Student Loan Blog : Tamar Lewin

State Colleges Cut Staff, Programs as Budgets Slashed

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:32:00 GMT

Michael Crow, the president of Arizona State University who seven years ago promised to make ASU “The New American University” and to grow the school’s enrollment to 100,000 students by 2020, could see his plans go unfulfilled because of state budget cuts, reports The New York Times (“State Colleges Also Face Cuts in Ambitions,” March 17, 2009).

Since last June, ASU has lost $88 million in state funding, which amounts to 18 percent of the university’s base budget.

“The New American University has died; welcome to the Neutered American University,” the Arizona school’s student newspaper editorialized last month after ASU announced it would be eliminating more than 500 jobs, closing 48 programs and requiring remaining employees to take 10 to 15 days of unpaid leave this spring.

While ASU students said they believe school president Michael Crow is doing his best to protect them from further funding cuts, they also said the state’s budget cuts will negatively affect the quality of their education.

ASU Not Alone, Colleges Struggling Nationwide

Public colleges across the country are experiencing layoffs, salary freezes, and even enrollment reductions as they grapple with shrinking state funding in the current recession.

The University of Florida recently eliminated 430 faculty and staff positions, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, recently laid off around 100 employees, and the University of Vermont has eliminated 16 positions, left 22 faculty positions vacant, and frozen the salaries of certain staff, The New York Times reports.

And California’s higher education system, which serves 3.3 million students — nearly 20 percent of college student nationwide — is among the nation’s college systems hardest hit by this recession. Both the University of California system and the California State University system have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding and have been forced to shrink their enrollment numbers.

“What’s happening, everywhere, is what’s happening to Michael Crow,” said Jane Wellman, executive director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, Productivity and Accountability, an organization that studies college spending. “The trend line is states disinvesting in higher education.”

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Students Could Save $40,000 by Completing College Degree in 3 Years

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:31:00 GMT

Students attending Hartwick College in New York may now be able to save over $40,000 on their education by enrolling in a new three- year college degree program, according to a recent news release from the college (“Hartwick College Announces Three-Year Bachelor’s Degree,” Feb. 24, 2009).

The new initiative will reduce colleges costs for the school’s students and their families by 25 percent at a time when the country remains deeply mired in a recession, but, Hartwick officials contend, the program will maintain the “rich educational experience” that is characteristic of the school.

“This three-year program will deliver the same educational opportunity to qualifying students as our four-year program,” said Dr. Margaret Drugovich, Hartwick’s president. “We believe it is imperative for the higher education community to preserve the option of a top-quality education for any student who seeks it, regardless of the prevailing economic challenges or personal circumstances.”

To qualify for the three-year college degree program, students must have graduated high school with at least a 3.0 GPA. Once enrolled, students must take 40 credits each academic year instead of the usual 30, and take classes during a special January term each year in order to complete the standard 120 credits needed to graduate. The required extra winter session will allow students to keep their summers free for study abroad, internships, research practicums, or spending time with family.

Increased Interest in Three-Year Programs

Drugovich is anticipating a great deal of interest in the three-year degree program, but her students aren’t the only ones taking notice of these types of programs. With the skyrocketing cost of college continuing to squeeze families often already hard-pressed to come up with money for school, the concept of a cheaper three-year degree may be gaining favor.

At the American Council on Education’s annual meeting held earlier this month, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a former university president, urged more college presidents to consider three-year college degrees at their institutions, the Associated Press reports (“Some Colleges Offering Degrees in 3 Years,” Feb. 24, 2009).

And lawmakers in Rhode Island are drafting legislation that would encourage three-year college degree completion. Their bill would create standardized college-level classes for the state’s high schools that would be intended to enable all students to complete college in only three years.

Three-Year Degrees Face Uncertain Future

But prior to the country’s recession, three-year degrees had largely failed to catch on.

At Upper Iowa University, only five students have chosen to pursue the school’s three-year degree program over the five years it has been in existence and every one of those five students ended up taking four or more years to complete their degree. The school has not had a single student interested in the program since.

