State officials seek to reform UNC’s teacher preparation programs
Teacher quality was the central theme of an education summit held by the UNC system’s Board of Governors at the SAS Campus in Cary, North Carolina, on January 27.
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.
A bold experiment is being watched by North Carolina’s private colleges
Jan 26, 2015 ·
Jesse Saffron
The Benedictine monks who founded Belmont Abbey College 138 years ago are better known for peacefulness than for trend-setting. But the Gaston County campus is the scene of a bold experiment watched by other private liberal-arts colleges in North Carolina.
Americans used to save for college; moves toward making it free are not progress
Jan 23, 2015 ·
Vic Brown
I am strongly committed to higher education, especially in the sciences and math where we are lagging other countries. I also understand that there are students of limited means, and they need a hand up in life. But we seem to no longer draw rational lines between serious students who need assistance, and the many non-serious students who squander it.
How the president’s "free community college" proposal will affect one state
Jan 16, 2015 ·
Harry Painter
The new federal proposal that the president is calling "America’s College Promise" is short on details but has inspired much commentary.
We’ll hear more on Tuesday in the State of the Union address and in President Obama’s next budget proposal, but he gave us enough information about the idea in a speech for us to estimate the potential program’s cost to North Carolina taxpayers.
Should the University of North Carolina enhance its “global brand”?
Jan 12, 2015 ·
Jesse Saffron
Over the past two years, the University of North Carolina has been implementing recommendations laid out by the General Administration and Board of Governors in their 2013 report, “Our Time, Our Future: the UNC Compact with North Carolina.” For example, the system has streamlined the transfer process for students going from community colleges to UNC and defined “core competencies” that all graduates should possess.
How the legislature could craft better education laws
Jan 9, 2015 ·
Sarah Curry and Jenna A. Robinson
During each legislative session, education is at the forefront of budget and policy discussions. Expenditures on elementary, secondary, and higher education (the University of North Carolina plus the community college system) added up to more than $11.5 billion last year, or 58 percent of the North Carolina General Fund budget.
The questionable policy of “border tuition”
Jan 2, 2015 ·
Jenna A. Robinson
The Questionable Policy of “Border Tuition”
Reform in 2015: our hopes for the new year
Dec 31, 2014 ·
Martin Center Staff
Reform in 2015: our hopes for the new year
The "gainful employment" rule won’t make students better off by decimating the for-profit sector
Dec 3, 2014 ·
George Leef
At the end of October, the Department of Education released its much-awaited "gainful employment" rule. It is supposed to fix (or at least lessen) the problem that many students who pursue vocational training with federal student aid money wind up without a job that pays well enough for them to cover their loans.
Science and the senator: missing the point about government waste
Nov 28, 2014 ·
John Staddon
About to retire, Oklahoma senator Tom Coburn, M.D., has just released his 107-page 2014 Wastebook, a tabloid-type listing of over a hundred wasteful government-funded projects. Coburn continues the tradition of the late William Proxmire, the Wisconsin senator who, more modestly, chose just one or two “Golden Fleeces” each year.