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Higher Ed NewsWeekly
from the Illinois Board of Higher Education

April 17, 2009
ON CAMPUS
Page
1 New UI business dean set to tackle challenges
4 Chicago State president finalist faces student
criticism
5 South Side university scrambling for more
students as school's enrollment hits near 20-year
low
7 Students slam CSU president finalists
8 NU's law students offered help while waiting out
job freeze
9 COD extends Breuder's contract three more
years
10 LLCC steps up help for the unemployed
STATE
11 Bill to help college students avoid credit card
debt advances
12 Quinn tackles income tax plan, gay marriage
during Harper visit
14 State's schools to get $3 billion in federal
stimulus funds
15 Arne Duncan: Education secretary warns Illinois
of actions needed to get more stimulus cash
17 Edgar says community colleges important for
economy
19 Senate president: Capitol atmosphere improved
20 Cullerton promises a capital bill
21 Arne to Illinois: Shape up
NATIONAL
23 Average college credit card debt rises with fees,
tuition
24 College students' credit card debt hits record
level
25 Murky picture for faculty salaries
32 Plan to change student lending sets up a fight
35 Stimulus spurs campus building
37 Locked-in tuition is a win for families but a
tough sell for colleges
39 Sallie Mae's full court press
41 Shopping for 'cut scores'
44 The student loan industry pushes back
46 Two-thirds of students get financial aid, federal

report says
47 Education standards likely to see toughening
50 Higher Ed Watch exclusive: Sallie Maes
alternative student lending plan
53 More students paying college costs with credit
cards
54 State spending on higher education hasn't always
been so volatile, study finds
55 18 years in the making
60 Performance-based college financing systems
often die young, researchers say
61 Colleges cite inequities in new benefits for
veterans
66 Education Dept. gets a nominee who champions
the underserved
69 Professors' pay raises beat inflation; so much for
the good news
MONEY AND BUDGET

72 Law freezes tuition, but fees keep rising
75 Local universities reach out to students whose
families are economy's victims
77 Citing dip in funding, Lake Land raises tuition,
fees
79 SIUC eyes 4.5 percent tuition increase
80 JWCC officials say $3 tuition hike will be offset
by new tax credit as part of stimulus package
TECHNOLOGY
81 Why is Web 2.0 important to higher education?
COMMENTARY
83
85
86
88
89
Paranoia.edu anxieties
Status quo university
How to raise our I.Q.
The battle over student lending
From survival to sustainability
ODDS AND ENDS

92 Fewer openings in nursing field
93 How researchers classify biracial subjects skews
study results, authors say
95 Training without a campus
97 U.S. education reform is great, but Europe is not

the model
98 Colleges ask donors to help meet demand for aid
100 Duncan and Chinese Minister sign highereducation agreement
101 The SAT 'at war with itself'
103 Applying for financial aid? You might need a
college degree to fill out the forms
104 Survival of the wealthiest
105 Why reverse transfer?
OTHER STATES
107 Large salaries at Ohio's public universities take
heat
110 Georgia: Tuition may rise for new students
111 Virginia: College counselors for all
113 Ohio: Learning-skills course appears to help
students succeed
115 North Carolina: Colleges get mysterious millions
1
The News-Gazette, April 12, 2009 (Page 1 of 3)
New UI business dean set to tackle challenges

By Don Dodson
Sunday, April 12, 2009 8:12 AM CDT
CHAMPAIGN Illinois farm boy. Economist with degrees from Bradley and Cornell.
Thirty-year University of Illinois faculty member. Long-suffering Cubs fan.
That's Larry DeBrock, newly appointed dean of the UI College of Business.
DeBrock, 56, faces several challenges and opportunities in the years to come, according to Ira
Solomon, co-chair of the search committee that recommended finalists for the position.
First, business schools nationwide are working to establish global alliances over the next decade, said
Solomon, head of the UI's Accountancy Department. DeBrock will be in a position to determine what kind
of footprint the UI has worldwide.
Second, the new business dean has a "window of opportunity" in determining what kind of presence the
business college has in Chicago, the state's major economic center. The college already has two
initiatives there: the Executive Master of Business Administration program and the master's program in
taxation. DeBrock can help determine where future growth occurs.
Third, the college is facing fiscal challenges at the same time it's seeing "tremendous student demand" for
its courses.
"Admission to business school is a hot ticket," Solomon said, noting there's also strong demand for
business classes from students in other disciplines at the UI.
DeBrock whose appointment is subject to board of trustees approval is well-suited to address such
questions, said David Ikenberry, associate dean for executive education and a professor of finance.
"The college, at this point in its life cycle, has a good sense of where it needs to go," Ikenberry said.
"Larry has a clear vision of that direction, and he brings great balance with his 30 years of experience as
a faculty member, researcher and teacher."
In an interview last week, DeBrock said one of the college's priorities will be finding money to increase the
size of the faculty.
Business professors are relatively scarce, he said, because plenty of alternative employment is available
for them in the private sector.
Plus, in some fields, more professors are retiring than coming into the work force.
That's the case nationally in accounting, where the number of retirements is projected to be 2 1/2 times
the number of new entrants, he said.
Other priorities the faculty will deal with, DeBrock said, are rethinking the structure of the UI's MBA
program and considering the curriculum of the Ph.D. program.
2
DeBrock said he expects undergraduate enrollment in the college to remain around 3,000. But the
student-to-faculty ratio is too high, and he plans to pay for faculty expansion through "a combination of
campus sources and entrepreneurial behavior."
In terms of facility renovation, he said the college's next target is doctoral students' offices in the
Surveying Building, just east of Wohlers Hall, on Gregory Drive. That building is in "a state of disrepair
and needs attention," he said.
DeBrock grew up on a farm in Bureau County and went to high school in Manlius, where his graduating
class numbered 29.
He entered Bradley University in Peoria, thinking he might become an engineer, but switched to math and
later to economics after becoming intrigued by it.
After receiving his bachelor's degree, he went to Cornell University, getting master's and doctoral degrees
there. In 1979, he joined the UI faculty as an assistant professor in the Economics Department. He was
later promoted to associate and full professor.
Five years ago, the campus moved the Economics Department from the College of Business to the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
But DeBrock stayed behind in the College of Business. In 2000, he had been named associate dean for
professional programs by then-Dean Avijit Ghosh.
When the Economics Department moved away, DeBrock remained associate dean and was made a
professor of business administration.
When Ghosh was named the UI's vice president of technology and economic development in 2008,
DeBrock was named interim dean.
Solomon said DeBrock blends a "very easygoing" style with "tremendous substance."
"He mastered the art of disagreeing with people without being disagreeable," Solomon said. "That's
tremendously important in a faculty setting."
Ikenberry ranked DeBrock "among the most passionate and compassionate leaders I've ever met. ... He
has genuine affection and concern for the people who make up a great university and the College of
Business."
DeBrock worked hard to make sure the college's new Business Instructional Facility was open on time,
said Lois Meerdink, assistant dean of business career services.
"Last fall he put heart and soul into getting this building open for classes," she said. "We were seeing him
all hours of the day making sure all things were operational and open for business."
The weekend before the building was scheduled to open, ceiling tiles weren't in place and power lines
were hanging down. Chairs covered the floor of the atrium. But with hard work by UI Facilities & Services,
things were in place by Monday barely.
"It was still a hard-hat zone at 7 a.m.," DeBrock said.
3
The modern, four-story building, at the southwest corner of Sixth Street and Gregory Drive in Champaign,
was designed with students in mind. Most coursework at the undergraduate and graduate levels involves
teamwork, and students can reserve rooms there for their teams, DeBrock said.
"We want them to treat this as their space," he said.
After classes end this spring, work will begin on a Caribou Coffee shop in the Business Instructional
Facility. It will sell hot soup and sandwiches in addition to coffee.
Ikenberry said DeBrock is "fiercely loyal to the great institutions in his life," whether it's the Chicago Cubs
or the UI College of Business.
"I can't think of a constituent on the losing end of this appointment," he said.
UI College of Business at a glance
Departments: Accountancy, Business Administration, Finance
Undergraduate students: 2,974
Master's students: 947
Doctoral students: 90
Faculty members: 91
Living alumni: 54,938
4
Chicago Tribune, April 13, 2009
Chicago State president finalist

faces student criticism
April 13, 2009
Posted by Jodi S. Cohen at 4:25 p.m
The first of two finalists for Chicago State Universitys top job faced students, faculty and other community
members today as students wore shirts that proclaimed her a lousy candidate.
We spent $75,000 on a president search & all we got were two lousy candidates, read the green shirts,
worn by dozens of Chicago State students during the visit from Carol Adams, secretary of the Illinois
Department of Human Services.
Wayne Watson, the retiring chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago, will visit the South Side campus
Tuesday for a similar day of Q&A meetings with campus groups, including deans, faculty, students, civil
service employees, and members of the presidential search advisory committee.
Critics have called Adams and Watson local political insiders and have questioned why a national search
didnt yield a broader selection of finalists. Chicago State paid The Hollins Group, an executive recruiting
firm in Chicago, $75,000 to help with the search.
Advisory committee members and others also have criticized the trustees for not having a more open
search process. Committee members said there were about 35 applicants for the job, and that the
trustees and a search firm narrowed them to 12.
5
The Chicago Sun-Times, April 13, 2009 (Page 1 of 2)
South Side university scrambling for more students as

school's enrollment hits near 20-year low
BY DAVE NEWBART Staff Reporter/dnewbart@suntimes.com
When Elnora Daniel left her post as president of Chicago State University last summer amid critical
financial audits, enrollment at the South Side school was at a near-20-year low.
Now, at a time more students than ever want to go to college but costs have skyrocketed, the school's
new leader is touting its affordable tuition -- under $8,000 a year -- in an effort to boost enrollment to
perhaps 12,000, nearly twice the number of students now at Chicago State.
Interim president Frank Pogue says he wants to reach out to students who might not have considered the
school in the past. Chicago State is recruiting overseas and out-of-state, for example, as well as from
suburbs whose students haven't sent many applications to the school.
It's doing more recruiting at high schools throughout the area and bringing high school counselors to
campus to show them what the school has to offer. The school also wants to launch a major marketing
campaign.
One area that Chicago State -- whose student body is 80 percent African-American -- is targeting is the
largely white southwest suburbs. That effort began under Daniel at the urging of state Sen. Ed Maloney
(D-Chicago), a CSU graduate and former Oak Lawn High School faculty member.
With 6,800 students in classes this past fall, enrollment is down 33 percent since its peak in 1994 and
down 20 percent since Daniel took office in 1998. Even as enrollment dropped at CSU, enrollment in
Illinois' public universities overall has grown by nearly 5 percent in the last decade.
"We hope to increase our overall enrollment, but first we need to get it stabilized," said Howard Johnson,
interim vice-president for enrollment management and student affairs.
Johnson told the Chicago State board last week it should take a year or two to do that, then is looking
ahead to growth of 5 percent to 8 percent a year.
The school has already seen a slight uptick in applications for next fall. One of those new applicants is
Geannie Papas, 27, of the Northwest Side. She took a tour of the campus in February and "fell in love
right away.'' She said administrators were "friendly, smiling and helpful.'' She was accepted and plans to
start this summer in the school's nursing program.
But some current students fear what the impact of the school's drive for more students could be. Michael
O'Connor, a political science major who lives downtown, said it already can be difficult to get into upperlevel courses needed to graduate.
"Don't do it at our expense,'' he said of the school's enrollment push.
Pogue said the school is trying to raise its academic profile and attract more students who can pay full
tuition.
"We have to have a relationship with high school teachers and with principals'' to convince them to send
6
The Chicago Sun-Times, April 13, 2009 (Page 2 of 2)
more students to Chicago State, said Pogue, who will step down at the end of this year.
On Monday and Tuesday, the school will host two finalists to replace him: Wayne Watson, the retiring
chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago, and Carol Adams, secretary of the Illinois Human Services
Department.
The school is aiming to increase the number of students accepted who actually enroll, to 50 percent from
the current 30 percent, the so-called "yield" rate.
Chicago State also is aiming to increase the number of first-year students who return for another year and
increase the six-year graduation rate, from 13 percent now to 45 percent.
7
The Chicago Sun-Times, April 13, 2009
Students slam CSU president finalists

CHICAGO STATE | 2 choices called 'political hacks'
BY LEWIS LAZARE Staff Reporter/llazare@suntimes.com
Chicago State University students and alumni today plan to protest the school's finalists for president.
Michael O'Connor, a spokesman for the upset students, maintains the university spent $75,000 on the
search for a new president and "came up with two political hacks": Wayne Watson and Carol Adams.
Watson, who will step down as chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago in June, and Adams, the current
secretary for the State of Illinois Department of Human Services, are scheduled to meet with students
during their visits today and Tuesday.
As recently as last week, CSU officials encouraged the press and the public to come meet the
candidates. But after a contentious board meeting and students voicing their intention to protest, they
abruptly, on Sunday morning, declared those meetings "closed to all news media." But later Sunday, CSU
officials reversed their decision and said the meetings were open.
O'Connor said the protesting students are unhappy with Watson's alleged union-busting tactics while at
City Colleges, and Adams' "baggage," including her handling of the so-called "silk pajamas" scandal that
involved a state Human Services Department chief of staff and a sexual-harassment filing several years
ago.
CSU spokeswoman Patricia Arnold said the university encourages students "to think for themselves and
supports their right to have their say."
8
The Chicago Tribune, April 14, 2009
NU's law students offered help while waiting

out job freeze
By Ameet Sachdev | Tribune staff reporter
Northwestern University Law School is trying to ease the pain of graduating students who face short-term
unemployment because their jobs have been deferred.
In an e-mail to students late Monday, David Van Zandt, the law school dean, encouraged students to
continue networking and pursue activities that build their legal skills while they are unemployed.
Northwestern has added volunteer opportunities at its Bluhm Legal Clinic and has identified other publicinterest employers who are interested in hiring interns.
"What we're trying to do is encourage people to keep busy and develop their careers," Van Zandt said in
an interview. "You can't just sit at home."
Law students have become victims of a recession that has slammed the legal industry. Big law firms,
which are the destination for many students at Northwestern and other top law schools, are struggling to
deal with steep declines in work related to financial and real estate matters. About 80 percent of
Northwestern's graduates start at medium and large law firms, Van Zandt said.
Dozens of firms have laid off lawyers and a few have gone out of business. They are also cutting costs by
telling new hires not to show up for work this fall. Start dates have been delayed from three months to a
year. In Chicago, for example, Mayer Brown has postponed its start date to Jan. 19; Katten Muchin
Rosenman to Feb. 1.
Some firms are offering stipends to help make up for the loss of income, but the compensation is much
less than the $160,000 first-year associates earn at big law firms.
Third-year students who will graduate in May are worried about their ability to repay their education loans.
Northwestern charges $45,000 for tuition, leaving some students with loans of more than $100,000 when
they finish school.
Van Zandt reminded students that they can postpone their monthly payments on loans provided by the
school until they start working and apply for short -term medical insurance to bridge the gap between
graduation and their start dates.
The loan forbearance is also available to Northwestern alumni who have been laid off.
asachdev@tribune.com
9
Daily Herald, April 17, 2009
COD extends Breuder's contract three more years

By Jake Griffin | Daily Herald Staff
After less than six months at the helm of the College of DuPage - and despite a three-and-a-half year
contract already in place - COD President Robert Breuder received a three-year contract extension
Thursday.
The board voted 6-0 in favor of the extension, with trustee Kathy Wessel absent. Wessel urged her
colleagues - including four members who won't be on the board in a month - to postpone the vote until the
new members take office.
Many who spoke at the meeting Thursday urged Breuder to reject the extension, but Breuder said he will
accept the additional three years.
"It was always the board's desire to have a longer arrangement," Breuder said. "If you look nationwide,
many college presidents' contracts are for six years or longer."
Incoming trustee Kim Savage works in the higher education field. She agreed that a six-year contract for
a college president is not uncommon, but the circumstances surrounding Breuder's extension are also
uncommon.
"If he is truly doing a good job, he deserves it, but it's only been three months and you can't make an
evaluation after just three months," she said. "The current board did not approve this in the best interest
of the community."
Breuder's current annual salary is $334,000. His contract calls for a 3 percent increase each year. That
means by the time his contract expires in June 2015, he'll be making close to $390,000.
Many in the audience at Thursday's meeting complained that the decision to extend Breuder's contract
came before they were allowed to speak and the details were kept secret until after the board voted.
"A board that is confident that it is doing the right thing for the community would freely share information
and welcome public scrutiny and input," said Lisa Higgins, vice president of COD's faculty association.
"When top college officials refuse to give information about agenda items on the morning that they are to
be voted on, it goes against the spirit of open meetings laws and effectively cuts the public out of the
process."
Outgoing board Chairman Mike McKinnon said Breuder's first few months on the job have shown he is
the right person to lead the college for the next six years.
"In his first three months he has lived up to his stellar reputation as a take-charge leader with vision," he
said.
Breuder arrived at COD in November from Harper College in Palatine after former President Sunil Chand
was ousted by the board. A severance agreement forbids either side from discussing why Chand was let
go. Chand is still be paid for the remaining years of his contract, though some of it is being covered by his
current employer, Benedictine University.
COD is also paying former President Harold McAninch a salary for serving as interim president while the
board searched for Chand's replacement.
Contract: Some say COD vote too hasty
10
The State Journal-Register, April 17, 2009
LLCC steps up help for the unemployed

