Daniel David : Your needle's stuck again on "wall-to-wall democrats." You be the change that you want to see and a guy with a lot more effective ideas and actions than you have said this . He was a mentor of MLK Jr. and Nelson Mendela ; not bad credentials wouldn't you say ?

The progressive changes in France , England , Russia , China , Cuba did not come about by electing progressive leaders as you suggest ; they came by progressive citizens purging every leader and starting new.

MisoPretty's niece got some very bad advice. Since she qualified for a Pell grant (of any size), she certainly qualified for a Stafford loan and, since she entered school last fall (2007), she can still get one for the current school year. Take it and pay off at least a chunk of that ridiculous private loan. Find an honest counselor (even at a different college,if need be).

As regards the "special interest" donations: California and William&Mary are state schools. Don't like what they charge? Talk to the state legislators!

Meanwhile, Harvard, Stanford & Tufts have pretty much replaced loans with grants for needy students (and "needy" is pretty loosely defined). Columbia will probably do the same, soon. The listed suspects are clearly innocent of the charge.

Higher education does have an affordability problem, but Jackson's column sheds more heat than light.

What plans do either of them have for reversing the student loan/Pell grant devastation?

My niece entered college last fall. 8 years ago, due to family's economic status, she would have qualified for near full tuition pell grants.She received a $1000 pell grant, and was only able to secure a private student loan @ 18%, which could increase as high as 30%.

No low interest guaranteed student loans available.

Demanding that Barack and Hillary alienate the liberal base at colleges and universities (by scaring them with talk of MANDATED budget cuts) in advance of the election is beyond nutty. This is just as stupid as those who demanded that Al Gore shoot his mouth off about gun control until he lost altogether.

AFTER you have wall to wall Dems in The White House and Congress is when you raise these issues loudly. Why does one after another author here on CD write articles encouraging liberals to lose?

Jackson asks: "Do you think either Obama or Clinton will really take college presidents to the woodshed to provide universal affordability?"

No.

Perhaps we could take some of the billions of dollars spent on the military and put it toward such a goal?

It will take a social movement, a real rising tide of grassroots organizing, to re-orient our society, say, away from militarism and toward education.

No politician can do that for us.

"But this barely addresses the fact that tuitions around the nation, especially at less-endowed private and state systems have doubled over the last five to 15 years. There is no sign that tuitions will not double again in the next five to 10 years. In education speeches highlighted on their campaign websites, Clinton is more direct than Obama in hinting that colleges have a responsibility to curtail their greed."

As a 40 year veteran of state university faculties I protest the last quoted sentence. In my state (Ohio) the share of the state university budgets provided by the legislature has been progressively cut and is now around 15%, but they still feel free to load us with "accountability" and other mandates that must be paid for out of our shrinking funds. It now takes me a week and 4 signatures to get a printer cartridge. We are painfully aware of how we work harder and harder to provide less and less education for more and more tuition and static or decreasing salaries. To accuse us of greed is both ignorant and insulting.

As is so common throughout our society, in higher education everyone wants increased quality but no one wants to pay what it costs. I would get excited about presidential candidate who could lead our country out of the Reagan rut of self-centeredness that refuses to recognize that government is all of us working together for the common good, including adequate support for real education.

Again, Daniel David, your reflexes kicked in prior to comprehension.

Here's from the article:
"There is talk of mandating that colleges spend at least 5 percent of their endowments on financial aid, which many colleges of course reject out of hand."

Here's how you understood it:
"(by scaring them with talk of MANDATED budget cuts)"

Now read and learn.

Even a mandate on spending this or that way is not the same as a budget cut. The size of a budget and the things on which the budget are spent are two different things.

Endowments, which draw special emphasis from Jackson, derive from private gifts from wealthy donors. They have nothing to do with the budget process. Where higher education is public (as in state universities and community colleges), the funding cannot go into endowed funds. I admit to not understanding all the accounting rules and restrictions that colleges face, but my understanding is that using general fund monies to augment endowments would be illegal.

Jackson's article has some weaknesses, not the least of which is using Harvard as an example to stand for all of higher ed. Harvard is a wealthy college, whereas most are not. In some states, higher education has already experienced cuts to the budget *in the middle of the fiscal year* in order to balance the state budget.

