, headlined “Student Lender Investigated.” The article noted that the New York Attorney General’s office was looking into “student loan marketing” by Sallie Mae, “the nation’s largest lender to students.” Attorney General Cuomo had requested information about “preferred lender lists,” i.e. the lenders that colleges and universities recommend to their students. The article also noted that “some loan companies have criticized” such lists, alleging that lenders got onto the list “in exchange for payments or other benefits.”

Being an Angry Faculty Radical Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry

Jun 25, 2007 ·

To recap the news out of Durham this year: In April, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper declared Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans – the Duke University lacrosse players accused by “exotic dancer” Crystal Gail Mangum of rape and sexual assault – “innocent of these charges.”

In June, rogue district attorney Mike Nifong was disbarred and removed from office after being caught in dozens of instances of professional misconduct in his management of the case.

New A&T Chancellor Has Long Road Ahead

Jun 21, 2007 ·

When N.C. A&T Chancellor Stanley Battle was named to the position last November, he said he wanted to make the school among the best in the nation. Little did he know at the time that the goal would begin with a rebuilding process.

Battle takes over a school that is mired in controversy due to a March 2007 internal audit that found more than $2 million in mismanaged funds or funds that were acquired by the school illegally. That includes mismanagement by a vice chancellor of more than $500,000 of the Future Engineering Faculty Fellowship, a federal grant by the U.S. Office of Naval Research to increase the number of doctoral candidates in engineering at historically black colleges and universities. The school could be required to pay some of that money back, and criminal charges are possible.

Do’s and Don’ts on Helping Students to Succeed in College

Jun 20, 2007 ·

Except for the rather small number of selective colleges and universities, most schools face the problem of ill-prepared and poorly motivated students. At many lower-tier institutions, such students are the norm. The problem they create for the faculty and administration is difficult and serious: they want a college degree, but lack the skills to actually earn one.

What, if anything, can schools do to increase the likelihood that weak and disengaged students will find the path to academic success?

In a recent article in The Chronicle Review, Indiana University professor George D. Kuh (co-author of the recent book Piecing Together the Student Success Puzzle) offers some thoughts on that subject. They’re worth considering.