Illinois 9.1% rate a 24-year high
By TIM LANDIS
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted Apr 17, 2009 @ 12:11 AM
Rising unemployment in central Illinois has prompted Lincoln Land Community College to organize a
rapid response team to help people who have been laid off or are facing loss of their jobs.
The announcement was made Thursday, the day the state announced 596,000 Illinoisans are out of work
and unemployment was at a 24-year high of 9.1 percent in March. Meanwhile, the federal government
reported Thursday that people receiving unemployment benefits had topped 6 million for the first time.
State employment officials also announced that unemployment recipients who have exhausted 59 weeks
of benefits through state and federal assistance can now get an additional 13 weeks through a federal
economic-stimulus bill.
Certainly, the volume (of unemployed workers) has increased. The variety of workers also has increased.
Theres no specific type of worker, said Mac Warren, who will direct the nine-member team.
Warren also is assistant director in recruitment and rapid response for LLCC.
While the college has traditionally responded to layoffs and plant shutdowns, Warren said a specific team
and a director was considered the best way to speed assistance as layoffs continue to mount.
The first call was to aid workers laid off at the Affinia Group brake-manufacturing plant in Litchfield, where
a resume-writing workshop was held this week.
Nine out of 10 of them had never made a resume. They went directly from high school into the work
force. For 30-, 40- and 50-year-old individuals, this sometimes is the first resume theyve had to write.
Theres a lot of fear out there, Warren said.
College spokeswoman Lynn Whalen said the rapid-response team will supplement assistance through
state agencies such as the Illinois Department of Employment Security, and the Illinois Department of
Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
With the economy the way it is, we felt there was a call for this in addition to what we were already
doing, Whalen said.
Additional information is available at 786-2227 or mac.warren@llcc.edu.
11
Springfield State Journal-Register, April 12, 2009
Bill to help college students avoid credit card debt

advances
By ADRIANA COLINDRES
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias initiative to protect college students from credit card debt has won a
warm reception so far in the General Assembly.
Senate Bill 1524 sailed through the Illinois Senate on April 2 without any opposing votes, and it heads
next to the House of Representatives. To become law, it still needs to pass in the House and be signed
by Gov. Pat Quinn.
The response has been really tremendous. Its a common-sense, pragmatic piece of legislation,
Giannoulias said last week.
One of the measures provisions would prevent credit card companies from offering gifts, such as Tshirts or food, for signing up.
Thats how they initially get a lot of these students to sign a contract, Giannoulias said.
Other parts of the bill would:
Prohibit colleges from selling their databases of student names and contact information to credit card
issuers.
Make schools contracts with credit card issuers available to the public.
Compel institutions to offer courses in financial literacy if credit cards are marketed to
undergraduates.
Giannoulias said the intent is to help college students avoid being overwhelmed by credit card debt.
Some young people, for instance, might not realize the perils of making just the minimum payments,
which can cause their debt to skyrocket, he said.
If we can teach young men and women who are in college early on about the dangers of credit card
debt ... we should be helping them out, he said.
While the American Bankers Association has spoken out against similar proposals in the past year or so,
a spokesman said he isnt sure if the organization has a position on the Illinois legislation.
The Illinois Bankers Association is taking a neutral stand on the Giannoulias-backed bill, spokeswoman
Debbie Jemison said.
Last summer, in testimony before a congressional subcommittee, a top official with the American
Bankers Association Card Policy Council argued against policies that would end up hurting the vast
majority of young adults who have shown they are capable of managing their finances responsibly.
Restricting access to this form of credit would result in great financial hardship for most card-holding
college students and their families, said Kenneth Clayton, senior vice president and general counsel of
the ABA Card Policy Council.
Adriana Colindres can be reached at 782-6292
12
Daily Herald, April 14, 2009 (Page 1 of 2)
Quinn tackles income tax plan,

gay marriage during Harper visit
By Ashok Selvam | Daily Herald Staff
Published: 4/14/2009 12:01 AM
Gov. Pat Quinn said he thinks Springfield lawmakers will eventually allow for civil unions, which would
give homosexual couples rights comparable to those of married couples.
"I think that's probably where the legislature is headed in the state," he said.
Gay marriage was one of the questions Quinn addressed Monday at Harper College in Palatine. Quinn
also said he supported the federal DREAM Act, which would allow some undocumented immigrants who
came to America as children and are pursuing an education to earn conditional permanent residency.
He discussed the pension system for public school teachers, saying it needs to better mirror private
systems.
"We cannot afford to have a public pension system that, essentially, goes bust and no one will have a
pension," Quinn said.
While he called community colleges the state's "heart and soul," he still would not endorse Harper's
proposal to offer four-year bachelor's degrees. Quinn said his reservations stem from possible
amendments to the bill, and that he also wanted to see how traditional four-year schools would react to
the potential competition.
"I want to make sure that we do this in a way that provides a good model for the entire state," he said.
The Illinois House approved the measure last month, which now awaits the Senate's vote and, possibly,
Quinn's signature. If approved, Harper could start its pilot program next year. Quinn, who taught at two
community colleges - Triton and Prairie State - is known as a supporter of the community college system.
After his remarks to more than 200 audience members, Quinn headed to Hoffman Estates for a
fundraiser held by Taxpayers for Quinn.
The fundraiser ended a busy day of travel for Quinn, who earlier stopped by Wrigley Field for a couple
rainy innings at the Cubs' home opener. During his suburban appearances, he dubbed himself "the
accidental governor," a reference to his ascendancy from lieutenant governor in the aftermath of Gov.
Blagojevich's impeachment.
Quinn also stumped for his ethics-reform bills, which he hopes will prevent political corruption, of which
his predecessor has been accused.
Quinn's birthday, Dec. 16, 1948, is the same day as the 175th anniversary of the infamous Boston Tea
Party protest. Thirty years later, in 1978, Quinn urged voters to send tea bags to then-Gov. James
Thompson to protest salary raises for Springfield lawmakers.
Now that another 30 years have passed, residents across the state are organizing tea parties of their own
Wednesday to protest Quinn's proposed tax increases. Quinn didn't find the gesture ironic, simply calling
13
Daily Herald, April 14, 2009 (Page 2 of 2)
it "an American way to express your opinion."
He added that he didn't create the state's $11 billion budget deficit and sees the tax increases as a way to
address the deficit, allow Illinois to pay its bills and avoid becoming a "deadbeat state."
Residents in the Northwest suburbs made their own protest statement last week with the lopsided results
from two advisory referendums questioning Cook County government.
The first questioned last year's county sales-tax increase, which voters overwhelmingly asked to repeal.
The second asked if voters would want to secede from Cook County and form their own county
government.
"I think that people should express themselves," Quinn said. "I believe in referendums. I think it was real
healthy to have that."
Q&A: Quinn calls himself 'the accidental governor'
14
Chicago Sun-Times, April 14, 2009
State's schools to get $3 billion in

federal stimulus funds
April 14, 2009
FROM STNG WIRE REPORTS
Illinois is expected to receive $3 billion in education funding through the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009 and could be receiving some of those dollars within two weeks.
The federal stimulus funding for Illinois schools was announced Tuesday by Gov. Pat Quinn and U.S.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at the Andrew Jackson Language Academy on the Near West Side.
The $3 billion includes $2 billion from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, part of which Gov. Quinn is
proposing to use during this current fiscal year to pay the remaining General State Aid payments to
districts, a release from Quinn's office said. Also, Quinns Fiscal Year 2010 Budget proposes to use
additional State Stabilization discretionary dollars to increase education funding by $174 million.
The final $1 billion of the $3 billion in ARRA funding will use a federal formula to support operations and
programs at schools such as the Jackson Academy, the release said.
"These funds allow Illinois to pay its bills to schools quickly, which keeps our teachers teaching and
protects our children," Quinn said.
The $100 billion the federal government has decided to invest in education presents us with a historic
opportunity to avoid catastrophic cuts in teaching positions and learning programs Duncan said. We
also have a chance to move beyond the status quo and invest in innovative programs that work."
In order to access the funding, Quinn has assured the U.S. Department of Education that Illinois will move
towards education reform in several areas, including progressing toward rigorous standards and highquality tests, establishing a data system to track student progress from preschool through college and
careers, increasing teacher effectiveness and focusing more intense support on failing schools.
15
Chicago Tribune, April 15, 2009 (Page 1 of 2)
Arne Duncan: Education secretary warns Illinois of

actions needed to get more stimulus cash
Extra U.S. funds for education said to be at risk
By John McCormick and Monique Garcia | Tribune reporters
During a visit home Tuesday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan warned his home state of Illinois is at risk
of losing its shot at a new pot of federal money if it fails to show the political will to fundamentally shake
up the way schools are funded and operated.
"I would love to see Illinois compete, but Illinois has to change its behavior," Duncan told the Tribune
editorial board.
The former Chicago Public Schools chief said the state has a real chance to compete for a share of $5
billion the Obama administration plans to make available for states that want to try new approaches to
improving education. But Duncan also acknowledged skepticism about the odds Illinois will change its
stripes, given his years of frustration in unsuccessfully lobbying for reform in Springfield.
"Business as usual, to be clear, would basically eliminate Illinois from competition," Duncan said. "But
we're not looking just at past track record. We're looking at folks who are really willing to challenge the
status quo."
Duncan said funding inequity, a limit on the number of charter schools, marginal efforts to police teacher
quality and other old-school ways put the state at risk of disqualification from future innovation funding.
He pointed to the removal of Rod Blagojevich as governor as a positive step forward.
"That piece of it is behind us, and Illinois has a chance to either stay at a very mediocre level or
fundamentally break through and start to reward excellence and create innovation and incent innovation,"
he said.
Asked about Gov. Pat Quinn's plans to use a large portion of the federal stimulus money meant for
education to plug holes in the state budget, Duncan declined to discuss specifics.
"If folks are playing shell games, if folks are operating in bad faith, it puts their second chance at billions of
dollars in jeopardy," he said. "We have significant carrots and sticks."
Quinn has proposed using $1 billion in stimulus money the state is expected to soon receive to pay down
a backlog of bills to local school districts. An additional $2 billion will go to supporting education this year
and next, but Quinn's proposed increase for education next year would only be about $174 million.
"The purpose of this was to ensure states didn't have to reduce education spending in this economic
downturn, and that's exactly what the state of Illinois is using the money for," Quinn spokeswoman Katie
Ridgway said.
Matt Vanover, a spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Education, said the state is in a position to
capture additional stimulus dollars because it is putting together a data tracking system to monitor student
progress and reviewing ways to improve teacher effectiveness and achievement standards.
Duncan, 44, also repeatedly referenced his successes and failures while guiding Chicago schools, the
16
Chicago Tribune, April 15, 2009 (Page 2 of 2)
nation's third-largest system. His efforts to restructure struggling schools, experiment with incentive pay
for teachers in high-poverty schools and reward students with money for grades earned him critics and
champions.
As he called for higher pay for those teaching math, science and foreign languages, Duncan said states
need to be more aggressive in closing the worst schools. "You basically eliminate that bottom part of your
portfolio," he said.
A longtime Obama basketball buddy and fellow Harvard alumnus, Duncan said plans are in the works for
the president, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Jill Biden, a teacher, to go to
college campuses this fall to promote teaching careers as a way to do public service.
Duncan made clear he hopes to return to Chicago after his time in Washington. "This is home," he said. "I
hope to be there eight years."
17
Edgar says community colleges

important for economy
By Noelle McGee
Wednesday April 15, 2009
DANVILLE As they have done previously, community colleges again will play a major role in helping
people get through these tough economic times, a former Illinois governor told community college officials
on Tuesday.
"The recession will end, but things won't be the same," said former Gov. Jim Edgar, now a Distinguished
Fellow at the University of Illinois' Institute of Government and Public Affairs. "We have to be prepared
and have our workers prepared for the new economy. This is a great opportunity for you in higher
education."
The two-term governor, who also was Secretary of State for 10 years and a state representative for
another 10, spoke at the Illinois Community College Trustees Association East Central Region meeting at
Danville Area Community College.
DACC Trustee Dave Harby is the chairman of the East Central Region, which also includes Parkland,
Lake Land, Heartland, Lincoln Land and Richland community colleges.
Edgar said Illinois has been through one its most traumatic times with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's
arrest for political corruption, impeachment and removal from office, which made the state "the
laughingstock of the nation." But looking back, he said, it was the best thing that could have happened.
"We couldn't go on being as dysfunctional as we had been," he said, adding the state now has a new
governor and leaders that talk to each other. "They may not agree on everything, but at least we're
making some progress."
Edgar said Gov. Pat Quinn's biggest challenge will be passing a state budget, which now has an
estimated $11 billion to $12 billion deficit. He supports Quinn's proposed tax increase, which "has been
needed for a few years."
He also believes Quinn must make deeper cuts. "We can't continue to spend beyond our means," said
Edgar, who inherited a $1 billion debt when he became governor in 1991. He was able to restore fiscal
stability by downsizing and restructuring state government. When he left the office in 1999, the state had
a $1.5 billion surplus.
But spending started to get out of control under former Gov. George Ryan and continued under
Blagojevich, he said.
"You cannot keep borrowing yourself out of debt," he said. "It's going to take a tax increase and cutting
the budget."
Edgar cautioned community college leaders to not expect a state funding increase. He added they always
have been good at knowing how to stretch their money.
Quinn's administration also must address economic development, Edgar said. That's where higher
18
education, particularly from community colleges, plays a role.
"We need to train our workers," he said, adding the two-year institutions can do that and at an affordable
cost. "Planning, coordination and partnerships will be important."
Edgar also said everyone in the state must root out and clean up corruption. While the last two governors
were tarnished by corruption, he said he believes "that's an exception, not the rule. Most people are
honest people who want to do a good job."
He said leaders must be smart enough to surround themselves with people who will help keep them in
check, and political party members and voters must do a better job of paying attention to what their
leaders are doing and holding them accountable for their actions.
And, educational institutions at every level can play a part by teaching ethics.
"We've got to do a better job teaching our young people the difference between right and wrong," he said,
adding questionable activity happens in the private sector, athletics and other areas as well as
government. "If we do that, we won't see governors of Illinois going to jail."
Edgar ended by saying we have an opportunity for change, but it's going to take everyone to make it
happen. "I have a lot of faith in the people of Illinois. No matter if it's southern Illinois or inner-city Chicago,
most folks care. We've got a lot of talent in the state. We've got to pull that talent together ... and rebuild.
We can't continue to think it's somebody else's job. It's all of our job."
19
The Southern Illinoisan, April 15, 2009
Senate president: Capitol atmosphere improved

BY SCOTT FITZGERALD, THE SOUTHERN
Wednesday, April 15, 2009 11:07 PM CDT
CARBONDALE -Illinois Senate President John Cullerton visited Southern Illinois University Carbondale
on Tuesday as a guest of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute's John White Lecture Series.
The Chicago Democrat was instrumental in securing funds necessary to open a $22 million cancer
treatment center at the SIU Medical School in July. He also added a provision to the state's indoor
smoking ban that allowed one of the foremost researchers in smoking cessation research, David Gilbert
of SIUC, to continue work here.
"The same day I was elected (senate president), we began to start an impeachment trial of an Illinois
governor. It's a very serious thing to remove an elected official from office," Cullerton told a large
audience gathered in an SIUC Student Center ballroom.
He also conducted a news conference and fielded questions about work being done on the current state
budget, including higher education funding and state employee pensions.
"We need more money for operations. We need more money for scholarships," he said in response to a
question about higher education accessibility.
Cullerton, elected to the senate presidency in January, also talked about the backlash of the Blagojevich
administration, which he said caused a "total embarrassment" on a national level.
And important legislation, such as a major capital improvements bill, gridlocked during the Blagojevich
administration, Cullerton said.
Cullerton cited "a toxic atmosphere" in the Statehouse as the former governor and lawmakers butted
heads for much of Blagojevich's six-year tenure.
State lawmakers are working to avoid future scandal by the recent establishing of an ethics reform panel,
Cullerton said.
Blagojevich and several of his associates have been indicted on federal corruption charges; the governor
this week pleaded not guilty and vowed to clear his name.
SIUC Chancellor Sam Goldman said he sees an encouraging change in state government.
"This is the first time in years the state government is engaged. There's a good feeling. (Cullerton) has a
quiet confidence," Goldman said.
Concerning a question directed at Cullerton earlier about an increase in state higher education funding
proposed by Gov. Pat Quinn, Goldman said he expected support from Cullerton when budget
negotiations come down to crunch time.
"(Cullerton) didn't say yes. He didn't say no. But it sounds like he will be supportive," Goldman said.
20
Cullerton promises a capital bill

By Adam Testa, The Southern
Thursday, April 16, 2009 8:11 AM CDT
CARBONDALE - State Senate President John Cullerton on Wednesday guaranteed the implementation
of a state capital construction bill.
Cullerton, D-Chicago, said the Legislature and governor will need to agree on funding mechanisms for the
$25 billion plan, which includes about $13 million in bonds and the rest in federal matching dollars.
"We will not have a budget without a capital bill," Cullerton said. "And we're going to have a budget, so
we're going to have a capital bill."
Funding for a capital bill, however, is an area that still needs to be figured out, he said. The state has
previously discussed privatizing the lottery as a means of funding the bill. Cullerton said he isn't opposed
to the option, but would rather see that money used for the state's general fund than a capital bill.
Using an income tax hike to fund the bill could create issues with Chicago-area residents who would
contribute the most but see the least amount of the work funded by the bill, he said, suggesting a rise in
gasoline taxes would keep the contributions more proportional.
An 8-cent increase in gas taxes - currently 19 cents - would generate about $500 million per year, he
said.
"It's something I think should be on the table," Cullerton said.
21
The Chicago Tribune, EDTORIAL, April 17, 2009 (Page 1 of 2)
Arne to Illinois: Shape up