Educators attribute the lack of participation in these accelerated programs to the fact that students may still prefer the full four- year college experience, academically, socially, and athletically, Joy Newcom, spokeswoman of Waldorf College, told the Associated Press about her Iowa school that is just now phasing out its last three-year program due to lack of student interest.

Newcom said, “What we’re finding they’re saying is, ‘Why did I want to grow up so fast?’ .”

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Free Online Global University to Debut This April

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:51:00 GMT

This fall, Israeli entrepreneur Shai Reshef will open the world’s first tuition-free internet university called the University of the People, reports The New York Times (“Israeli Entrepreneur Plans a Free Global University That Will Be Online Only,” Jan. 25, 2009).

University of the People — which will operate solely based on open-source courseware, a type of learning tool that has allowed universities all over the globe to post education materials online at no cost to the public — will allow its students throughout the world to access written materials and lectures for thousands of courses via its website.

In lieu of tuition, students will pay enrollment fees of $15 to $50 and exam fees of $10 to $100, both of which will vary depending on the student’s country of origin. And instead of physically attending lectures, students will participate in online study communities and weekly discussion topics and will be asked to submit homework and exams online.

“The idea is to take social networking and apply it to academia,” Reshef told the Times. “The open-source courseware is there, from universities that have put their courses online, available to the public, free.”

With about $5 million in start-up funds, including $1 million of his own capital, Rashef will open the school, initially, to approximately 300 students who will be able to pursue bachelor’s degrees in business administration and computer science. The school will support the students with both paid and volunteer professors, along with librarians and other professional educators that will monitor curriculum and evaluate exams.

In five years, at which time Reshef expects the university to be self-sustaining, Reshef hopes to have increased enrollment to 10,000 students.

Critics Question Plan

Although close to 4 million U.S. students took at least one online course in 2007, according to a survey by the Sloan Consortium, an advocacy group for online learning, online education experts still wonder how Reshef’s new venture will come together.

John Bourne, Sloan Consortium executive director, says, “It’s true that the open courseware movement is pretty robust, so there are a lot of high-quality course materials out there, but there’s no human backup behind them. I’d be interested to know how you’d find and train faculty and ensure quality without tuition money.”

Despite these uncertainties, Reshef, who is currently the chairman of Cramster, an online study community for students, and who offers an extensive entrepreneurial background in the business side of higher education, is convinced that his new venture will be a success.

“We know that online peer-to-peer teaching works,” Rashef said. “Putting it all together, we can make a free university for students all over the world, [to] anyone who speaks English and has an Internet connection.”

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College Offers Students a No-Cost, No-Student-Loan Education With Funds From Its $1.1 Billion Endowment

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:39:00 GMT

Berea College is drawing the attention of lawmakers for its no-frills approach to education and its free tuition policy.

The private Kentucky college — founded 150 years ago to educate freed slaves and “poor white mountaineers” — accepts only applicants from low-income families and charges no tuition, according to an article in The New York Times (“With No Frills or Tuition, a College Draws Notice,” July 21, 2008).

Every Berea student is awarded a four-year tuition scholarship and the school doesn't offer student loans.

School Spends Endowment on Students, Not on High-End Amenities

Despite its $1.1 billion endowment Berea, unlike other colleges with large endowments, has no football team, coed dorms, hot tubs, or rock climbing walls. Students eat food from the college’s own farm, make the furniture used to furnish the school, and are required to work 10 hours a week in an on-campus job.

Although Berea keeps costs down with its streamlined approach to higher education, without tuition revenue to supplement its funding, Berea relies on endowment income to cover 80 percent of its $43 million education and general budget, and about two-thirds of its $55 million operating budget.

“You can literally come to Berea with nothing but what you can carry, and graduate debt free,” says Joseph Bagnoli, the school’s associate provost for enrollment management. “We call it the best education money can’t buy.”