You could have at least made an effort before coming out with the same old cheers for pro-war Democrats as magically better for higher ed than pro-war Republicans.

And as long as the subject is education, surely you can offer better reasoning than this: "AFTER you have wall to wall Dems in The White House and Congress is when you raise these issues loudly."
Your assertion is false on its face. Not only did this not happen with the Clinton administration, but also it implies a magic reversal after a formula of winning without issues.

"Winning" does not exist in a vacuum into which we can later pour ideas. It's ideas in the first place that give winning any meaning at all.

Considering that the topic is education, the abandonment of reason is a cruel irony.

Derrick Jackson obviously does not understand the true purpose of 'higher education' which is to provide the illusion of meritocracy while reinforcing the status quo in terms of class structure. Higher tuition costs are essential to guarantee that the offspring of the relatively wealthy assume their hereditary positions in the hierarchy that insulates wealth from the demands of the poor. Free public education, like universal health care, can only lead to a more rational distribution of wealth, and who among the wealthy and powerful would support that?

Trying to force wealthy private universities to lower their tuition charges will not work. This discussion does not address the underlying factor behind our failing system: the inability of all our citizens to get a decent education starting from grade school. Yes, by all means, support giving more aid to state schools, but without attacking the economic causes of the disenfranchisement and exclusion of poor and working poor from better education, we will continue to have these divisions in our society.

One of the writers here mentioned more money for education: nobody wants to pay for it. More than any other issue, we need to address spending billions of dollars for primary eduction, otherwise there won't be anyone who can afford universities no matter how they are funded. The only way to do that is to radically reduce military spending; reallocate this money for better grade schools and better paid teachers. It is just that simple.

Here in Kentucky, we have a budget crisis, and our newly elected Democratic governor just told the state schools that he is going to have to cut their share of the tax pie by 12%, after a 3% reduction the year before. Our primary school teachers won't get raises for the next two years. He doesn't want to do it, there has been a push over the last few years to try to make UK meet the benchmarks of top 20 universities, but the money simply isn't there. So tuition will be going up here significantly again.

That being said, it's telling that in our state the wealthy contributors fall all over themselves to donate millions for a renovation of the football coliseum or a brand-spanking new basketball practice facility, but are nowhere to be found when they are told we have to raise our faculty salaries so that our best and brightest won't leave to go to universities in neighboring states where the salaries are 20% higher.

Listening to the radio last night, the Wall Street Journal online was saying that the automotive manufacturers were now moving their R & D divisions overseas as well, because they can get an engineer in Viet Nam for $200.00 a month, as opposed to over 10 times that in the states. So even our high-paying professional jobs are deserting us, and there's not much sense in going deep into debt to finance an education for a decent job that no longer exists. I'm sure that's the logic behind our leaders' actions. Welcome to serfdom.

I am so very tired of living in the only supposedly first-world country that doesn't believe in educating its citizens or taking care of their health, and tired of the way in which anytime someone suggests doing that instead of spending over half our budget on the military, they're branded a socialist. We could really use some socialism about now.

If state colleges still provided quality education at affordable prices, the marketplace would take care of colleges which price themselves out of it.

But the quality of state universities has declined nationwide, because of greatly reduced contributions by state legislatures.

This reflects the will of millions of greedy little tax rebels in the general public.

The people don't want to pay for anything except their own comfort and amusement, and you can't change the debased American public with a few regulations about college endowments.

flyerman February 10th, 2008 6:52 am
Nailed it buddy.

bevandavies February 10th, 2008 9:03 am
Well said, thanks.

Moonshadow February 10th, 2008 9:30 am
Great points.

Okay let me go out on a limb. I'm a conspiracy theorist, I don't think things happen by accident. I believe the reason for the huge increases in higher education is due to the fact that they (the powers that actually run this country) don't want a bunch of college educated, intelligent people sitting around as Moonshadaw points out without jobs while they witness good paying jobs going overseas to cheap labor. It's in their interest to keep higher education unafforable by design.

If we had tons of well-educated, intelligent people sitting around unemployed it might dawn on everybody that our one Democratic-Republican Party of big business and greed is actually ruining our country and instead of getting the David Daniels of the world putting their hope in sell-outs they might become Socialist instead, which in our dumbed down society is actually a dirty word.