In 71/2 years as CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, Arne Duncan learned plenty about the dysfunction
that defines the education system in Illinois. He was, by and large, polite about thatperhaps because he
needed the Illinois legislature to keep sending money to the city schools.
Duncan is now the secretary of education in the Obama administration. And he's talking very bluntly
about the failings of education here.
He came home this week and said Illinois public schools don't cut it.
Duncan has $5 billion to hand out to states that promote innovative ideas in education. If Illinois doesn't
change, it won't see a dime of that money.
"We're going to work with a set of states who are literally going to lead the country where we need to go.
We're going to work with a set of states who commit to behaving dramatically differently," he told the
editorial board.
"Illinois has a chance to compete for hundreds of millions of dollars. I would love to see Illinois compete,"
Duncan said. "But Illinois has to change its behavior. Business as usual, to be clear, would basically
eliminate Illinois from the competition."
Wait, there's more.
"In too many places, including Illinois, we are lying to children now. [When] we tell a child they are
meeting the state standards, the logical implication is that child's on track to be successful. In too many
places, including Illinois, if you are meeting state standards you are barely qualified to graduate from high
school and you are totally unqualified to go to a university and graduate," he said.
Hold on, not done yet.
"Illinois has a chance to either stay at a very mediocre level, or fundamentally break through and start to
reward excellence and start to create innovation and incent innovation," Duncan said. "And I would
strongly urge the state, and I would urge you to help encourage the state, to think very, very differently
about what they do. And if Illinois commits to that there's a chance of putting in tremendous, tremendous
resources the likes of which this state has never seen.
"But if things don't change in a very meaningful way, Illinois won't be among those eight or 10 or 15
states" that receive a share of the $5 billion.
So what does Duncan want?
He wants Illinois to lift its cap on charter schools. State law says there can be no more than 60 charter
schools in the state, but there is demand for more than that. Why the cap? Because charter school
teachers usually don't have unions, and the teachers unions see that as a threat.
"Great charters make a huge difference in kids' lives. What I loved about charters is they're a school of
choice," Duncan said. "If kids stop showing up, we'll take the school out. The money follows the kid."
Duncan is absolutely rightthe cap on charters just cheats children, and it has to be lifted.
Duncan wants Illinois and other states to chart the performance of children, and connect that performance
22
The Chicago Tribune, EDTORIAL, April 17, 2009 (Page 2 of 2)
to their teachers, and connect those teachers to the education schools that produced them. He's saying:
Let's find out who's turning out good teachers and which teachers are turning out educated kids.
So is Illinois moving on reform? Not that you could tell from Springfield. All the talk is about how much
money Gov. Pat Quinn would provide to schools. Precious little talk about shaking the status quo.
One bill that has passed the Senate would set up a system to track students and tie their performance to
their teachers. But the bill declares that the information couldn't be used "for decisions involving teacher
pay or teacher benefits" unless the union agreed.
Pay teachers based on their performance? We'll have none of that here!
Two years ago, this page set out a reform agenda for Illinois education and said any substantial increase
in school funding has to be tied to progress on those reforms.
Arne Duncan came back to Illinois and, in large part, issued the same challenge.
So everyone who has a hand in education herefrom the teachers unions to the school boards to the
governorhas been put on notice by the education secretary.
Change fast, or blow the chance to take part in a $5 billion effort to improve your schools.
"That would be a damn shame for the kids of this state, but it is what it is," Duncan said. "In terms of
rewarding excellence, I'm not going to mess around with that. We want to work with folks that
fundamentally want to change the status quo."
Your move, Illinois.
23
USA TODAY, April 13, 2009
Average college credit card debt

rises with fees, tuition
By Kathy Chu, USA TODAY
As college costs soar, students are charging more educational expenses to plastic, helping boost credit
card debt to record levels.
A new study to be released Monday by Sallie Mae, a college-financing company, finds that the average
undergraduate carried $3,173 in credit card debt last year, the highest level since Sallie Mae began
collecting this data in 1998. In 2004, the last time the study was done, students carried an average of
$2,169 in card debt.
The higher the grade level, the greater the card debt, according to Sallie Mae. In 2008, college seniors
with at least one credit card graduated with an average of $4,138 in card debt, up 44% from 2004. By
comparison, freshmen's average credit card debt jumped 27% to $2,038.
The study which had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points relied on March 2008
credit bureau data, the latest available to Sallie Mae. Because the economy has deteriorated since then,
"It's likely that 2009 (card debt) could look a little bit worse," says Marie O'Malley, Sallie Mae's director of
consumer research.
The findings come as college costs are surging. In the past 10 years, tuition and fees at public four-year
colleges have climbed 50%, to an average of $6,585 a year, according to the College Board.
Lenders are also pulling back on private loans, making it harder for some students to pay for college.
Student loans backed by the federal government, however, are still readily available.
Credit cards are the "lender of last resort," says Kalman Chany, president of Campus Consultants, a
college funding adviser. "If (students) can't get private loans, they turn to credit cards."
Sallie Mae's research suggests that more students are paying for educational expenses such as books
and school supplies with credit cards. And they're doing so more often: In 2008, students charged an
average of $2,200 in educational expenses to cards, up 134% from four years earlier.
These findings are unscientific because they're based on a poll separate from Sallie Mae's analysis of
credit bureau data of 292 private-loan applicants. Nevertheless, the results mirror those of other
industry surveys.
"The message is clear," says Edmund Mierzwinski, consumer program director for the U.S. Public Interest
Research Group. "Students are carrying more debt on credit cards, and more students are paying for
education on credit cards."
24
The Chicago Sun-Times, April 13, 2009
College students' credit card debt hits record level

BY KATHY CHU
As college costs soar, students are charging more educational expenses to plastic, helping boost credit
card debt to record levels.
A new study to be released today by Sallie Mae, a college-financing company, finds that the average
undergraduate carried $3,173 in credit card debt last year, the highest level since Sallie Mae began
collecting this data in 1998. In 2004, the last time the study was done, students carried $2,169 in card
debt.
The higher the grade level, the greater the card debt, according to Sallie Mae. In 2008, college seniors
with at least one credit card graduated with an average of $4,100 in card debt, up 41 percent from 2004.
By comparison, freshmen's average credit card debt jumped 27 percent to $2,038.
The study -- which had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points -- relied on March 2008
credit bureau data, the latest available to Sallie Mae. Because the economy has deteriorated since then,
"It's likely that 2009 [card debt] could look a little bit worse," says Marie O'Malley, Sallie Mae's director of
consumer research.
Lenders are also pulling back on private loans, making it harder for some students to pay for college.
Student loans backed by the federal government, however, are still readily available.
Credit cards are the "lender of last resort," says Kalman Chany, president of Campus Consultants, a
college funding adviser.
Gannett News Service
25
Inside Higher Ed, April 13, 2009 (Page 1 of 7)
Murky Picture for Faculty Salaries

On paper, the annual report on faculty salaries being released today by the American Association of
University Professors suggests a good year for professors' pay. The average increase across all
categories was found to be 3.4 percent for 2008-9. While that's down from last year's average of 3.8
percent, last year's total was outpaced by inflation, while this year's gains came amid virtually no inflation
(at least according to official statistics).
If you are a faculty member reading this and not feeling particularly flush, however, there's good reason,
as the AAUP report is quick to point out. The data were collected prior to the announcements of many
colleges of how they were dealing with the economic turmoil over over the last six months. So the many
faculty members who were furloughed this year or the smaller number who experienced salary cuts had
original salaries reported for the study. And while furloughs do not technically change salary level, they
are de facto pay cuts (especially if, as is frequently the case, professors don't feel they can actually take
the time off), and many furloughs are long enough and raises this year were small enough that they will
have effectively canceled each other out.
Further, with many colleges announcing pay freezes for 2009-10, and many a faculty member's
retirement account suddenly much smaller than it was a year ago, there are all kinds of reasons that any
raise received for 2008-9 isn't feeling like it would have in past years (or leading to a standard of living
increase). The figures also apply only to full-time faculty members, so the huge part-time teaching force in
higher education (which is generally on the low end of the salary scale and this year is experiencing many
layoffs) is not reflected.
The AAUP's report on salaries warns that colleges face serious dangers if colleges try to maneuver out of
current economic difficulties -- however real -- by sacrificing professors' salaries and using poorly paid
part timers to teach a larger share of courses.
"Like the larger economy, we are on the brink, and it will be critically important for faculty members to
participate fully in the difficult budget decisions to come," the report says. "They must insist on full access
to information, and take a critical look at claims about the need for immediate actions that will result in
further demands on already strained human resources. Decisions about salaries, reductions in faculty
positions and academic programs, and changes in the employment conditions of contingent faculty will
affect the quality of the education we can offer for years to come, and we must ensure that the choices
we make are good ones."
Even with the various caveats attached this year's figures, the overall data and the campus-by-campus
statistics (available today on the AAUP's Web site) show a further extension of trends in which the salary
gaps within the professoriate grow. This year, salary levels for full professors saw larger raises (an
average of 3.8 percent) than did associate and assistant professors (both 3.6 percent) than did instructors
(3.3 percent).
(It may seem odd that those figures add up to a situation in which the national average increase is 3.4
percent, especially since the AAUP survey counts far more professors than instructors, and this has led
some experts to question the AAUP for not using weighting in its calculations, but the association has
stuck with its approach. It should be noted that the questions only concern the national averages across
institutions, and not the data for individual ranks or institutions.)
More evidence of the have/have-not reality of higher education is found in the totals for institutions. At 13
institutions (and these aren't institutions announcing furloughs, although many have frozen salaries for
next year), the average for a full professor's salary is more than $160,000 and the top average is
approaching $200,000. Meanwhile, there are 12 institutions where the average salary for a full professor
26
doesn't top $50,000, and 19 (including 6 of the previous 12) where the average salary for an assistant
professor doesn't top $40,000.
Generally, private, non-church-related institutions saw the largest increases this year, with an average
salary increase of 4.0 percent across institution types and faculty ranks. That compares to 3.1 percent for
publics and 3.9 percent for church-related institutions. The gap is particularly notable at doctoral
institutions, where the independent private universities saw an increase of 4.6 percent, compared to 2.8
percent for publics and 4.0 for church related institutions -- across sectors and ranks.
Here are the salary averages for institutions in various categories, broken down by faculty rank.
Average Salary for Full-Time Faculty Members, by Category, Affiliation and Rank, 2008-9
Category
Public
Private, Independent
Church-Related
--Full professor
$115,509
$151,403
$129,615
--Associate professor
$79,986
$95,948
$87,262
--Assistant professor
$68,048
$82,295
$72,872
--Instructor
$45,491
$56,931
$59,483
--Lecturer
$51,827
$62,799
$52,478
--Full professor
$88,357
$99,555
$88,036
$70,308
$75,034
$69,195
$59,416
$61,986
$57,617
--Instructor
$43,183
$48,781
$46,840
--Lecturer
$49,159
$54,208
$49,798
--Full professor
$84,488
$98,808
$75,112
$68,193
$72,719
$60,737
$56,977
$58,882
$51,075
--Instructor
$43,970
$48,247
$43,342
--Lecturer--Lecturer
$49,708
$58,014
$42,349
Doctoral institution
Master's institution
Baccalaureate college
27
Community college
--Full professor
$74,933
n/a
n/a
$60,737
n/a
n/a
$53,427
n/a
n/a
--Instructor
$46,063
n/a
n/a
--Lecturer
$50,415
n/a
n/a
Institutional Rankings
The AAUP study may be best known for its averages by institutions, which allow faculty members and
administrators to compare averages to peer institutions or the institutions they want to emulate. There are
numerous issues related to such comparisons that aren't reflected in the data, such as the wide variation
in cost of livi ng within the United States. But such issues have never detracted from the popularity of
comparing institutional averages.
The top salaries this year, as in all recent years, are at private research universities, with Harvard
University leading at $192,600. There is a good chance, however, that Harvard may actually be second.
Rockefeller University, which last year had an average of $191,200 -- more than $6,000 above Harvard's
average last year -- did not participate in the survey this year.
Top 10 Universities in Salaries for Full-Time Full Professors
University
Average Salary
1. Harvard University
$192,600
2. Stanford University
$181,900
3. Princeton University
$180,300
4. University of Chicago
$179,500
5. Columbia University
$175,200
6. Yale University
$174,700
7. California Institute of Technology
$172,500
8. New York University
$170,700
9. University of Pennsylvania
$169,400
10. Yeshiva University
$168,300
The highest average salary at a public university the year -- University of California at Los Angeles -- is
$48,100 less than the figure for Harvard. This year's top 10 list for public universities is considerably
28
different from last year's, but doesn't necessarily mean that there was significant movement. The
University of California System, which is well represented on this year's list (and has been historically) did
not participate last year.
Top 10 Public Universities in Salaries for Full-Time Full Professors
University
Average Salary
1. University of California at Los Angeles
$144,500
2. University of California at Berkeley
$143,500
3. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
$142,700
4. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
$142,100
5. (tie) University of Maryland at Baltimore
$141,200
5. (tie) New Jersey Institute of Technology
$141,200
7. Georgia Institute of Technology
$139,800
8. Rutgers University at Newark
$139,000
9. Rutgers University at New Brunswick
$137,500
10. Rutgers University at Camden
$136,000
The top spot among liberal arts colleges illustrates that even institutions that have made faculty pay a
priority are in retrenchment mode this year. Wellesley College leads in this category (as it did last year),
but just last week announced the latest budget cuts in response to a decline in endowment value. Shifts
at the college will include a salary freeze for faculty members and 44 layoffs of non-faculty positions.
Top 10 Liberal Arts Colleges in Salaries for Full-Time Full Professors
College
Average Salary
1. Wellesley College
$145,500
2. Barnard College
$135,700
3. Pomona College
$135,300
4. Amherst College
$135,200
5. Williams College
$132,700
6. Claremont McKenna College
$131,100
7. Harvey Mudd College
$130,800
29
8. Wesleyan University
$130,300
9. (tie) Smith College
$129,600
9. (tie) Swarthmore College
$129,600
Many community colleges do not participate in the AAUP survey, but among those that do, the City
University of New York and other institutions in the New York area top the list from year to year.
Westchester Community College keeps its top rank, but three CUNY community colleges join it in having
average salaries for full professors that exceed $100,000.
Community Colleges Where Average Salary for Full Professors Is More Than $90,000
Community College
Average Salary
1. Westchester Community College
$109,000
2. Hostos Community College
$105,900
3. Queensborough Community College
$103,800
4. LaGuardia Community College
$101,500
5. Borough of Manhattan Community College
$99,100
6. Kingsborough Community College
$97,900
7. Miami University Hamilton
$97,300
8.(tie) Bronx Community College
$96,700
8. (tie) Union County College
$96,700
For assistant professor average salaries, CalTech continues to lead at $105,500. Last year, CalTech was
the only college in the survey where the average salary for assistant professors was in six figures. This
year there are two more: Harvard ($101,400) and Stanford (100,800).
California institutions hold the top two spots on associate professor average as well.
Top 10 Institutions in Salaries for Associate Professors
University
Average Salary
1. Stanford University
$128,000
2. California Institute of Technology
$126,200
3. Princeton University
$114,300
4. University of Pennsylvania
$114,100
30
5. Babson College
$113,300
6. Thomas M. Cooley Law School
$112,400
7. Harvard University
$112,300
8. Columbia University
$112,200
9. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
$110,300
10. Cornell University (endowed units)
$109,800
The AAUP study also draws attention to the low salaries paid to some full-time professors. Many of the
institutions on the lists that follow are in rural areas and/or at religious institutions.
Colleges Where Average Salary of Full-Time Assistant Professor Is $40,000 or Less
College
Average Salary
1. Tabor College
$32,100
2. University of the Southwest (New Mexico)
$34,500
3. Bethany College (Kansas)
$35,600
4. Northland College
$36,400
5. Warner Pacific University
$37,000
6. Kentucky Christian University
$37,200
7. Alderson-Broaddus College
$37,500
8. Iowa Lakes Community College
$37,800
9. Union College (Kentucky)
$39,000
10. Taylor University at Fort Wayne
$39,200
11. Bethany College (West Virginia)
$39,300
12. (tie) Rocky Mountain College of Art and

Design
$39,500
12 (tie) Central Methodist University
$39,500
14. Tiffin University
$39,600
15. (tie) University of New Mexico at Valencia
$39,700
31
15. (tie) Marshall Community and Technical
College
$39,700
15. (tie) Ohio Valley University
$39,700
18. (tie) Missouri Baptist University
$40,000
18 (tie) Pikeville College
$40,000
College Where Average Salary for Full-Time Full Professors Is $50,000 or Less
College
Average Salary
1. Tabor College
$40,800
2. Union College (Kentucky)
$42,100
3. Tennessee Wesleyan College
$43,400
4. Walla Walla University
$44,900
5. University of the Southwest (New Mexico)
$45,900
6. Kentucky Christian University
$46,200
7. Alderson-Broaddus College
$46,700
8. Faith Baptist Bible College and Seminary

(Iowa)
$48,000
9. Mineral Area Community College
$49,500
10. St. Andrew's Presbyterian College
$49,600
11. Ohio Valley University
$49,700
12. New Mexico State University at Alamogordo
$49,900
John Curtis, AAUPs director of research and public policy, said that it was unprecedented for the AAUP
survey to involve so many states and institutions where budgets have changed significantly since data
were submitted. He said that the AAUP was considering steps it can take -- such as an updated survey or
new data for this year in next year's survey -- so that long term patterns are accurately reflected after all
of the cuts are made.
He stressed that the data released today - while not final -- represent a best case scenario for faculty
salaries this year, with the reality being that many are not experiencing real raises of the magnitude
reported in the survey. Looking at the furloughs and various cuts being announced, he said, "it does strike
me that the whole question of implementing furloughs and recisions is symbolic of the commitment to
higher education, of not viewing it as as an investment as we should."
Scott Jaschik
32
The New York Times, April 13, 2009 (Page 1 of 3)
Plan to change student lending sets up a fight

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
April 13, 2009
WASHINGTON The private student lending industry and its allies in Congress are maneuvering to
thwart a plan by President Obama to end a subsidized loan program and redirect billions of dollars in
bank profits to scholarships for needy students.
The plan is the main money-saving component of Mr. Obamas education agenda, which includes a
sweeping overhaul of financial aid programs. The Congressional Budget Office says replacing subsidized
loans made by private banks with direct government lending would save $94 billion over the next decade,
money that Mr. Obama would use to expand Pell grants for the poorest students.
But the proposal has ignited one of the most fractious policy fights this year.
Because it would make spending on Pell grants mandatory, limiting Congressional control, powerful
appropriators are balking at it. Republicans say the plan is proof that Mr. Obama is trying to vastly expand
government. Democrats are divided, with lawmakers from districts where lenders are big employers
already drawing battle lines.
At the same time, the private loan industry, which would have collapsed without a government rescue last
year, has begun lobbying aggressively to save a program that has generated giant profits with very little
risk.
The administration has decided that it wants to capture the profits of federal student loans, said Kevin
Bruns, executive director of Americas Student Loan Providers, a trade group that is fighting Mr. Obamas
plan.
To press its case, the nations largest student lender, Sallie Mae, has hired two prominent lobbyists, Tony
Podesta, whose brother, John, led the Obama transition, and Jamie S. Gorelick, a former deputy attorney
general in the Clinton administration.
For lenders, the stakes are huge. Just last week, Sallie Mae reported that despite losing $213 million in
2008, it paid its chief executive more than $4.6 million in cash and stock and its vice chairman more than
$13.2 million in cash and stock, including the use of a company plane. The company, which did not
receive money under the $700 billion financial system bailout and is not subject to pay restrictions, also
disbursed cash bonuses of up to $600,000 to other executives.
Sallie Mae said that executive compensation was lower in 2008 than 2007 and that the stock awards
were worthless in the current market.
Critics of the subsidized loan system, called the Federal Family Education Loan Program, say private
lenders have collected hefty fees for decades on loans that are risk-free because the government
guarantees repayment up to 97 percent. With the government directly or indirectly financing virtually all
federal student loans because of the financial crisis, the critics say there is no reason to continue a
program that was intended to inject private capital into the education lending system.
Under the subsidized loan program, the government pays lenders like Citigroup, Bank of America and
Sallie Mae, with both the subsidy and the maximum interest rate for borrowers set by Congress.
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Students are steered to the governments direct program or to outside lenders, depending on their
schools preference.
Private lenders say they still provide valuable service, marketing, customer relations, billing, default
prevention and collection of delinquent loans. The lenders say the budget savings could be achieved
without ending their role and are pushing to keep the system in place, including an arrangement approved
by Congress last year by which they are paid to originate loans but can resell them to the government.
Martha Holler, a spokeswoman for Sallie Mae, said the company wanted a compromise. To be clear,
there are those who are fighting to preserve the historic financing structure for federal student loans, she
wrote in an e-mail message following up on a telephone interview. Sallie Mae is not among them. In fact,
we support constructive alternatives that would generate a similar level of taxpayer savings to achieve the
administrations important goals.
Lenders are also emphasizing the jobs they provide.
Sallie Maes chief executive, Albert L. Lord, held a town-hall-style meeting last week at the companys
loan center in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., with two Democrats, Senator Bob Casey and Representative Paul E.
Kanjorski, to announce the return of 2,000 jobs that were sent overseas in 2007.
Mr. Lord, in his opening speech, insisted that Mr. Obamas proposal offered new opportunities, but he
said he would fight to keep the current system mostly intact.
We can either meet or beat the budget savings that are in the presidents budget with the exact same
system that we have got working now with maybe a few tweaks, he said.
But to preserve a profitable role for private lenders and still achieve Mr. Obamas savings seems
extremely difficult if not impossible; initial projections put forward by Sallie Mae could reach only 82
percent of the presidents goal over five years.
Last year, to keep education financing from drying up, Congress expanded the governments role,
including the repurchase of loans, which Sallie Mae and some other lenders say should be mandatory
going forward.
When you add that all up, a very legitimate question to ask is why do we even need private lenders, said
Representative Timothy H. Bishop, Democrat of New York and a former provost of Southampton College.
For Mr. Bishop and many other education advocates, Mr. Obamas plan to expand the existing direct loan
program used by more than 1,500 schools is obvious and long overdue.
But the administration has a fight on its hands.
The presidents proposal, Representative Allen Boyd, Democrat of Florida, said in a floor speech, could
be detrimental to thousands of employees who serve in the current student loan industry throughout this
country, 650 of which are located in Panama City, Florida.
In some states, student loans are administered by quasi-governmental agencies that benefit the same as
private lenders. To appeal to these states, the administration has proposed $500 million a year for
financial literacy programs and other services the agencies provide.
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Political opposition may be harder to overcome.
Representative Howard P. McKeon of California, the senior Republican on the education committee, said
Democrats should not cut out lenders. A government-run, one-size-fits-all program is not the answer, he
said.
But some lawmakers have no sympathy for an industry now kept afloat by taxpayers.
If the banks complain that they are getting cut out, said Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of
Massachusetts, too bad.
At the Wilkes-Barre event, Mr. Lord of Sallie Mae acknowledged his industrys reliance on the
government. I dont see private capital financing student loans, certainly any time soon, he said.
Even as lenders fight the presidents plan, Sallie Mae and others are bidding for work that will remain if it
is adopted contracts for loan servicing and other back office operations.
The presidents plan would use the money from direct lending to help increase Pell grants and make them
mandatory, with annual increases tied to inflation, providing a much-needed measure of certainty for
students. That would limit Congressional control over the grants, an idea appropriators are not keen on,
but the White House and Congressional leaders say they are open to negotiation.
Anticipating a ferocious legislative battle, Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and
chairman of the education committee, is weighing all options.
Chairman Millers priority is to make our federal student loan programs as reliable, sustainable and
efficient as possible for students, families and taxpayers, his spokeswoman, Rachel Racusen, said.
Jonathan D. Glater contributed reporting.
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Stimulus Spurs Campus Building