A Push to Use Endowments for the Public Good

News of Berea’s unusual approach to higher education is spurring debates about whether the nation’s wealthiest universities are doing enough for the general public to warrant their tax-exempt status, or if they’re simply hoarding money to serve an elite few, writes New York Times reporter Tamar Lewin.

In January, the Senate Finance Committee requested detailed endowment and spending data from the 136 colleges and universities with endowments of at least $500 million, with an eye toward possibly forcing them to spend at least 5 percent of their assets each year, as foundations are required to do.

Dozens of wealthy colleges have since increased their financial aid to low- and middle-income students, in some cases, replacing loans with grants. More than three-quarters of the students at Berea already receive Pell Grants.

“You see some of these selective liberal arts colleges building new physical education facilities with these huge sheets of glass and these coffee and juice bars, and charging students $40,000 a year, and you have to ask, does this contribute to the public good, or is it just a way for the college to keep up with the Jones?” says Berea’s president Larry Shinn.

He adds, “We are a tax-exempt institution, so I think the public has a right to demand that out educational mission be at the heart of our expenditures.”

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All Veterans Qualify for In-State Tuition at Ohio Colleges With New GI Promise Legislation

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:19:00 GMT

Ohio governor, Ted Strickland, recently announced the implementation of The Ohio G.I. Promise, the first plan of its kind in the nation to extend in-state tuition rates to all veterans who attend an Ohio state public college or university on the GI Bill, according to an article in The New York Times (“Ohio Gives Veterans In-State Rates at Public Colleges,” July 9, 2008).

Just last month, President Bush signed the new national GI Bill which will double veterans’ benefits and allow soldiers to receive the equivalent of full scholarships at any public university or college in the state they reside.

Under The Ohio G.I. Promise, veterans, their spouses, and their dependents who are residents of any state may attend one of the Ohio’s 36 colleges and universities at the same in-state tuition rate enjoyed by legal Ohio state residents.

The move to implement the G.I. Promise bill is to attract more veterans to Ohio’s public colleges, which have experienced declining enrollments over the last several years, and to add some 230,000 students to the state’s school system over the next decade.

“If we are able to attract veterans to Ohio, we can link them and their families to internships, co-op and other opportunities, and if they get good jobs here, we’ll have Ohioans,” said Eric Fingerhut, chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents. “We want veterans to know Ohio wants them to come here, and that we think they’re incredibly valuable high potential students.”

To meet the needs of the much-anticipated growth in veteran enrollments at Ohio colleges, Fingerhut told the Times that the state school system will significantly enhance the infrastructure that caters to military veteran students.

“We already have a number of very good programs, which we’ll be expanding, to provide the type of counselors, advisers, and mentors who can work one on one with veterans to help them make the transition to civilian life and navigate the academic environment,” he said.

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Yale University to Increase Undergraduate Enrollment by 15 Percent

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:36:00 GMT

Last week, Yale University president Richard Levin announced that the school will be increasing its undergraduate enrollment by 15 percent to 6,000 students, according to an article in The New York Times (“Yale to Expand Undergraduate Enrollment by 15 Percent,” June 9, 2008).

Levin says Yale College, the school’s undergraduate program, will begin to admit a larger percentage of students from its pool of about 20,000 applicants to satisfy the university’s “desire to expand the student population.” Characteristically, Yale College admits fewer than 10 percent of its applicants.

“We have a long queue of highly qualified applicants who collectively would allow Yale to make an even greater contribution to society if more [students] could be educated here,” Levin wrote in a letter to Yale students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

The last substantial increase in the student body occurred in 1969, when Yale began admitting women. Since then, undergraduate enrollment has fluctuated between 5,150 and 5,350 students.

To support Yale’s expansion plans, the school will increase its fundraising campaign goal from $3 billion to $3.5 billion to pay for the construction of two new residential colleges that will connect the school’s science facilities to the rest of campus.

“The new colleges have the potential of making the whole campus seem smaller, more effectively linking Science Hill with the historic center,” Levin’s letter said.

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