What this article really points out is that people 18-30 need an affordable health care plan.

Obama's plan is affordable. Hillary's is focused on increasing the number of people paying a health insurance company.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18040824/

Do you really think the same payoffs in the college loan industry don't happen with mandated health insurance? Then you are naive.

As Obama says, "Cost is the number one reason that 47 million Americans do not have health insurance and thousands more are edging toward bankruptcy every day…What I have said repeatedly is that the reason people don't have health insurance is not because they don't want it, it's because they can't afford it." He has never ruled out a mandate, he has said we have to take on the health insurance corporations and address the underlying costs of healthcare first, before we can legislate an affordable mandate for ALL AMERICANS.

What good is an unaffordable health care mandate? If the Clintons had spent more time creating high paying jobs in the manufacturing sector and taking on Wall Street instead of trading away America's future to Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Enron, NAFTA, and China in the 90s than we wouldn't still be talking about Affordable Healthcare and the Rising Inequality that began in the Neoliberal 90s.

The Mitt Romney-Hillary Clinton Corporate Healthcare Mandate Plan

"But the reluctance of so many to enroll, along with the possible exemption of 60,000 residents who cannot afford premiums, has raised questions about whether even a mandate can guarantee truly universal coverage.

Additional concerns have been generated by projections that the state's insurers plan to raise rates 10 percent to 12 percent next year, twice this year's national average. That would undercut the plan's secondary goal of slowing the increase in health costs."We're going to be very aggressive in trying to get those numbers down to single digits," said Jon M. Kingsdale, executive director of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, the agency that markets the subsidized insurance policies. "If we continue with double-digit inflation, I don't think health reform is sustainable."…

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois sees it a different way. He argues there is danger in mandating coverage before it is clear it can be affordable for those at the margins. While Mr. Obama does not rule out a mandate down the road, his emphasis is on reducing costs and providing generous government subsidies to those who need them. He would mandate coverage for children. " [Because children don't have a choice, they're not adults.]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/us/politics/25mass.html

Obama's Plan

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

"Employer Contribution: Employers that do not offer or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees will be required to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of the national plan. Small employers that meet certain revenue thresholds will be exempt."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28219-2005Apr5.html

"Over the last two years, 13 states have disclosed employers that are major users of state provided health insurance programs which are aimed at low-income families. Wal-Mart has topped the list in all the states, except Massachusetts where it was second and Wisconsin, which did not disclose the usage of employers other than Wal-Mart.
Combined, the 13 states disclose that at least 55,000* Wal-Mart employees, children, and spouses are covered by state health insurance programs. A total of 480,000 Wal-Mart employees work in these 12 states, meaning that on average for every nine Wal-Mart employees, at least one Wal-Mart family member is getting state-provided health care.

A total of approximately 505,000 Wal-Mart employees work in these 13 states."

http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/facts/state-reports.html

"Our governor-elect and the Legislature are about to embark on another cycle of budget discussions. In normal budget times, it is a moral obligation for lawmakers to spend taxpayers' funds wisely. During the worst budget crisis in California's history, it is imperative. Every dollar spent should be used strategically, effectively and toward meeting our obligation to protect our most vulnerable citizens and to educate the next generation.

That is what makes recent revelations about Wal-Mart, one of the world's wealthiest corporations and the largest private employer in America, so disturbing. Wal-Mart is one of many large corporations that skimp on health care for their employees. Inadequate health insurance coverage, high deductibles and cost-sharing that is out of reach for low-wage workers add to the corporate bottom-line. Wal-Mart also reportedly carefully controls the number of workers who achieve full-time status and higher benefit levels.

In the marketplace, where one of these giants is competing against a small business that is responsible to its workers and to the community, the giant will win every time.

Who picks up the tab for this lack of responsibility? We all do. Wal-Mart provides its workers with access to a Web-based service that allows a county social services worker to immediately verify income and employment. Such access can help to qualify workers quickly for Medi-Cal benefits, food stamps and other taxpayer-funded aid."-Assemblywoman Sally Lieber

http://www.commondreams.org/scriptfiles/views03/1107-07.htm

Who sat on the Board of Wal-Mart? Hillary Clinton.