Little by little, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- better known as the economic stimulus
package -- is having an effect on college campuses. While the biggest ticket items, such as tens of
billions in research and state stabilization dollars, are not yet flowing in any meaningful way, colleges
have begun to take advantage of separate provisions in the new law designed to make it easier for them
to borrow money to finance capital projects.
The University of Minnesota announced Friday that it would become the first college in the country to use
the new Build America Bonds, which were created in the stimulus legislation to help state and local
governments (and related entities) raise money for building projects by making it significantly cheaper for
them to issue taxable bonds.
And several colleges, including the University of West Florida, are poised to take advantage of another
provision in the financial recovery law that will make it easier for nonprofit colleges and hospitals to
borrow money for capital projects directly from banks, rather than having to go to the financial markets.
In some cases, the two provisions will enable colleges that would otherwise have been unable to build
(because the financial markets were constricted or they could not afford the costs of borrowing) to do so.
In other cases, as at Minnesota, institutions will save significant money that they can use for other
purposes.
"Lowering our borrowing costs, in our case by about $2 million over 20 years, translates into not having to
raise tuition as much," says Richard Pfutzenreuter, vice president and chief financial officer at Minnesota.
Minnesota, as one of the country's largest public universities, is not among the colleges that have been
most hampered by the credit crisis that have made it more difficult and, in some cases, impossible for
government agencies to issue tax-exempt bonds for construction and other capital projects. The
university has continued to find buyers for its twice-a-year issuances of tax-exempt bonds, but it has seen
its costs of doing so rise significantly.
As Minnesota officials sought to raise about $85 million for a series of capital projects, including a new
biosciences building, a residence hall on its Crookston campus, and an athletics renovation at its Duluth
campus, they saw an opportunity to save money through the Build America Bonds program. Under the
program, which the Internal Revenue Service explains here, the federal government agrees to rebate to
state and local entities 35 percent of their interest costs on taxable bonds.
While the interest rate on taxable bonds tends to be higher than those charged on the tax-exempt bonds
that universities and other nonprofit entities typically use (because, as the name implies, they don't have
to pay tax on the interest they pay), the government program "will make the all-in interest cost [for taxable
bonds issued through Build America] lower than under tax-exempt bonds," says Minnesota's
Pfutzenreuter.
So next week, the university anticipates becoming the first postsecondary institution to go to the public
markets with taxable bonds through the Build America program, with the help of Wachovia Securities and
Wells Fargo Brokerage Securities. About $35 million of the university's $86 million offering will be in
taxable bonds. The subsidies it will receive from the government on its debt service payments will save it
$2 million, Pfutzenreuter says.
A Boon to Building, Through Banks
The other change in the stimulus legislation that is poised to spur campus construction has been a long
time coming. Advocates for nonprofit organizations have been pushing for more than 20 years to undo a
change made as part of the federal government's 1986 tax reform that barred banks from deducting
36
interest payments or carrying costs on money they borrowed, except for relatively small loans they made
to state or other entities that borrowed less than $10 million a year. (For more details, see this earlier
article.)
That change took away one avenue for colleges that had historically depended for capital projects on
state agencies that borrowed from banks, and their remaining options -- entering the public markets or
paying significant more to cover the interest costs of the banks they borrowed from -- grew less feasible
with the economic downturn.
The economic recovery measure, though, changed federal tax law to allow banks to deduct the interest
on any loans as long as the ultimate recipient of the money -- an individual college, for instance -- does
not borrow more than $30 million in a year.
The University of West Florida is among the first to take advantage of the change. To finance the
construction of a much-needed, 250-student residence hall, the university, working through the local
Escambia County Housing Authority, has qualified for a $15 million loan from BB&T that would have been
impossible three months ago. Not only did the amount exceed the $10 million cap on the size of loans
under the old tax law, but the university would have been required to pay as much as $100,000 to the
county government, to cover the county's perceived costs of agreeing to forgo its own ability to borrow
from banks, says Paula G. Drummond, a lawyer for the Escambia housing authority.
Financing the project through a bank-qualified loan will give the university a better interest rate than it
would have received through the public markets, had it been able to interest investors in the project, and
will save it the issuance and insurance costs, Drummond says.
"This whole thing is just made possible by the stimulus."
Doug Lederman
37
The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 14, 2009 (Page 1 of 2)
Locked-in tuition is a win for families

but a tough sell for colleges
By BECKIE SUPIANO
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Tuition just about always moves in the same direction: up. So wouldn't it be great if students could lock in
tuition at their college and know they will pay the same amount for four years?
It seems like a no-brainer, especially now. But some colleges have tried the strategy only to find it hard to
convince families that it's a good idea.
That hasn't stopped colleges from trying. The University of Texas at Dallas began its Guaranteed Tuition
Rate Plan in the fall of 2007, as a way to "provide simplicity, predictability, and clarity for our students,"
says Curt Eley, the university's vice president for enrollment management.
Under the plan, incoming students are promised that their tuition and mandatory fees will remain the
same for four years from the time they begin their studies. "It takes what I call the inflation risk out of
tuition and fees for each individual student," Mr. Eley says. The university even offers the guarantee to
students enrolling in Texas community colleges who plan to transfer. Those students sign a document
that binds the university to charge them the university's current tuition rate but doesn't obligate them to
attend.
The Dallas campus's program began before the economy tanked, but it could be even better for families
now. Many households don't expect their incomes to go up in the next year, and it would be especially
helpful if their college expenses remained flat.
Strategy Reliant on Growth
Under the plan, the college gets fewer tuition dollars from each continuing student. But Mr. Eley says the
university has been able to finance it by substantially increasing its student body through both recruitment
and retention. That growth is providing a cushion while the university adjusts to the new tuition model. It
would be much harder to start such a program at a college that had already reached full capacity, he
says.
Letting students lock in their tuition isn't a new idea, but as the recession pressures families and colleges
alike, pricing strategies are particularly important, and many colleges will be trying to think creatively. As
colleges contemplate pricing, they must keep in mind not only the actual cost to families but also the
perceived cost.
On its face, Texas at Dallas's guarantee is an obvious boon for students and their families. Not only does
the program take the guesswork out of what next year's tuition will be, but it also provides savings for
students who stay long enough to complete their degree.
Letting students lock in tuition is a great idea in theory, says Kathy Kurz, vice president of the highereducation consulting company Scannell & Kurz. But in reality, it is not so simple for colleges to market.
For the last few years, tuition has increased by an average of 4.5 to 6.5 percent a year, depending on the
type of institution. But if a college has a tuition guarantee, it won't have those year-to-year increases. To
38
compensate, colleges must raise tuition significantly from one year's freshman class to the next. An
incoming freshman at a college with fixed tuition may find herself paying 12 percent more than freshmen
did the year before.
That, Ms. Kurz says, creates a marketing problem. Though families may be set up to save money over
the long run with guaranteed tuition, they often don't look past the first-year price tagwhich is likely to be
higher than that of similar institutions. "The biggest concern is, at least initially, families pay more," Ms.
Kurz says. Paying more that first yeareven if it means future savingsstrikes many families as too
risky, she says.
That is especially true this year, as college after college has announced its lowest tuition increase in
years. "Colleges, by and large, are having a much smaller rate of tuition increase than any time in the last
five or six years," says Robert A. Sevier, senior vice president for strategy at Stamats, a higher-educationmarketing company. "It's not the time for a nine-, 10-, 11- or 12-percent increase, which a lot of four-year
fixed rates need."
A Retention Tool
For that reason, Texas at Dallas educates families about its program throughout the admissions process,
helping them think through the cost of a whole college education rather than focusing on that first year,
Mr. Eley says. "I would make the argument to a family, it's great that college X is increasing tuition by 2.5
percent and not 5 percent, but we're raising it 0 percent" for continuing students. "College X isn't making a
contractual promise. There's no reason they can't turn around and raise tuition 10 percent next year."
And, Mr. Eley says, the program is primarily designed to encourage retention, making it easier for
students to plan for all four years and encouraging them to graduate on time.
Even when families understand the potential benefits, they may be wary of locking in tuition. What if the
student transfers or drops out? Officials at Oklahoma City University have noticed that reluctance.
The university also began a tuition guarantee recently, though it operates differently from Dallas's. At
Oklahoma City, the program is optional, and those students who enroll in it are charged several hundred
dollars a semester more in tuition their first year. Officials there say only 14 percent of students opt in to
the program, even though it works out to be a good deal for any student who stays four years.
Other colleges have abandoned tuition-guarantee programs in recent years. Central Michigan University
used to offer guaranteed tuition for up to five years, but stopped doing so in the summer of 2008. The
program, though popular, had become "a financial risk to the university," says Steven F. Smith, director of
media relations. It was premised on a level of state appropriations that the university no longer can count
on, he says.
The guaranteed-tuition program at Pace University also ran into trouble. Offering students a flat tuition
rate "requires a degree of stability in everything else," says Stephen J. Friedman, the university's
president, who was hired after Pace abandoned its program in 2007. Sustaining the guaranteed-tuition
program required large year-to-year increases, hitting 19 percent by the end. While he describes the
model as "creative," Mr. Friedman says it also was difficult to sell to families.
Mr. Eley admits the marketing isn't easy, but says that for his institution, it is worth it. "It's more work than
a typical pricing strategy," he says, "but morally better for families."
39
The Higher Ed Watch Blog, April 14, 2009 (Page 1 of 2)
Sallie Mae's Full Court Press

Stephen Burd
The U.S. Department of Education will soon make a decision that could fundamentally reshape the
student loan marketplace.
The Department has chosen six companies, including the student loan giant Sallie Mae, to compete for a
lucrative contract to service tens of billions of dollars of Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL) sold to
the government under the Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loans Act (ECASLA). But in the wake
of President Obama's proposal to eliminate FFEL and provide federal loans entirely through Direct
Lending, the stakes have been raised significantly. The winning bidders could be the last student loan
companies standing, in charge of servicing all loans made in the future under the Direct Lending program.
As Tim Ranzetta recently wrote on his well-respected blog Student Lending Analytics, "This contract is
the game-changer that will determine the landscape for student loans in the years to come."
Given the high stakes involved, you would think that the Department would do all that it could to ensure
that the loan companies it is considering have spotless records when it comes to servicing and collecting
on student loans. But judging by some of the companies that are involved in the competition and
comments recently made by the agency official in charge of the bidding process, this does not appear to
be the case.
Take Sallie Mae, which is making a full-court press to win the contract. Last week, for instance, the
company made a huge media splash with its announcement that it was returning 2,000 call center and
information technology jobs it had outsourced to India and other countries to the United States. While
Sallie Mae's Congressional allies hailed the company's "patriotism," it's clear that other motivations were
in play. Department officials have indicated that companies with significant offshore operations are
unlikely to obain the contract. [It's unclear what this means for Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), which
currently services the Department's Direct Loan portfolio, and is one of the other finalists for the new
contract. As its competitors like to point out, ACS engages in a signifcant amount of outsourcing.]
Because of the size and scale of its operations, Sallie Mae is expected to have an upper hand in the
competition (it remains unclear how many companies will ultimately be chosen.) But we believe that it is
entirely fair to question why the company is even being considered. After all, serious allegations have
been raised over the last several years about Sallie Mae's federal and private student loan servicing and
collections practices.
Two separate federal lawsuits have been brought against Sallie Mae over the last several years, accusing
it of systematically growing student loan debts by routinely placing borrowers who are delinquent on their
loans into forbearance without getting their consent. While being in forbearance allows borrowers to
temporarily stop making payments, interest continues to accrue on the loans, increasing the size of the
borrowers' total debt load.
As we've reported previously, a former Sallie Mae employee filed a false claims lawsuit against the
company charging it with exploiting its closely-intertwined relationship with the student loan guaranty
agency USA Funds to "balloon" the total debt delinquent borrowers owe -- as well as the amount the
guarantor can collect if the loans ultimately go into default. According to the lawsuit, Sallie Mae
employees working at USA Funds "routinely falsified borrower requests for forbearances, often just
dialing a borrower's telephone number and letting the line sit open for a few minutes, so that the
company's computers would record an apparent conversation." Lenders are required to send a written
40
confirmation to borrowers that they have agreed to enter forbearance, but, as The Chronicle of Higher
Education reported last fall, "it doesn't require any proof that the letter was received."
Meanwhile, a class-action lawsuit filed last year by shareholders in the Federal District Court in Southern
New York alleges that between January 2007 and January 2008, Sallie Mae "aggressively and
systematically pursued and manipulated its forbearance process" on delinquent private loans to hide "the
deteriorating nature of its private loan portfolio." According to the lawsuit, Sallie Mae reported a 73
percent increase in the volume of private loans that it put into forbearance during that time, "compared to
an increase of only 8 percent in delinquent loans for that period." By removing loans from delinquency
status and putting them into forbearance, the company was able to limit the amount of money it held in
reserve to cover anticipated losses on "uncollectible loans," the lawsuit states -- which artificially boosted
its earnings and made the company more attractive at a time when its leaders were trying to put it up for
sale. It was, after all, only after Sallie Mae's deal with J.C. Flowers & Co. collapsed that the company
came clean about the losses it was about to incur on expensive subprime private loans made to high-risk
students attending for-profit trade schools.
Sallie Mae denies these charges. But surely the Department should conduct a thorough examination of
the charges before agreeing to exponentially expand the company's federal student loan servicing
business.
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be in the cards -- at least according to comments made recently by
Mike Whisler, the Department official in charge of the bidding process. In an interview with a consumer
lawyer (the contents of which were posted -- apparently over his objections -- on Facebook), Whistler
appeared to suggest that the Department has been under such a time crunch to get the contract out that
it hasn't had time to adequately vet borrowers' complaints about the companies. Asked if the agency had
any plans to seek input from borrowers who were victims of predatory loan servicing practices, "he
seemed to dismiss this suggestion, stating that a decision had to be made quickly," according to the
lawyer's account of the conversation. [Editor's Note: a Department spokeswoman turned down Higher Ed
Watch's request to interview Whisler, saying that agency officials were not allowed to comment on an
open bidding process.]
The Department is certainly in a rush. The original request for bidders was put out in January; the six
finalists were selected last month; and the winners are expected to be announced any day now.
While we understand the pressure the agency is under, we don't think that that is an adequate excuse for
overlooking serious allegations that have been made about a company's past loan servicing and
collection practices. At the very least, the Department should think twice about awarding the contract to
Sallie Mae until the company can prove that it has been falsely accused.
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Shopping for 'cut scores'

April 14, 2009
Many community college systems around the country are just now discovering the lengths to which some
of their students will go to avoid remediation.
In a phenomenon test administrators say they have known about for years, some savvy students are
deliberately seeking out institutions with lower entrance test benchmarks that will either place them out of
remedial coursework or require them to take less of it. Among discussions of ballooning enrollments and
constricted budgets, this student tactic was a point of much discussion at last week's meeting of the
American Association of Community Colleges.
The practice is considered commonplace in states where there are no standardized cut scores or
ranges on placements tests for possible remedial education. A policy brief released last summer by
Achieving the Dream -- a national initiative to improve student success at two-year institutions nationwide
-- noted that only 19 states have standardized cut scores across all of their community colleges. Still,
student shopping for lower benchmarks occurs in both regulated and non-regulated state environments.
Take the case of Minnesota, for example.
This past fall semester, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system set common cut scores
across all 25 of its community colleges. Prior to this, each institution used various assessments and set its
own course placement scores. Now, all of the colleges use ACCUPLACER -- a College Board test -- and
must abide by state mandated placement benchmarks.
Kathie Montognese, director of testing services at Hennepin Technical College, said score shopping was
rampant at colleges near one another, especially in Minneapolis-St. Paul, where there are a handful of
different institutions. She said it was well-known among many prospective nursing students that her
institution had a slightly lower cut score in reading comprehension than did some of the others in the
area. Hennepin's "cut score" was a 72 out of 120 on ACCUPLACER, while some of the other institutions
in the area had a higher "cut score" of 78. The large numbers of students interested in entering the
nursing field, who as a result took entry tests multiple times, brought this phenomenon to the attention of
the area colleges. The standardized "cut score" in reading comprehension for the Minnesota system's
community colleges is now a 78.
"It was clear from the testing directors talking together, for example, that some students didnt like their
reading or math score and missed the cut at another institution but made ours, Montognese said.
Certainly, we knew that students were looking around for the quickest route. But the quickest route
doesnt always help them reach their final destination, which is graduation.
Now, even though the cut scores have been standardized, Montognese said students are still
comparing and contrasting other scoring benchmarks. Currently, colleges differ on how much remedial
education is required for those deemed to need it. The same deficiency might qualify one student for
three remedial courses at one college and two at another -- both paths theoretically designed to produce
a student ready for college-level courses. Students who compare institutions, she said, tend to favor
those that require them to spend less time in developmental courses.
Montognese noted this student preference was especially evident for those in English as a second
language. Students who fail to show English proficiency on a placement test can take up to three
developmental ESL courses at Hennepin Tech, while at others in the area, such as Minneapolis
Community and Technical College, require as many as six levels of coursework.
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There has been some talk about trying to standardize developmental levels, but we might run into some
issues budgetwise, Montognese said. Some colleges have more faculty to handle than others. I would
think that it would be the next step in this reform.
The North Carolina Community College System adopted standardized cut scores in fall 2007 for all of its
58 institutions. Brad Bostian, an English instructor at Central Piedmont Community College, near
Charlotte, said he has noted a phenomenon similar to the one in Minnesota both before and after the
recent changes in his state.
When we had different cutoff scores at different institutions, students would literally drive down the road
and try to take the test somewhere else, Bostian said. Even today, we dont have standardized
developmental levels. Some have three, some have two and some only have one. I think some students
do shop for less remediation. If I were savvy enough I could get out of two levels of remediation. I dont
know how many of them do that, though; all the evidence we have is anecdotal.
Though there are no active movements to standardize developmental levels in the state to curb this
practice, Bostian said any more changes would likely be years away. The system, he noted, must collect
data to see whether some remedial policies are more effective than others.
Besides those students shopping around for either lower cut scores or less remediation, Bostian is
concerned about remedial avoiders -- or those who take the placement test but then transfer to a fouryear institution so that they do not have to take developmental coursework. In 2000-1, according to data
he gathered for his doctoral dissertation, 14 percent of Central Piedmonts transfers to one local four-year
institution fell into this category. Even more illustrative, 42 percent of those developmental students who
took the placement test -- it should be noted that many do not -- were considered remedial avoiders.
Of those students who successfully transferred to a four-year institution to avoid remediation, Bostian
noted that they were older than traditional students and did just as well in college as did their peers who
took remedial coursework. He said these traits might also apply to those shopping around for lower cut
scores.
Theres this notion that those salmon that swim upstream to spawn are stronger and theres this process
of selecting out, Bostian said of these students.
The Florida Community College System instituted standardized cut scores more than a decade ago at its
28 colleges. Like Minnesota and North Carolina, however, it does not have standardized remedial levels.
Still, not everyone there was familiar with the practice of shopping for "cut scores."
Silvio Rodriguez, director of test administration at Miami Dade College, said the concept was novel to
him and that such a practice would be difficult in his service area, where there are not other community
colleges easily accessible to testing students. He did note, however, that he is aware of students who
have tested at multiple places to get around retesting policies, which might limit the number of times a
student can take a placement test during a certain time period.
Officials from Minnesota, North Carolina and Florida say that even with their statewide standards,
shopping for "cut scores" continues -- online. They acknowledged that students could easily take a
college-level course online from another state with a lower placement score and transfer it into their
institution, successful avoiding remediation. At the moment, however, none appeared worried about this
catching on, given the difficulty of the ruse.
Montognese admitted that a student who passed a college-level course at one institution, even after
43
earning a remedial placement score at another institution, might not have needed the developmental
coursework after all. In which case, she noted, the system would have worked.
Montognese, Bostian and Rodriguez were open to the idea of a national standard of placement and
remediation but agreed that it would take a lot of work to push such a movement, as there would be
debates over methods of assessment. All, however, said the process of shopping cut scores was
among the more quirky student practices known to testing administrators, and should ideally be curbed.
Its funny the lengths some people will go, Bostian said.
David Moltz
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The Washington Post, April 14, 2009 (Page 1 of 2)
The student loan industry pushes back

Private lenders would die under plan to give government bigger role, some say
By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 14, 2009; A11
With the Obama administration proposing to overhaul the programs a majority of American students use
to finance their college education, the student loan industry is fighting back.
The administration is calling for sweeping changes to the decades-old approach of providing federal
subsides to private loan companies, arguing that the revamp will save $94 billion that can be redirected to
needy borrowers and help even more people go to college. But the industry and its congressional allies
are countering that it would add billions to the national debt, put thousands of industry employees out of
work and provide shoddy service for borrowers.
The result of the growing confrontation will determine the way students across the country pay for college
and, potentially, the fate of dozens of student lending firms.
"The Obama plan would mean that many lenders would lose 100 percent of their business," said Mark
Kantrowitz, an industry analyst and publisher of FinAid.org. "It would be a dramatic shift for the way this
industry works."
The administration's proposal would end the 16-year period in which two government programs have
provided federal loans to students. One of the programs involves the Education Department making the
loans directly to students, while the other involves private companies originating the loans with
congressionally imposed subsidies.
President Obama's budget seeks to eliminate the subsidized program -- known as the Federal Family
Education Loan program -- and proposes that all the loans come directly from the government. It would
then redirect the enormous savings it forecasts to Pell grants for needy students.
Reston-based Sallie Mae, the nation's largest provider of student loans, recently launched a lobbying blitz
on Capitol Hill and the White House, proposing a hybrid approach that combines aspects of both federal
loan programs. It has hired two well-connected Democratic lobbyists: Tony Podesta, whose brother
headed the Obama transition team, and Jamie S. Gorelick, a senior Justice Department official in the
Clinton administration. The company has circulated draft legislation around Washington and pressed
Democrats whose districts include Sallie Mae employees. The company recently announced the return of
2,000 jobs that had been sent overseas.
"We agree that it's time to remake the loan programs," said Martha Holler, a Sallie Mae spokeswoman.
"We support the president, and we want to help him reach his objectives by proposing a constructive
alternative that would pull the best of both programs."
The Salle Mae proposal would involve private loan companies originating the loans and then immediately
turning them over to the Education Department for a fee. The federal government, which borrows money
at a much lower rate than it charges students, would then still generate revenue, which it could channel to
needy students.
45
The Washington Post, April 14, 2009 (Page 2 of 2)
Robert Shireman, a senior adviser to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, said the administration is open
to hearing new ideas. But he added, "Our presumption at this point is the plan that we have laid out is the
best plan, and that is what we are moving forward with."
Administration officials said that the Sallie Mae proposal was still not fully developed and did not make
clear how the department would decide how much to charge lending companies.
Senior Democratic lawmakers said they were strongly in favor of the president's plan.
"The Direct Loan Program has proven to be the most cost-effective, successful, and as we've learned in
the current economic crisis, the most stable and dependable way to deliver loans to students," said
Melissa Wagoner, a spokeswoman for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate
education committee. "Senator Kennedy supports the president's proposal, which saves nearly $100
billion that can be used to make college more affordable for students."
Rachel Racusen, a spokeswoman for Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House education
committee, said: "The Obama administration has made a compelling case that their plan would lead to a
more efficient, effective and reliable federal student loan program for families and taxpayers, and people
who have other proposals have the burden of demonstrating that their proposal is superior to President
Obama's plan."
But many Republicans have long been wary of the government taking on the entire burden of the lending
program. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a former secretary of education, said he did not want to
eliminate the choice that students have long had between the programs. He added that the money would
increase the federal deficit and give too much control to the government.
"I don't see the wisdom in creating a new half-trillion national bank for student loans," he said. "I know
how the bureaucracy at the education department works, and you probably are going to get long lines of
dissatisfied customers. Those lines could be very long because there are 12 million students."
Some Democrats in states that have strong private lending companies have also opposed the president's
plan, and the Senate budget did not cut out the subsidized federal program, a sign that the Obama plan
faces a tougher time in that chamber.
Education Department officials emphasized, however, that it was not correct to view their proposal as an
attempt to shut down the subsidized program. They said the only reason the program survives is because
of legislation passed last year, after the credit crunch hit the lending industry, that temporarily provided
increased support to loan companies.
"The guaranteed-loan program as it existed in the past no longer exists," Shireman said. "It's on life
support, and that's why it's so critical that we act now to fix the system."
Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.
46
The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 14, 2009
Two-thirds of students get financial aid,

federal report says
April 14, 2009
Washington Sixty-six percent of undergraduates received some type of student aid during the 2007-8
academic year, up from 63 percent in 2003-4, says a report released today by the Education
Departments National Center for Education Statistics.
The centers Institute of Education Sciences, the departments research arm, conducts its National
Postsecondary Student Aid Study every three to four years, and todays report represents a preliminary
look at data for 2007-8. The latest rise in the percentage of students receiving aid is not as sharp as the
previous jump, from 55 percent in 1999-2000.
According to the first look report, which is typically followed by further analysis, the total average amount
for all students receiving aid last year was $9,100. Fifty-two percent of students received grants, at an
average of $4,900, and 38 percent obtained student loans, taking out, on average, $7,100. Over all, 47
percent of students received federal aid, 34 percent took out Stafford Loans, and 27 percent got Pell
Grants.
Among students financially dependent on their parents, equal proportions of 28 percent came from
families with annual incomes lower than $40,000 and higher than $100,000, the report says. Its tables
break down students types of financial aid by income level, type of institution, and other characteristics.
As for graduate students, 74 percent received financial aid in 2007-8, with an average amount of $17,600.
The report is based on responses from 114,000 undergraduates and 14,000 graduate students at more
than 1,600 postsecondary institutions. More information is available on the statistics centers Web site.
Sara Lipka
47
Education standards likely to see toughening

By SAM DILLON
April 15, 2009
WASHINGTON President Obama and his team have alternated praise for the goals of President
George W. Bushs No Child Left Behind law with criticism of its weaknesses, all the while keeping their
own plans for the law a bit of a mystery.
But clues are now emerging, and they suggest that the Obama administration will use a Congressional
rewriting of the federal law later this year to toughen requirements on topics like teacher quality and
academic standards and to intensify its focus on helping failing schools. The laws testing requirements
may evolve but will certainly not disappear. And the federal role in education policy, once a state and
local matter, is likely to grow.
The administration appears to be preparing important fixes to what many see as some of the laws most
serious defects. But its emerging plans are a disappointment to some critics of the No Child Left Behind
law, who hoped Mr. Obamas campaign promises of change would mean a sharper break with the Bushera law.
Obamas fundamental strategy is the same as George Bushs: standardized tests, numbers-crunching;
its the N.C.L.B. approach with lots of money attached, Diane Ravitch, an education historian often
critical of the education law, said in an interview.
In a recent blog Ms. Ravitch wrote, Obama has given Bush a third term in education policy.
The clues emerge from the fine print of the economic stimulus law that Mr. Obama signed in February,
which channels billions of dollars to public education. The key education provisions in the stimulus take
the form of four assurances that governors must sign to receive billions in emergency education aid.
In one, governors must pledge to improve the quality of standardized tests and raise standards. In
another, they promise to enforce a requirement of the education law that their states most effective
teachers will be assigned equitably to all students, rich and poor. A separate provision gives Education
Secretary Arne Duncan control over $5 billion, which Mr. Duncan calls a Race to the Top Fund, to
reward states that make good on their pledges.
With these assurances and the Race to the Top Fund, we are laying the foundation for where we want to
go with N.C.L.B. reauthorization, Mr. Duncan said in an interview. This will help us to get states lining up
behind this agenda.
One fix the administration is preparing focuses on failing schools.
Currently 6,000 of the nations 95,000 schools are labeled as needing corrective action or restructuring
because they have fallen short of testing targets under the federal law, which nonetheless provided little
financing to help them. Most states have let the targets languish. The stimulus law, in contrast, provides
$3 billion for school turnarounds, and requires governors to pledge vigorous action.
The No Child Left Behind law allowed each state to set its own academic standards, with the result that
many have dumbed down curriculums and tests. Colorado even opted to use its partially proficient level
of academic performance as proficient for reporting purposes.
48
The stimulus requires governors to raise standards to a new benchmark: the point at which high school
graduates can succeed without remedial classes in college, the workplace or the military. Mr.
Duncan has gone further, saying he wants to be a catalyst for the development of national academic
standards.
Cynthia Brown, vice president for education policy at the Center for American Progress, said she believed
that Mr. Duncan was the first top federal official to make such a call.
Theyre putting money and ideas behind what they think are the changes needed in public education,
Ms. Brown said. That signals their seriousness about major reform.
So far, the administration has not described its plans for the education laws 2014 deadline for schools to
bring 100 percent of American students to math and reading proficiency, which experts have likened to a
certain date by which the police are to end all crime.
The teachers unions, which in 2007 fought a bare-knuckle lobbying battle that scuttled Congresss last
effort to rewrite the No Child Left Behind law, are voicing muted concern over a couple of provisions in the
stimulus.
In one of the stimulus assurances, for instance, governors must pledge that their states are building
sophisticated data systems. Among other functions, such systems would link teachers to students and
test scores and thus, in theory, enable the authorities to distinguish between effective and ineffective
teachers. In a March 10 speech, President Obama endorsed using such data systems to tell us which
students had which teachers so we can assess whats working and whats not.
In an interview, Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, said he did not like
that part of the presidents speech.
When he equates teachers with test scores, thats when we part company, Mr. Van Roekel said. But he
added: Over all, I just really support Obamas vision to strengthen public education.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said that her union also had
concerns about the presidents enthusiasm for data systems, which she said could be misused, but that
she would give the new administration the benefit of the doubt.
They have been consistent, Ms. Weingarten said. Theyre trying to do reform with teachers, not to
them.
Including education reform ideas in an economic stimulus bill was a policy improvisation made on the fly
during the December transition, when Democratic governors were pleading for federal help to prevent
government layoffs amid the economic crisis, aides to Mr. Duncan said.
In a Jan. 7 meeting with senior Democratic lawmakers, Mr. Duncan announced the administrations
intention to channel billions of dollars to the states in exchange for governors pledges to double down on
education reform.
Representatives David R. Obey of Wisconsin and George Miller of California, the Democratic chairmen of
the House appropriations and education committees, immediately saw the importance of extracting
reform promises from the states, said a Democratic House staff member who attended the meeting but is
barred from speaking on the record about committee business.
49
Rachel Racusen, a spokeswoman for the House education committee, said, Chairman Miller said this
couldnt just be free money, that we had to get something in return.
The administrations reform initiatives have thrust governors into an unusually prominent role in education
policy, more often the province of state school chiefs and big-city mayors. Gov. Martin OMalley of
Maryland and several other governors met with Mr. Duncan during a National Governors Association
meeting in February.
In a nutshell, Mr. OMalley said in an interview, Arne Duncans pitch was, I want to partner with
governors; I know you can be drivers for education reform. He wants us to step up.
Mr. Duncan says that governors in Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and other states have
also responded favorably.
They are happy that we are pushing them to where they know they need to go, Mr. Duncan said.
50
Higher Ed Watch Exclusive: Sallie Maes Alternative

Student Lending Plan
Ben Miller Sallie Mae has been busy in Washington, D.C., circulating a plan that would preserve a modified version
of the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFEL) rather than eliminate it in favor of the more
taxpayer efficient Direct Loan program as President Obama has proposed. Obama dedicates his
proposed savings to turning the Pell Grant program into a true entitlement for low-income students.
Higher Ed Watch has obtained a copy of Sallie Mae's alternative plan (both the legislative language the
company has proposed, a discussion memo about it, and a letter sent out today to schools). Sallie Mae,
the leading FFEL lender, has hired two high-powered, well-connected Democratic lobbyists to pitch the
plan.
According to Sallie Mae's reported estimates, the lender's plan would sacrifice approximately $17 billion in
funding the Congressional Budget Office has identified as potential savings from eliminating FFEL. Under
the President's proposal, that money would go to expanding Pell Grants. Under Sallie Mae's proposal it
would be used, in effect, to continue the two competing loan programs.
Ultimately, the company wants to modify the bank-subsidized FFEL program that it currently dominates. It
would allow lenders to use their own capital to issue federal student loans and guarantee that those loans
would be sold to the Education Department within 120 days of full disbursement. The servicing rights
(what regular people call billing and collections) associated with these loans would be retained by the
lender or handled by one of the Department's contractors, with the added twist that the servicers would be
penalized for defaulted student loans. Colleges would continue to choose which origination platform they
would use to disburse the loans -- the one the government uses for Direct Lending or those of individual
lenders.
Here is a breakdown of Sallie Mae's plan, with some initial explanation of why this is a good deal for the
loan giant, but not worth sacrificing the $17 billion in savings. More analysis will come tomorrow.
Origination
As outlined in a three-page summary of the proposal, lenders would place federal student loans in a
participation trust, in which the U.S. Secretary of Education would purchase a 100 percent interest -- for
an amount equal to the principal disbursed. Lenders would still be in charge of servicing loans placed in
the trust, since the Education Department would not actually hold title to the loans. Within 120 days of a
loan's final disbursement, however, the Secretary would be required to take full title of loan. In return for
transferring the title, the lender would receive $75 -- the same amount currently paid by the Department
for loans that are sold to it as part of the ECASLA "put option."
In this respect, the origination process as proposed by Sallie Mae is very similar to the way most lenders
are currently issuing loans through ECASLA, with the small wrinkle that the Sallie Mae plan requires that
loans be sold to the Department and that the sale must occur at an earlier date. (Under ECASLA, lenders
have until September to decide whether or not to sell the loan.)
Payments to Lenders
The other major deviation from ECASLA is more noteworthy, because it will result in more government
payments to lenders in the current financial climate.
Currently, FFEL subsidies are structured such that lenders keep a quarterly special allowance payment
equal to commercial paper (CP) plus 1.19 percentage points from a borrower's interest that accumulates
51
while he or she is enrolled in an institution of higher education. If the special allowance rate, CP plus 1.19
percentage points, is above the borrower's interest rate (6.8 percent on unsubsidized Stafford loans), then
the government must pay the lender a subsidy to make up the difference. In cases where the borrower's
interest rate payment is above the lenders' guaranteed rate of return, the lender must remit to the
government those excess borrower payments.
The credit crunch has significantly reduced the CP rate, meaning that the special allowance rate (the
lenders' guaranteed rate of return) is well below the borrower's interest rate. Thus, lenders at the moment
must pay the government an amount equal to the difference between the borrower's interest rate and CP
plus 1.19 percentage points. The Education Department for the last several quarters has actually been
receiving quarterly payments from lenders on in-school loans.
Sallie Mae's proposal moves away from this current setup to one in which a lender would received a
"spread" payment of an annualized rate 0.60 percent of the loan's principal for the time between the
disbursement of the first loan payment and its sale to the Secretary. This spread would be paid
regardless of other financial circumstances, guaranteeing some compensation for lenders.
Servicing
Under the ECASLA program, the lender loses all servicing rights once a loan is sold to the Department of
Education. This means it no longer receives any compensation whatsoever for that loan. That is not the
case in Sallie Mae's proposal.
In its summary of the proposal, Sallie Mae says loan servicing would be handled by one of the
Department contractors that are determined via competitive bidding, with an option for private lenders to
retain servicing rights if they meet standards set out by the Department. The servicer for loans originated
by a lender that doesn't retain servicing rights or as part of the Direct Loan program shall be selected by
the borrower's institution.
Sallie Mae's proposal thus highlights why the winners of the Department's proposed servicing contract are
more important than ever. Those that are selected will receive a guarantee to keep the servicing rights on
all their loans, with a chance to take on the rights for even more loans. Left unsaid, of course, is that
Sallie Mae is a heavy favorite to win one of these contracts.
The servicing compensation under Sallie Mae's proposal would also allow, for the first time, for servicers
to receive differentiated compensation based upon a borrower's institution and type of loan taken out. In
other words, servicers could receive greater compensation for loans taken out by riskier students, such as
the borrowers at proprietary institutions that Sallie Mae has had exclusive arrangements with in recent
years.
Default Aversion
The final component to Sallie Mae's proposal is default aversion activities. Servicers would be asked to
engage in default aversion practices to help borrowers stay in repayment. If, however, the servicer is
unsuccessful in its efforts within four years of a loan entering repayment (and provided it had serviced the
loan for at least two consecutive years), then the servicer pays the Department a penalty equal to 3
percent of the loan's balance at the time of default. This percentage is equal to the amount that a lender
currently loses on a loan if it goes into default. Starting Oct. 1, 2012, however, under current law, lenders'
loss rate on a defaulted loan is supposed to increase to 5 percent. Sallie Mae's proposal thus would result
in a lower loss in the future.
Here too, Sallie Mae also includes legislative language that would benefit its ability to win default aversion
contracts. According to its proposed language, "the Secretary shall enter into contracts only with entities
that have relevant experience and demonstrated effectiveness in loan servicing and default aversion and
that meet the financial responsibility requirements proposed in regulations prescribed by the Secretary."
52
Competitive Bidding
An additional selling point of Sallie Mae's is the use of competitive bidding starting in 2012 to determine
the fees paid to lenders for selling the loan, the spread while holding the loan, and the fees paid for
servicing the loan. The actual mechanisms for this process are not outlined beyond the fact that it would
occur once a year on a national basis to determine both fees simultaneously. But there's no guarantee
that this proposed competitive bidding would not lead to an inefficiently high subsidy rate due to
oligopolistic pricing. If Sallie Mae's proposal were implemented, there would be very little reason for any
lenders besides those who won servicing contracts to stay in the program -- the compensation on the
loan itself would likely not be high enough to make it work. In that case, the roughly five or so lenders that
also act as servicers would likely be the only lenders submitting bids on these fees across the nation -hardly a true representation of "the market."
A Good Deal for Sallie Mae, a Bad Deal for Taxpayers
Not surprisingly, Sallie Mae's proposal would be a great deal for the Virginia company, resulting in
additional compensation to sell its loans to the Department, guaranteed servicing rights, and the ability to
get paid even more for targeting loans to low-income borrowers at proprietary schools. While they may
successfully be able to exploit a budget gimmick or two to make their plan seem to save almost as much
as the Obama administration, don't be fooled. This plan is a good deal for Sallie Mae and other large
lenders. But how about the taxpayers and students that serve to gain under the President's proposal?
Is competition among the two student loan programs which has given rise to all kinds of inefficiencies and
corruption worth what is conservatively at least $17 billion in Pell Grant scholarship aid? That's the
question policymakers will need to consider when they evaluate this proposal.
53
The Chicago Tribune, April 15, 2009
More students paying college costs with credit cards