Who focused on turning America into a Service Economy? Bill Clinton.

Who wanted Most Favored Nation Status for China? Bill Clinton.

"More than 80 percent of the 6,000 factories in Wal-Mart's worldwide database of suppliers are in China. Wal-Mart estimates it spent $15 billion on Chinese-made products last year, accounting for nearly one-eighth of all Chinese exports to the United States. If the company that Sam Walton built with his "Made in America" ad campaign were itself a separate nation, it would rank as China's fifth-largest export market, ahead of Germany and Britain."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22507-2004Feb7?language=printer

http://www.votenader.org/issues/index.php?cid=47

Obama is the Clear Progressive Choice

"Clinton Remained Silent As Wal-Mart Fought Unions"

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4218509&page=1

"But she supported most favored nation trade status despite concerns about China's human rights record.

William Kristol, a self-described Reagan-era internationalist and the editor of The Weekly Standard, said Mrs. Clinton's speech sounded like the thoughts of Senator Moynihan. But, he said, her remarks hearkened back to Reagan as well. "You've got to be happy that Democrats are now willing to embrace at least some aspects of energetic American leadership," he said."

"Mrs. Clinton Suggests That U.S. Engage Aggressively in World Affairs" by Dean E. Murphy, The New York Times, October 18, 2000

There is an online petition asking the DNC to choose the candidate with the most votes and delegates rather than take the chance on a secret backroom deal.

Please sign the petition and pass it on to your friends.

Petition http://www.petitiononline.com/Superdel/petition.html

After being in higher ed for decade now. I tend to see the issue as being a conglomeration of a number of mutual and self complicating problems.

First is the issue of administrative greed and the corporate university. Schools are so concerned about their position in the hierarchy of institutions that they go to extremes to invest in ridiculous expenditures like $120 million student gym while the vast majority of the teaching is done graduate students and non-tenured faculty who are payed pathetic wages.

Second, those school at the top of the hierarchy have hoarded resources and talent under guise of being the "best" even though the only serve a small, already, privledged minority of tstudents.

Third, As mentioned above the public is unwilling to invest in higher education unless it is done at an individual level(Aka your parents paying for it or you going up to you neck in debt). Also, legislatures are under pressure to cut funds to higher ed, and obviously are rightfully critical of some aspects it.

Fourth, There is a tremendous financial incentive to maintain the system as it is. Banks, for profit schools, elite schools and over paid administrators all stand to gain from this situation.

With all of this in mind the question become fixing the system. Personally I would create a single payer tuition system for public schools. Mandate fiscal accountability and the reform of academic labor(more full time tenured adequately paid teaching positions). Also, I think that elite schools with massive endowments deserve to be taxed. Most people attend such institutions for the prestige and their hoarding of resources hinders both process in research and in the instruction of most of the nations students(Incidentially, I don't buy for one second that these places are some how inherently "better" other than the fact that they have a lot of money and power). Also, I would suggest a service component to the tuition situation. Students work during summers on public projects as justification for paying for their schooling. Ultimately, the goal of such reforms is to enable an equitable system that both educates students, contribute to the greater economic welfare of a nation, and endows them with sense of responsibility for the the society that they are a member of.

Finally, I am going to guess that some of you will read this and one think me completely unreasonable for proposing such system. Also, the second thing that will probably come to mind is a blind defense of the system as it is (ie elite schools student paid tuition etc.) on the grounds that "obviously that the "best" are so much better than every one else" or this is how the system has "naturally arranged itself". All I can say to this is that are we not going to resolve these issues by complacently accepting what is ultimately a baseless and exploitive system serves only a privledged few.

If either Obama or Clinton want to put college "within the reach of every American" someone will have to figure out a way to make sure they can read, write and reason first - oh and that they've done at least a year of earning a living. Then it might be worth the public investment.
If they can write an account of their sojourn in a Third World community they maybe ready for the grown-up world.

seriousprofessor:

It's hard to imagine a greater pomposity in a post than
"Now Read and Learn." Professsor, maybe. Serious, not.

If you want law changes about how tax-exempt foundations and endowments must spend money for their ostensible purposes, you're going to need Democrats to pass them. Because Republicans aren't going to.