By Scott Travis and Missy Diaz
Tribune Newspapers
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. College students are using credit cards more than ever to pay for their
education, and they're carrying high balances because of it, a new report suggests.
Students who used credit cards for tuition, books and other direct college expenses last year charged an
average of $2,200, up from $942 four years ago, according to the survey, conducted by private lender
Sallie Mae. The study suggests that students are using credit cards instead of other financial aid,
including grants and private loans.
About 30 percent of students put tuition on their credit cards, up from 24 percent in 2004, when the study
was last conducted.
The survey states that 92 percent of undergraduate holders of credit cards charged textbooks, school
supplies or other direct education expenses, up from 85 percent in the previous study.
"Too many students are at risk of overpaying for college by pulling out credit cards to pay for textbooks or
even part of their tuition bill, instead of using less-expensive financial aid to cover these items," said Marie
O'Malley, director of consumer research for Sallie Mae and author of the study.
For example, Josef Palermo, 24, graduated from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton last year. He
used three credit cards to pay for tuition, books and expenses. Interest rates were as high as 18 percent,
he said.
"I wonder if I'll ever be able to get a home of my own with the kind of debt I have now and the marks
against my credit," said Palermo.
Several student credit cards have interest rates of 14.99 percent for those with good credit, according to
the Web site Bankrate.com. Federal Stafford loans have interest rates of 6.8 percent. Private-school loan
rates average about 8 percent, according to Bankrate.com.
"I think what's happened is, since the economic meltdown eight months ago, families are strapped, and
they don't want their child's education interrupted, so I think a lot of families may be using their child's
credit card," said Bill Hardekopf of LowCards.com, a consumer resource on credit cards. He cautioned
that students and parents need to be aware of their card limits to avoid fees that can be $30 per
transaction.
The report found 60 percent of students surveyed were surprised at their high balances, and 40 percent
said they charged items knowing they couldn't pay the bill.
About 17 percent said they regularly paid off all cards each month, and another 1 percent had family
members paying the bill. The remaining 82 percent carried balances.
54
State Spending on Higher Education Hasn't Always

Been So Volatile, Study Finds
Higher-education leaders often complain about the boom-and-bust cycle of state appropriations:
Lawmakers slash the budget for public colleges and try to make up for the deep cuts with extravagant
increases when the economy recovers.
But a new study, being presented today at the American Educational Research Associations annual
conference in San Diego, has found that the seeming roller coaster of higher-education appropriations is
relatively new.
The level of volatility in state budgeting has increased over time ranging from a very stable and
predictable relationship in the 1950s and 1960s to an extremely volatile relationship in the 1990s, write
the researchers, William R. Doyle, an assistant professor of higher education at Vanderbilt University, and
Jennifer A. Delaney, an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy analysis at the University
of Wisconsin at Madison.
Using data from the U.S. Census and the Grapevine Project at Illinois State University, the authors found
that beginning in the 1960s, state dollars for higher education grew, or decreased, proportionally with
other state spending. That pattern shifted in the 1970s, the study reports, as lawmakers gave more
money to higher education even as other expenditures were being cut.
By the 1990s, however, higher education was unlikely to receive increases in state spending until yearto-year changes in spending for all other budget categories were rather large. Eric Kelderman
55
18 years in the making

By RON LIEBER
Want to pick up the tab at Harvard for a child born today? It will probably cost about half a million dollars
come 2027.
Hey, at least you have 18 years to plan. Parents footing the bill for tuition this fall are facing down a
perfect storm of ugliness. Unemployment is rising, while bonuses and commissions arent what they once
were for those who still have jobs. Others have no equity left in their homes thanks to declining housing
prices. Those who do may have trouble finding a bank willing to hand out home equity loans that they can
use to pay for college.
Beyond a more generous tax credit, President Obamas moves so far dont add up to much for most
middle-class families. For low-income students, Mr. Obama wants to guarantee Pell grant financing levels
and to match inflation increases, and his stimulus package provides more Pell and work-study money. He
is pushing to change the way federal loans are dispensed and to expand access somewhat to federal
loans. But students who borrow already graduate with an average debt of $22,700.
Meanwhile, the devastation in the stock market has eroded not just families savings but university
endowments that underwrite scholarships and grants.
How bad is it? Earlier this year, Kevin McKinley, a financial planner and college savings expert at
McKinley Money in Eau Claire, Wis., received his first-ever referral from a psychotherapist, who thought
the patient could reduce anxiety by seeing a financial professional.
Thats not something that happens when the markets are doing well, Mr. McKinley says.
Still, if you can break the process of saving for college into smaller pieces, it starts to seem more
manageable. Start by reminding yourself that almost nobody can save enough to pay for four years of
private education, let alone for more than one child. Thats not the goal here.
Mr. McKinley suggests an approach he calls 20-20-20. Take the current average cost of attending four
years at a public university: roughly $60,000. Save $20,000 before your child begins college by putting
aside $50 a month starting at birth and assuming a 6 percent annual return. Then, pay $20,000 out of
current income while the student is in college. Finally, have your child take out $20,000 in federal student
loans over four years. The $200 monthly payments afterward are not a horrible burden for people in their
20s to bear, and theyll be debt free once the 10-year payback period is over.
Its all doable with several very small sacrifices, Mr. McKinley says.
You can aim higher, or lower, but the longer you wait to start, the more money youll probably need to
borrow later. Better, then, to start at the birth of your first child and follow as many of the steps below as
you can.
NEWBORNS AND TODDLERS
For most people, the best way to save for a childs college education is still through a 529 savings plan.
With 529s, you deposit after-tax money, but any earnings are free of taxes as long as you spend them on
tuition, room, board and other postsecondary educational expenses.
56
You can look up your states plan at savingforcollege.com, a directory of college saving plans and advice.
Most states have their own accounts, and many have two different kinds: investment accounts and
prepaid accounts (its too early in the life cycle to discuss the prepaid variety, so more later on those).
Investment accounts are a bit like 401(k)s in that you can usually choose from a handful of mutual funds
and other investments, including one that gets less aggressive as your childs date of college
matriculation nears. (Just be sure that the fund managers definition of aggressive is similar to yours;
some 529 investors have been surprised at the extent of their recent losses.)
Credit cards can help feed your savings. Some will reward you with refunds into a 529 account based on
how much you spend. The Fidelity 529 College Rewards American Express card, for instance, gives you
2 percent back on all purchases as long as you deposit it into your Fidelity 529 account, including the
plans it runs for individual states. (Anyone can invest in any states 529 investment plan; you arent limited
to your own states).
Card earnings alone can easily add up to five figures after 20 years, depending on how much you put on
the plastic annually. A few caveats, though. If you carry a balance or pay bills late, the interest and fees
will more than wipe out the rewards. Credit card companies also often reduce rewards over time. And to
maximize earnings, youll have to give up using your other credit cards to collect frequent-flier miles.
The Upromise college savings program offers several ways to earn cash for a 529, including 1 percent
back on most purchases on its MasterCard; refunds based on what you buy at grocers that link their
discount cards to Upromise; and bonuses for shopping at partner retailers online and eating in affiliated
restaurants.
Lisa Roll, a financial adviser in Glen Gardner, N.J., has saved about $7,500 toward her two sons college
expenses in the eight years she has been enrolled in Upromise. She even enlisted her mother-in-law,
who can contribute her spending power to Ms. Rolls account through Upromises friends-and-family
system. I went to their house and took her wallet and signed up all of her grocery and credit cards, she
says, adding that she also installed a Web browser toolbar that will help remind her mother-in-law to shop
online at partner retailers.
THE PRESCHOOL YEARS
Once the grandparents tire of buying baby gear and cute outfits, you might sit them down for a
conversation about how they can make a more lasting cash contribution to your toddlers future. This isnt
always the easiest conversation to have.
In most otherwise healthy families, the willingness of grandparents to save generally exceeds the
willingness of parents to broach the subject with the grandparents, Mr. McKinley says. Thats good. It
shows that parents arent money-grubbing. But it means its usually the grandparents duty to bring the
subject up.
If youre a grandparent and your financial plan for retirement is secure, putting aside just one Social
Security check a year for 18 years could pay for a good chunk of a childs college education.
The question, however, is where to park that money during the intervening years. Grandparents can set
up their own 529 accounts, which come with a few advantages. If something were to happen and they
really needed the money, they could take it back out of the 529 and pay taxes and penalties, says KC
Dempster, director of program development at the consultants College Money in Marlton, N.J. If theres a
57
falling out with the kids or the grandkids, they can also change the beneficiary and bestow their largesse
on a more-favored family member.
Families wishing to qualify for financial aid, however, should keep in mind that a growing number of
colleges and universities are asking whether grandparents or others have set up 529 accounts for a
student and taking it into account when awarding their own grants.
Kalman A. Chany, president of Campus Consultants in New York City, advises that grandparents simply
give money to the parents, who can then deposit it in their own 529. Many accounts will accept gifts from
grandparents. Upromise facilitates 529 giving, too, as does Freshman Fund, an online gift registry.
One other big financial decision looms during the preschool years: when (or if) to have another child. If
you have two children in college at the same time, your eligibility for financial aid grows significantly. My
instinct would be that there are still a lot of people out there who dont understand how this works, Ms.
Dempster says. They space their children out because the thought of two tuitions and room and board at
the same time freaks them out.
Mr. Chany says, only half-jokingly, that the best option may be to have twins.
GRADES ONE TO NINE
One decision youll eventually face is whether to put some (or all) of your savings into a prepaid 529 plan.
Not every state offers one, and some states plans are closed to new investments. The rest, however, let
you essentially pay today for tuition and fees in the future.
There are a number of catches here, depending on the state. You can usually participate only in your own
states plan, and it often covers only tuition and fees. (Another plan, called the Independent 529, allows
you to pay for member private colleges and universities around the country.)
There are also a number of ways states calculate the current price. While the idea of locking in a price
may sound tempting, its crucial to understand exactly what $1,000 today will buy you when your child
finally goes to college. What sort of discount do you get for prepaying part of the tuition each year? And
what happens if youre in a state plan and your child decides to attend an out -of-state university?How
much of a return will your money have earned in that case? In the Independent 529 plan, for instance,
your money wont have earned more than 2 percent annually (nor can it lose more than 2 percent a year).
That sounds good right about now, though investments in stocks over the next 15 years will probably do
better.
By the time middle school draws to a close, you should have a clearer sense of your financial picture than
you had 13 or 14 years earlier, and whether youll have a shot at qualifying for financial aid. The
governments expected family contribution calculator at www.fafsa4caster.ed.gov can help on this front.
Now you have to decide what to tell your child about the money situation and when. Mr. McKinley warns
about revealing too much too soon. Most kids are just so clueless about where theyre going to go and
what theyre going to do, he says. It just adds one more pressure to start talking about it in eighth or
ninth grade.
By early in high school, however, colleges are already marketing to potential students. If there are
financial constraints, its important for the child to understand that, says Mr. Chany, who is also the
author of Paying for College Without Going Broke (Princeton Review, 2007). I think its not a good idea
for them to spring surprises on the child late in the process.
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That said, he adds, perhaps the worst move is to forbid a student to apply to a dream school simply
because of money worries. All you need is one of the childs friends with similar financial circumstances
to get in and get a nice financial aid package and be able to afford it, he says. And then the child says to
you for the rest of their life: Why didnt you let me apply to that school?
Freshman year in high school is also a good time to ratchet back investments in stocks, if youve had an
aggressive asset allocation in your 529 funds so far. If youre in a target -date mutual fund, with the date of
your childs matriculation in its name, check to see what percentage of the fund is in stocks and then
reallocate your savings to something safer if you feel the need.
10TH AND 11TH GRADES
This is the moment to consider whether to hire an adviser who will examine your income and assets to
better position your aid application. This can easily cost $1,000 in fees, but it may pay for itself if you
receive more grants or qualify for better loans because of it.
Whether you hire an adviser or try to sort out the financial aid applications on your own, remember that
colleges and universities currently consider the year from Jan. 1 of junior year to Dec. 31 of senior year
as the base year for figuring out what the family can afford to pay for the first year of college.
That means that if youre going to make any big changes to qualify for more aid, you need to do it
between Jan. 1 of sophomore year and Dec. 31 of junior year and start planning those moves even
sooner.
What sort of moves might you make?
Since financial aid offices will tap some of your assets in calculating what you can afford to pay, theres
no shame in spending them down a bit sooner than you might have. If you need a new roof or new car,
spend the money before the base year arrives. And pay down credit card debt. A big balance doesnt win
you a break when applying for aid, but colleges could tap your cash.
Mr. Chany suggests a number of other ideas. Since colleges generally take more from your income than
they do from your assets, the base year or right before is a great time to start your own business
(assuming your income will fall for a while in the start-up years). And to lower the income number that the
financial system uses, front-load individual retirement account contributions before the base year.
By now you may be wondering about the ethics of all of this money moving. Do not lie on financial aid
forms, but aid planning, like tax planning, is perfectly legal and appropriate.
SENIOR YEAR
Just as students should apply to at least one college where they know they will be accepted and happy,
add at least one school your family is certain you can afford.
If youre going to get need-based aid, then you have to target the colleges that have money to give it,
says Ms. Dempster of College Money. Otherwise, the entire exercise has been pointless.
The student also has to fit the college personally before you worry about money. If not, they may drop
out or transfer or do poorly, she says. Theyll end up doing things that make college last longer, and that
just makes it more expensive.
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Then, finally, comes application time, a process youll repeat at least three more times because you have
to refile each year. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid and other forms you may encounter are
intimidating. Fill them out anyway, even if you dont think youll win grants from your chosen college,
because you never know where you might end up or how your financial circumstances may change.
If grandparents wish to step in at this late stage, be aware that giving money to parents or making tuition
payments directly to the college can have a big impact on aid eligibility. Consider paying off the childs
loans (or the parents) after college graduation.
Some of you are reading this with aid offers for your high school seniors in hand. If you are, you now
know that a fair bit of randomness takes hold once you apply. Financial aid officers can and will do what
they want and sweeten packages for more desirable students. While many a parent tries to play one offer
off another, Mr. Chany points out: The decisions of the financial aid officer are final and cannot be
appealed to the government. Its worse than dealing with the I.R.S. Theres no tax court.
All the more reason, then, to start early. Parents beat themselves up about having done nothing and then
continue to do nothing because they think its hopeless or scary, he says. Thats the worst thing that
anyone can do. The longer they wait, the harder its going to get.
Ron Lieber writes the Your Money column for The Times.
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Performance-Based College Financing Systems Often

Die Young, Researchers Say
By PETER SCHMIDT
San Diego
Schemes for tying state support of public colleges to performance tend to share the same flaw: They are
vulnerable to dying off before they can show how well they perform.
Such was the consensus among several experts on state higher-education policy who took part in a panel
discussion of performance-based financing systems today at the annual conference of the American
Educational Research Association.
Of 26 states that have adopted performance-based college financing systems since 1979, 12 have
scrapped them, according to one of the papers presented here. Of the remaining 14 states, two others
Colorado and New Mexicostill technically have such systems in place but no longer use them to
allocate funds. Two other statesVirginia and Washingtonhave created and then ditched performancebased financing systems, only to establish new ones down the road, according to the paper, by Kevin J.
Dougherty, an associate professor of higher education at Columbia Universitys Teachers College, and
Rebecca S. Natow, a doctoral student at Columbia.
The panel discussions moderator, Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy
and Higher Education, said performance-based financing has such a troubled history that one might ask,
Why are we bothering with this?
At the same time, Mr. Callan said, it does not go away. Indeed, the paper by Mr. Dougherty and Ms.
Natow says the nation has recently entered a period of renewed interest in such financing systems, with a
number of prominent higher-education commissioners and researchers calling for efforts to hold public
colleges accountable and additional states considering the adoption of new performance-based financing
systems.
Why dont such systems stick around? To answer that question, Mr. Dougherty and Ms. Natow undertook
in-depth examinations of the experiences that Florida, Illinois, and Washington State have had with such
systems. In all three states, they found that such systems had little buy-in from public colleges and were
vulnerable to shifting political winds that caused the lawmakers or board members who championed them
to lose power. In Florida and Illinois, the systems had little support from business interests, and the
systems went by the wayside when overall state spending on higher education dropped.
The authors suggest that advocates of performance-based financing need to find ways to insulate it from
ups and downs in the state revenue cycle and to better secure the support of key politicians.
In a separate study, William M. Zumeta, a professor of public affairs and education at the University of
Washington, and Alicia Kinne, a graduate student at Washington, reached similar conclusions based on
an examination of Virginias and Washington States efforts to tie the financing of public colleges to
certain state goals and expectations.
The systems they studied are still in place, but, the researchers said, it remains an open question whether
they will endure.
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Colleges Cite Inequities in New Benefits for Veterans

Public colleges say they will not get their share of GI Bill money
By MEGAN ECKSTEIN
Washington
When the new GI Bill was signed into law last summer, advocates said its education benefits would
significantly expand veterans' higher-education options. Beneficiaries would receive substantially more
money than they did under older programs, enough to pay for the most expensive public institution in their
state instead of only covering community-college tuition.
But some public-college leaders say the program, which takes effect on August 1, may have less impact
on their enrollments than proponents originally claimed. Instead, those leaders say, the Post-9/11 GI Bill
does more to help for-profit colleges, which for years have served large numbers of veterans in online
and accelerated programs, by allowing them to tap into even more federal money.
No one disputes that this law will help more veterans to attend college. In fact, the U.S. Department of
Veterans Affairs is expecting the total number of veterans enrolled in college to increase by 20 percent
over the first two years of the program, said Keith M. Wilson, director of the agency's education service.
Colleges now have to wait and see where nearly 460,000 veterans will use their benefits next year.
Providing money for college is one thing. But public-college leaders say they need money to provide
support services to veterans to be sure they earn a degree. And on that count, public institutions face a
disadvantage they say the new GI Bill will exacerbate.
Under the law, the federal government will pay public institutions the amount of in-state tuition and fees
for each veteran they enroll who is eligible for full benefits. But private institutions can receive an even
greater reimbursement from the federal government if they participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program,
which is designed to help veterans pay for private colleges, out-of-state public institutions, and graduate
programs.
For each veteran they enroll, private institutions will receive the equivalent of the highest public-college
tuition and mandatory fees in their state. The institutions that participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program
can waive up to half of the remaining charges and receive the same amount from the federal government.
For example, tuition at Tulane University, in New Orleans, will be $37,200 this fall, and mandatory fees
will total about $3,400. A veteran taking a full-time course load could receive about $9,900 for tuition, and
the fees would be fully covered, based on Louisiana's public-college costs. Tulane could then bring in an
additional $13,700 in government funds if it agreed to waive half the remaining costs.
State Colleges' Concerns
F. King Alexander, president of California State University at Long Beach, worries that his college, which
charges in-state students about $3,400 per year, and other institutions with relatively low tuition will be at
a disadvantage.
Higher-priced for-profit and private colleges, he said, have more flexibility in changing their price tags or
reducing student aid to maximize how much money they can receive from the federal government.
"Sticker price is not cost, and those institutions that can manipulate sticker prices will be the real
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beneficiaries," he said.
For-profit colleges like Argosy University and the University of Phoenix, Mr. Alexander added, will be able
to bring in more in federal dollars than it actually costs them to educate a student, while his institution will
not have enough money to properly accommodate veterans. Both Argosy and the University of Phoenix
declined to comment for this article.
"I think when the smoke clears, you'll see half the veterans at public institutions but 80 percent of the
money at the for-profit institutions," Mr. Alexander said.
The new law would be fairer, he said, if colleges that worked hard to keep tuition low were rewarded with
extra money to help set up services for veterans on their campuses.
Officials at the Long Beach campus, which enrolls 400 veterans among its 37,900 students, struggled this
year to come up with enough money to hire a veteran-services coordinator. They eventually cobbled
together $130,000 from the university's general funds, but doing so meant taking money from other
student services.
Having a veteran-services coordinator is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the services Mr. Alexander
says his campus needs. The Department of Veterans Affairs has recommended that colleges also employ
academic advisers whose sole responsibility is to help veterans transfer credits from military training and
any other colleges they have attended; GI-benefit-certification officers to help students and the institution
navigate complex government paperwork; and counselors who specialize in combat disorders. Each of
those employees could cost anywhere from $65,000 to $90,000 a year, and Mr. Alexander said he just
doesn't see how his university can find that kind of money.
In addition to calling it a poor use of taxpayer money, Mr. Alexander said the GI Bill concerns him
because it may force veterans to choose between a public four-year college that can provide a better
education but cannot afford the veterans' services and a for-profit college that has the money for services
but won't provide as good an educational experience. As popular as for-profit institutions have been
among veterans, Mr. Alexander said, military officials have invited him to speak at several California
bases in the hopes of encouraging soldiers to consider traditional four-year colleges.
A Greater Share of the Market
For-profit-college officials say the new GI Bill benefits will make it easier for veterans to select a college
based on fit rather than on price.
Harris N. Miller, president of the Career College Association, said some veterans did not feel they could
afford for-profit institutions under the previous GI Bill.
The new GI Bill, he said, is "a long-overdue advance."
For-profit institutions have been an attractive choice for veterans with families or full-time jobs. Many of
the colleges offer courses online, and the curricula are often directly tied to a specific career path. The
colleges often grant more credit for military training than public colleges do, meaning veterans spend less
time and money earning their degrees.
Nearly 60 percent of students who used GI Bill benefits at the top 500 institutions that served such
students in the 2007 fiscal year enrolled in a for-profit institution or a community college, according to an
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analysis of federal data by The Chronicle. While 6 percent of all college students chose for-profit
institutions, 19 percent of students who used GI Bill benefits at those 500 colleges did so.
Patrick Campbell, legislative director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a nonprofit group, said
the bill provided an incentive for veterans to attend colleges that offer nontraditional terms, such as sixweek or one-month sessions, as many career colleges do. The new GI Bill caps the amount it offers
students per term, so shorter, cheaper terms are more likely to be fully covered.
Expecting Business as Usual
Community colleges, meanwhile, with their low tuitions, stand to bring in even less money from the new
GI Bill than regional public universities will. Many two-year institutions already cater to veterans, however,
and will not need to spend money to establish new services.
"We have served that population for so long," Laura A. Gropen, interim director of communications,
marketing, and public affairs at Palomar College, said of student veterans. "It's part of the culture here."
Ms. Gropen said the college, which operates an education center at Camp Pendleton, a Marine Corps
base near San Diego, has a veteran-services department with two full-time employees and six student
veterans who work part time to serve more than 800 student veterans. The department has enough staff
members and resources to handle more students once the new GI Bill program starts.
Ms. Gropen said that while she expects many student veterans to transfer from community colleges to
four-year institutions once the higher benefits kick in, she expects that even more veterans would start
attending community colleges. A monthly housing allowance and a $1,000 annual book stipend
benefits that were not provided under older GI programs make it even more enticing for veterans to
give community college a try, she said.
Location Is Everything
For private, nonprofit colleges, the GI Bill creates inequities based on the state in which the institutions
are located. In Texas, for example, the program's caps are set so high that even out -of-state veterans can
attend Texas A&M University or the private Rice University at little to no cost, even without the help of the
Yellow Ribbon Program.
The most expensive undergraduate in-state tuition in Texas was determined to be $1,333 per credit at
an aerospace-engineering program that includes flight lessons so a veteran taking 12 credits in both
the fall and spring semesters could receive as much as $31,992 for tuition alone.
Rice University charges its students up to $1,249 per credit, so the entire tuition bill would be covered.
Out-of-state students who attend Texas A&M University would also have their tuition and fees completely
covered by the federal government, a fact that surprised administrators there.
"We were considering participating in [Yellow Ribbon], but when the numbers came out we realized there
was really no point," said Joseph P. Pettibon, assistant provost.
He said Texas A&M, which now has about 700 veterans, was putting together a marketing brochure to
help make veterans outside the state aware of the unexpected opportunity. Mr. Pettibon said that
because of uncertainty about the final details of the GI Bill during the application period, he did not expect
out-of-state veterans to enroll in large numbers until the 2010-11 academic year. If those veterans do
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enroll, Texas A&M could benefit financially: Out-of-state students this year pay almost three times as
much per credit $444.25 compared with the $163.25 in-state tuition charge.
On the other hand, being located in Washington, where the cap hovers around a mere $4,000 a year, is a
disadvantage for private institutions like George Washington University.
Michael P. Akin, executive director of government, international, and community relations at George
Washington which this year has enrolled about 300 veterans with GI Bill benefits said the university
had already pledged to participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program but was worried that the gap between
the program's benefits and the university's cost was too large. Tuition and mandatory fees at George
Washington University will total about $42,000 for the next academic year, but administrators are not sure
yet how much of the $38,000 gap they will be able to commit to covering.
Another complication of how the new GI benefits will play out is that colleges can limit how many veterans
they accept under the Yellow Ribbon Program. Derek J. Blumke, president of Student Veterans of
America, a national student-run organization, said he was worried that private institutions in states with
very low tuition caps would have to limit their participation to only a few recipients, effectively barring
other qualified students from those colleges.
Possible Solutions
Some college leaders, including Mr. Alexander, of Long Beach, and Stephen L. Weber, president of San
Diego State University, which has about 800 veterans enrolled this year, are already pressing Congress
for changes to the new GI Bill.
One proposal that Mr. Alexander said he favored would guarantee that all colleges would receive an
amount per veteran that would at least equal the national average of tuition and fees at four-year public
colleges about $375 per credit and $6,900 for per-term fees, based on the figures each state provided
to the Veterans Affairs Department. Colleges that cost less would be required to use the extra money on
veteran services.
A similar, and potentially cheaper, option would be to give colleges that charge less than the state cap an
amount equal to half that difference to dedicate to veteran services. Under that plan, Cal State-Long
Beach would get about $8,000 per student per year, depending on how many courses each student took
and other variables.
"The universities that have worked to keep tuition low are being penalized through the GI Bill, which I'm
sure is not the intention of Congress, who has asked universities to keep tuition low," Mr. Weber said.
He added that U.S. Rep. Bob Filner, a Democrat of California who is chairman of the House Veterans
Affairs Committee, has been very receptive to the universities' concerns about the GI Bill. The chairman,
Mr. Weber said, has raised the issue with several other members of Congress from states with low-cost
public colleges, such as Arkansas and Georgia.
In the absence of legislative changes, though, colleges can make some fixes themselves that do not cost
anything, said Mr. Blumke, an Air Force veteran who is a senior at the University of Michigan at Ann
Arbor. "A lot of the needs veterans have, they can be solved by putting veterans in contact with one
another," he said. Creating student-veteran organizations is key, as is creating a space for the veterans to
meet on the campus.
San Diego State has tried to find ways to better serve veterans on a very small budget, including making
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the kinds of no-cost changes that Mr. Blumke suggests, said Joan M. Putnam, veterans director at San
Diego State. Last year administrators even decided to solicit private funds to help pay for veteran
services. The institution has accumulated about $220,000 so far, which it has used to furnish a new
veterans' student center, hold receptions and professional-development workshops, and pay for
scholarships and other aid.
One student veteran says that while such services are important, the lack of them would not be "a deal
breaker."
"If I was choosing between two different universities and one was of a higher quality but had a poor
veteran-service center compared to the other, I would go to the higher-quality university and figure out my
own GI Bill paperwork," said Robert Florkowski, a senior who is majoring in political science at the
University of California at Santa Barbara. "Most veterans are highly independent, far from the kid that just
graduated high school and left home for the first time."
66
Education Dept. gets a nominee

who champions the underserved
By JOSH KELLER
Los Altos, Calif.
From the issue dated April 17, 2009
In nearly two decades as a community-college leader, Martha J. Kanter has earned acclaim for a strong
record helping disabled and low-income students graduate from college and for her bold efforts to
overhaul curricula to help more students master basic skills.
Ms. Kanter has made such a mark as chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, here
in the heart of Silicon Valley, that it seems everybody knows her personally, down to the local middleschool students who attend the district's mathematics-immersion classes each summer.
"I see it very simply," Ms. Kanter says of her philosophy as an educator. "Educate the top 100 percent."
After working for more than 30 years at nearly every level of the California community-college system,
Ms. Kanter, widely known as Martha, was nominated by President Obama this month to be under
secretary of education, the top postsecondary job at the U.S. Department of Education. If she is
confirmed by the U.S. Senate, as seems likely, she will achieve the highest rank of any former
community-college official in the history of the department.
Ms. Kanter, who is 60, has built a reputation as a leader who diligently nurtures personal connections with
students and experiments with new ways to improve graduation and retention rates. Her work in the
California system, the nation's largest, has focused on removing barriers to college attendance and
graduation for low-income students, disabled students, and students learning English as a second
language.
Among the new approaches Ms. Kanter has undertaken in her six years as leader of Foothill-De Anza is a
revised basic-skills curriculum in math that won statewide acclaim. She is also a nationally known
champion of open educational resources, the effort to make college textbooks and other instructional
materials available free online.
She traces her lifelong interest in expanding the reach of education to her work as a teacher at a high
school for at-risk youth in New York City, before she came to California in 1977. At the high school, her
students were "kids who had nowhere to go, kids who had problems, kids who were economically
disadvantaged, students with disabilities, emotionally disturbed kids, people who had horrendous family
situations," she says. "That was just sort of part of who I was."
Rethinking Remedial Courses
Ms. Kanter has a memory for details (such as the names of students) and a tendency to drop her voice to
a whisper when she is dispensing advice, which is often. Upon moving to California, she started the first
program for students with learning disabilities at two-year San Jose City College, and she later worked
closely with the man who would become her husband, Carl Brown, who tested new software systems to
aid disabled students in the California community colleges. Mr. Brown died in November.
In 2003, Ms. Kanter was named chancellor of Foothill-De Anza, a two-campus district with 44,000
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students that is among the state's largest. She had previously served as president of one of the district's
campuses, De Anza College, for 10 years. Before that, she worked as vice chancellor for policy and
research at the chancellor's office of the California Community Colleges System and as vice president of
instruction and student services at San Jose City College.
One year after taking over as chancellor, in 2004, Ms. Kanter commissioned research to evaluate how
well the district taught basic math skills, remedial instruction that a large percentage of the district's
students needed to become prepared for college-level math.
The research found that when students received a grade of C or below in a remedial math course, they
had an extremely low chance of passing subsequent remedial math courses. That prompted Foothill
College to adopt changes that allowed students as much time as they needed to complete a remedial
math course (instead of moving all students through at the same rate) and that increased the amount of
tutoring available to students during class. At the same time, the college began requiring that all students
in those courses receive a grade of at least a B-plus to advance.
Ms. Kanter supported the study and helped guide discussion of basic skills in a way that made major
changes possible, said Peter Murray, dean of physical sciences, math, and engineering at Foothill. Since
the math program was first offered in 2006, the proportion of students at Foothill who successfully
completed remedial math jumped to 64 percent from 45 percent, he said. The district's other campus, De
Anza, made other, less-drastic revisions in its math courses, but it, too, saw positive results, he said.
Before the study, "we weren't putting ourselves in the position of students, thinking, What was holding
them back?" Mr. Murray said.
Ms. Kanter's work and record in promoting student success at both the college and state level helped her
win the nomination to the federal government's top postsecondary job, according to several college
officials who were consulted by the Obama administration about the under-secretary job.
A rise in completion rates at the nation's community colleges will be crucial to meeting President Obama's
ambitious goal to have the United States be the nation with the highest percentage of college graduates
by 2020.
Michael W. Kirst, an emeritus professor of education and business at Stanford University, said Ms. Kanter
has a "sophisticated understanding" of problems related to the transition between high school and
college. She has been immersed in both worlds, through her past work as a high-school teacher, her job
as chancellor, and through other positions, including her current role as chairman of the College Board's
community-college advisory panel, he said.
"You can't accomplish persistence and completion goals without understanding what's going on in K-12,"
Mr. Kirst said. "The administration knows that, and she knows it too."
Hands-Off Management Style
Critics of Ms. Kanter are hard to find. In her 16 years in the Foothill-De Anza district, she appears to have
avoided major public fights with the faculty and with unions that represent staff members. Colleagues
describe her as a highly effective manager who leads in a collaborative, hands-off manner, often directing
those she supervises by asking broad, thematic questions to guide their work, rather than assigning
specific tasks.
Sarah Snow, a former student at Foothill College who worked for Ms. Kanter last summer, said she was
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surprised when the chancellor let her, as an intern, take on a major project to measure the college's
carbon emissions.
"She said, OK, well you think you can do this? Go right ahead," said Ms. Snow, who has since transferred
to Stanford University. "She's the kind of woman who sees someone's potential and will trust them to do
the work."
Ms. Kanter's warmth and ability to quickly win supporters should serve her well in the Education
Department, said Eduardo J. Padrn, president of Miami Dade College who has served with her on the
board of the League for Innovation in the Community College. She may be able to avoid the feuds that
have marred some of the relationships of the under secretaries and their assistant secretaries for
postsecondary education in previous administrations, he said.
"One of the things that I think is refreshing about Martha, and I think is important, is she's very
unassuming and she's very down-to-earth," Mr. Padrn said. "That will help her become a player within
the department."
As Ms. Kanter prepares for her move to Washington, she is already thinking about some of the practices
she wants the federal government to encourage colleges to consider as the Obama administration makes
its push to improve the nation's college-completion rates.
She cited the president's proposal to create a $2.5-billion grant program to support state programs that
help low-income students graduate from college. Ms. Kanter said the fund, if approved by Congress,
could encourage more colleges to adopt some of the practices that have proved most effective in
improving retention and graduation rates, such as "learning communities," which group small cohorts of
students together in a common, coordinated set of courses. The federal grant program should require
quarterly reports to track the money and to monitor key criteria that would indicate the effectiveness of
each program it finances, she said.
"Be very clear about what the results are, provide the inputs, measure it, make it transparent," Ms. Kanter
said.
She sees the United States at a turning point when it comes to higher education. She cites challenges
that cause many students to drop out or avoid attending college at all, such as struggles to get in to
courses they need to graduate on crowded campuses and the declining power of Pell Grants and other
federal student aid. States like California have so far largely protected the idea that higher education
should be widely available, she said, but federal spending has not kept pace.
If America continues to reduce its focus on the public mission of education, the American ideal of broad
access is "at risk," she says. But the country can avoid that fate, she says, by spending more on higher
education and focusing on how to reproduce existing programs that are successful.
"We've got to reinvest in the things that work," Ms. Kanter says, "and I think the federal government can
look at those best practices to try to find smarter ways to scale them and make them available. ... With the
right incentives, colleges will rise to the occasion."
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Professors' Pay Raises Beat Inflation; So Much for the

Good News
By AUDREY WILLIAMS JUNE
Faculty pay has been battered by the deepening national recession, but you can't tell that from the
American Association of University Professors' new annual report on the economic status of the
profession. The average salary of a full-time faculty member rose 3.4 percent in 2008-9, it says, a rate
well above inflation.
That would be good news, but the association collected the salary information in the fall of 2008, before
layoffs, pay cuts, and furloughs began to crimp faculty members' incomes. In short, the numbers "do not
reflect the ominous economic reality that is now confronting colleges and universities across the land,"
says the report, titled "On the Brink."
To put the association's salary calculations into perspective, much of the document, released this week,
paints a picture of higher education under attack, and it highlights various budget -cutting measures under
way on campuses.
According to the association, the average pay for a full-time faculty member in 2008-9 is $79,439. At
research institutions, that figure is $90,055; at master's institutions, $69,451; at baccalaureate colleges,
$67,337; and at two-year colleges, $59,310.
For six years, the AAUP's annual surveys have shown that the growth in average faculty salaries has
barely exceeded inflation or failed to keep pace. In 2007-8, for example, average salaries rose 3.8
percent, but an inflation rate of 4.1 percent ate up the increase. That trend came to an end this year, the
new report shows. With inflation at its lowest rate in more than half a century a rock-bottom 0.1
percent, the report notes faculty pay, adjusted for inflation, rose 3.3 percent in 2008-9.
'Silver Lining'
It's only a happy accident that faculty pay raises outpaced inflation this year, says Saranna Thornton, a
professor of economics at Hampden-Sydney College and chair of the AAUP's Committee on the
Economic Status of the Profession. Colleges set their budgets for this academic year in mid-2008, when
inflation was at its highest rate in almost two decades. "Administrators were budgeting for a decline in
inflation-adjusted salary, and then the bottom fell out of the global economy," she says.
Ms. Thornton wrote the report with John W. Curtis, the association's director of research and public
policy.
Low inflation typically means people can buy more with their paychecks, but "the purchasing power of
faculty salaries didn't go up as much as the data make it look like," Ms. Thornton says. In the first half of
2008, the price of goods rose steeply before reaching a peak in the summer months and then dropping
sharply in October. Still, the report says, a low inflation rate is a "silver lining" that faculty members very
likely didn't notice "amid the darkening clouds on the horizon."
Many faculty members are instead focused on weathering impending budget cuts, like those expected at
the University of Memphis. Last fall the university offered voluntary buyouts to administrators, the faculty,
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and the staff in a move to help offset a $7-million drop in its budget. The institution is now poised for a
second round of budget cuts.
"There was quite a bit of worry" among faculty members as the possibility of furloughs surfaced late last
year, says Pinaki Bose, an associate professor of economics at Memphis. But since then the president
and provost "have given faculty the sense" that forced furloughs or job cuts would be a last resort, he
says.
Adjuncts' Dilemma
The economic environment is especially onerous for colleges because "in many ways, higher education
was just recovering from the last recession," says Mr. Curtis. He expects the recession's impact on faculty
salaries to surface in next year's data.
With the economy as a backdrop, the report also spotlighted the plight of faculty members who work off
the tenure track, in particular instructors who work part time. The proportion of part-time and full-time
adjunct faculty members a figure that the association closely tracks grew from 43.2 percent of the
professoriate in 1975 to 68.8 percent in 2007. The proportion of adjunct faculty members who are parttimers rose from 30.2 percent to 50.3 percent during that same time period.
Adjunct faculty members still lack job security a fact that has become all too clear lately. In recent
months, adjuncts have been among the first to lose their jobs at colleges that "seem to be focusing on an
immediate need to cut expenses," Mr. Curtis says. At the same time, other institutions, faced with sharp
enrollment growth, are hiring more part-timers "because they need somebody to teach more classes," he
says. "How this will all pan out is anybody's guess."
Leaving Academe?
One possible outcome: Some adjuncts could drop out of the academic work force. Maria Maisto, an
associate lecturer of composition at the University of Akron, says she has increasingly heard her fellow
adjuncts talk of quitting, although enrollment is up and administrators have assured adjuncts that there
will be "plenty of work." For some, leaving behind the job insecurity, low pay, and hard work of adjunct
teaching to take a position outside academe that might be just as unstable but comes with "a better
salary, benefits. and better working conditions" is now a high priority especially if they have a partner
whose job is at risk, says Ms. Maisto, who is co-chair of the New Faculty Majority, a national adjunctadvocacy organization.
Another possible outcome: Part -timers will have even less leverage for demanding better pay and
working conditions. Deborah Louis, an adjunct professor of political science, criminal justice, and
women's studies at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College and Eastern Kentucky University,
predicts that adjuncts, desperate for work, will eagerly accept the new part-time positions that some
colleges, strapped for cash, are creating. Administrators "will just say, 'You can take what we're offering
or else we'll find someone else,'" says Ms. Louis, co-chair of the New Faculty Majority with Ms. Maisto.
Gender Equity Still an Issue
Besides adjunct issues, the new AAUP report also devotes attention to gender equity, a longtime focus of
its faculty-pay studies. The report shows that at every type of institution, male academics continue to earn
more, on average, than women who hold the same jobs. The average salary for male full professors for
example, is $112,235, compared with $98,942 for women of the same rank a gap of 11.8 percent.
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When it comes to more recent hires, the average salary for male assistant professors is $65,997, which is
7 percent more than the $61,533 earned by their female peers.
Although the likelihood of women's becoming full professors has improved, the report says, men still
outnumber women at that rank at every type of institution except community colleges, where the number
of male and female full professors is about equal.
At research universities, where the gender gap among full professors is the widest, for every female full
professor there are about four men who hold the same rank in 2008-9, the report says. By comparison, in
1995-96 there were about seven male full professors for every female full professor at a research
university.
Among assistant professors, women have achieved parity or better at every type of institution except
research universities, where the ratio for first-time assistant professors is one woman for every 1.2 men.
Because the economy could get worse before it gets better, the AAUP urges faculty members to be
diligent about getting involved in budget discussions at their institutions. Administrators need to provide
"real evidence" that faculty positions need to be cut, says Mr. Curtis, the AAUP's research director.
Jeffrey M. Stonecash, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, says he did just that after
Chancellor Nancy Cantor's recent announcement that a pay freeze would be in effect for the 2009-10
academic year for faculty and staff members who make more than $50,000.
Mr. Stonecash says his research points to "considerable evidence that administration is growing" at the
same time that faculty members aren't getting raises. Ms. Cantor, for her part, will take a 10-percent pay
cut in the coming year.
"My concern is not that any of us are going to go to the poorhouse over this. That's not the issue," says
Mr. Stonecash, who has been at Syracuse for 32 years. "I'm troubled about the lack of a big-picture
discussion. Are we spending so much on administration that it will harm the ability to reward faculty
members who really achieve? High achievers will get offers from other universities and leave."
In a general swipe at administrators, the AAUP report warns that "some administrations appear to be
taking advantage of the difficult financial situation" to push ahead on major reorganizations without
involving faculty members or thinking about long-term consequences.
"If whole programs need to be cut or schools reorganized," says Mr. Curtis, "then faculty should be
involved in the decision-making process."
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The Daily Journal, April 11, 2009 (Page 1 of 3)
Law freezes tuition, but fees keep rising

By Pete Nickeas
The Daily Journal Springfield Bureau
SPRINGFIELD -- When John Pauley calculated costs for his son Tyler's college education in 2006, the
cost was significantly higher than when he and his wife sent their other son to Western Illinois University
in 2003.
"When we're all done we'll have eight and a half years of Western. The costs do go up. I won't say it's
exorbitant, but it's noticeable," John Pauley, a Rock Island resident, said.
Between increases in university costs and other expenses, like housing and food, John said the
difference between his sons' costs at Western amount to about $2,000 each year.
To give parents a "measure of predictability" regarding the cost of education, Illinois six years ago passed
a law requiring state-supported schools to freeze tuition rates for four years for each incoming class of
freshmen.
The law had unintended consequences. It pushed tuition and fee rates up for future classes as the
schools dealt with shrinking state appropriations.
To cope with dwindling state support for higher education, state universities are increasingly turning to
students and their parents to bridge the gap. In fact, the average annual tuition increase was less than 9
percent in the five years before the law, and has spiked to more than 12 percent in the years since.
'Truth in tuition'
The "truth-in-tuition" law freezes tuition for each freshman class at state schools for four years.
Western voluntarily locked room, board, tuition and fee rates in 1999 for each incoming class of
freshmen. And when the state passed the law in 2003, they modeled it after Western's program.
Students don't have to guess next year's tuition costs, which account for a large chunk of their total
education expenses. But while tuition rates remain frozen, larger fees are being tacked on each year.
But students and parents can only guess what the fees will amount to.
Universities charge a variety of mandatory fees based on their needs. The University of Illinois at
Springfield bumped next year's sports fee for all students nearly 15 percent to help cover the cost of
transitioning to NCAA Division II athletics, and other universities have implemented building maintenance
fees or transportation plan fees.
The problem is, the costs of attending a state school are higher and are rising faster than they did before
the law was passed, according to data compiled from Illinois Board of Higher Education records.
Because fees aren't included in the law, schools can raise them each year, even when tuition remains
frozen.
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The law was prompted by years of inconsistent tuition increases at state schools. Tuition hikes at state
universities in the 5 years preceding the law's passage ranged from 2 percent to more than 20 percent.
The law passed in 2003 with little opposition.
The measure's House sponsor was state Rep. Kevin Joyce, D-Chicago, who said he introduced the bill
with two goals -- giving parents and students a "measure of predictability" about their education costs,
and giving students who might otherwise take five years to graduate a financial kick-in-the-rear. The law
only guarantees tuition for four years.
"That fifth year is going to cost you big money if you don't get done," Joyce said, since the fifth year of
tuition would include four years of increases. Students who complete their schooling in four years get to
pay the single tuition rate all the way through.
"They went further than they should've gone."
Joyce said that "front -end loading," or charging a higher rate now in exchange for a flat rate for four years,
should have only happened for a year or two. And the first year, the tuition increases at public schools
were massive, averaging more than 18 percent in 2004.
Since then average tuition rates for incoming freshmen have grown at a rate of 11 percent each year.
Education officials contend that state support hasn't kept pace with inflation and has forced state
universities to hike tuition and fees, using student money to bridge the gap.
"I'm told by the college presidents, that one of the sort of 'deals' in the tuition freeze was that the state
would continue making increased funding commitments to higher ed and that hasn't happened," said Judy
Erwin, executive director of the Illinois Board of Higher Education. "It's been the opposite. So there are a
lot of people who think that should've nullified the tuition freeze."
Combined causes
The disarray in higher education funding leads to finger pointing -- some legislators point at each other,
other lawmakers at the schools and many legislators at former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
According to state Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, a member of the House Higher Education
Committee, there was a roughly two-to-one split of education dollars between K-12 education and higher
education until 2002.
The state's priorities shifted dramatically after Blagojevich was elected and Illinois stopped funding higher
education at the same levels as the early '90s, when state schools were funded with a mix of about 75
percent state money and 25 percent university income.
State spending on higher education spiraled downward under Blagojevich's leadership. That split of
university income and state spending is about 50/50 now, leaving schools to fill the gap by increasing
costs to students.
And since schools don't know how much state money they're going to receive four years from now -- only
that it will likely be less than what they received this year -- they have to err on the side of caution when
putting together next year's tuition rates.
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Randal Kangas, assistant vice president for planning and budgeting at University of Illinois, said the
concept of locked-tuition works best when it's coupled with steady state support.
But the U of I has lost about 13 percent of its annual state funding since the high-water mark in 2002,
making planning four years in advance difficult, Kangas said.
"To protect themselves the universities have started moving toward fees," Bost said. "It's sad, and I can't
agree with it. But it's awful difficult to criticize them for doing that when they're trying to survive but the
legislature's undermining them."
State Rep. Shane Cultra, R-Onarga, cast one of six dissenting votes when the "truth-in-tuition" law
passed out of the House in 2003. He said the law would force schools to err on the high side when
looking at tuition increases.
"The university doesn't know what their reimbursement from the state is going to be, what their expenses
are going to be." Cultra said. "From a student standpoint, maybe it makes sense. But looking at it from the
university's standpoint, they don't want to get stuck with huge increased costs and not be able to raise
tuition."
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 11, 2009 (Page 1 of 2)
Local universities reach out to students whose

families are economy's victims
By Kavita Kumar
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
The financial aid director at Washington University has been given a broad mandate and the
commitment of university resources to back it up to ensure that no student drops out of school
because a parent was laid off or has suffered crippling financial losses.
"What I've been told is to do whatever it takes to make sure our current students don't leave the university
due to financial reasons," said Bill Witbrodt. "That is really something."
The school is not alone.
St. Louis University has set up a $1 million loan program for the next school year in which students in a
pinch can borrow as much as $6,000 from the university. The school has also quickly raised $300,000
more than half of its $500,000 goal for an emergency scholarship fund to help financially
struggling students stay in school.
And at Maryville University, administrators have alerted faculty and staff that if they hear concerns from
students about paying for college, they should refer them to the financial aid office immediately. Maryville
has already helped about 20 families in dire straits scrape together more grants and loans so they
can afford college.
Universities are painfully aware that the recession has taken a brutal toll on many students and families.
In response, colleges are being extra vigilant these days about reaching out to students to make sure
they don't leave because of financial hardships.
Schools are reshuffling already tight resources to pour more money into their financial aid budgets,
starting new scholarship programs and slashing summer school tuition.
The University of Missouri-St. Louis, for example, has flooded its financial aid budget with an extra $2
million, allowing the school to double the size of many of its scholarships. And Webster University
established a new $6,000 scholarship this year for new incoming freshmen who are the dependents of
alumni and part-time faculty and staff.
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville almost never uses up all of the $25,000 it sets aside every year
to help students with a drastic family change of circumstances. This year, the school already has depleted
that emergency fund. Next year it plans to quadruple the account to $100,000.
Given the recession, it's not surprising that more students are applying for more financial aid. By this time
last year, SIUE had received about 5,000 applications for federal financial aid. This year, it has already
received more than 7,000.
The University of Missouri-Columbia has received about 1,100 more financial aid applications from firsttime freshmen so far this year. But Jim Brooks, MU's financial aid director, noted that the increase is
probably both because of the economy and because more students have applied to the school.
As for current students, Brooks has been a bit surprised he hasn't seen a deluge of requests for more aid
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 11, 2009 (Page 2 of 2)
because of a change in family finances.
"I thought when we came back from Christmas we would see a huge jump," he said. "My guess is that
families have planned this year through, but that with the 09-10 school year, we'll see more requests."
Two small private schools McKendree University in Illinois and Culver-Stockton College in
northeastern Missouri have slashed their summer school tuition rates by 50 percent and 40 percent
respectively."The stimulus for it was thinking about how we can support our students during
this time of economic difficulty," said Christine Bahr, McKendree's provost.
Like Culver-Stockton, McKendree historically has offered only a handful of summer school classes. And
many of its students would often opt instead for summer classes at community colleges or at other
cheaper four-year schools near their homes.
Bahr said the school will have to double summer school enrollment to break even. But McKendree is
hoping it will be an attractive enough option that it might bring in a little extra revenue to the school.
Melik Peter Khoury, Culver Stockton's vice president of enrollment and marketing, said the main focus of
the reduced summer school tuition is to help students get in all of their classes so they can graduate on
time and to give them a chance to continue to develop stronger relationships with the school's
faculty.
"But it doesn't hurt that we will be able to help sustain the college financially if this is successful," he said.
About 1 in 15 applications this year to Lindenwood University have come from students with a family
member who has taken a pay cut or who has been laid off, said Joe Parisi, the school's dean of
admissions.
In response, Lindenwood is giving out larger financial aid packages than it has before, Parisi said. "But
that doesn't mean it's always 100 percent going to be what they want," he added.
Boyd Bradshaw, a SLU associate vice provost, said his office has received more than 100 inquiries in
recent months from families concerned about paying for college. SLU sits down with those families to
discuss any changes in family income or circumstances. After the review, the school might give out more
grant aid, work out a payment plan or recommend certain types of loans.
In two out of three cases, SLU is usually able to help the families find a solution, Bradshaw said.
"But there are always situations where it is not in the student's best interest or in our interest for the
student to stay at SLU because they would incur too much debt," he said. "So in some cases, they would
be better off going to their home school or a public school."
WU's Witbrodt said his office is doing a lot to reach out to students to help them find solutions before they
decide to drop out. But he cannot say with certainty whether any student has left because he or she could
no longer afford it. "I hope not," he said.
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Journal Gazette & Times-Courier, April 13, 2009 (Page 1 of 2)
Citing dip in funding, Lake Land raises tuition, fees

By HERB MEEKER, Staff Writer
hmeeker@jg-tc.com
Monday, April 13, 2009 10:41 PM CDT
MATTOON Lake Land College students will pay up to $75 more per semester for full-time tuition and
fees starting this summer.
LLC trustees Monday approved a tuition increase of $4 more per credit hour and $1 more for fees. A year
ago this month, the college increased its tuition $5 per credit hour and tacked on another dollar on fees as
well.
To keep pace with technology and serve the community at the level we do, then we must do this, said
college President Scott Lensink prior to the unanimous vote on the measure.
Lensink and board members pointed out that the college has received a 14-percent decrease in state
funding and depended on its surplus funds to make up that shortfall. Trustee Tom Niebrugge said this
tuition increase will not generate a surplus of funds but only pay dollar-per-dollar for funding reductions.
College leaders anticipate both state and local revenues will be essentially flat for the coming fiscal
year; therefore, the tuition hike is need to offset ongoing increases in salaries, utilities and other
expenses, they said.
Board Chairwoman Doris Reynolds acknowledged that taxpayers are experiencing increases in utilities,
fuel and other necessary expenses. But the college is also playing more as well, she said.
Trustee Jim Shaffer said the good news is that Lake Land is keeping pace on classes and programs while
still keeping tuition affordable. It was noted by board members that Lake Land is still the third lowest on
tuition rates for community colleges in Illinois.
The vote for the tuition increase was accepted by Reynolds,
Shaffer, Niebrugge, Leland Glazebrook, Marianne Morgan, Carl Hart, Mike Sullivan and newly appointed
student trustee Josh Wollin.
Wollin won his seat in recent LLC student government association elections.
In other fiscal business Monday, the board accepted two grants expected to total more than $50,000. The
KnowHow2GoIllinois grant will help promote post-secondary education in Mattoon through three high
school events, while the Growing Agricultural Science Teachers Grant will fund out reach and internship
opportunities to 15 high schools within the college district. It will also fund scholarships for 16 LLC ag
students seeking agricultural science teacher education careers.
The college board also approved the $98,629 purchase of a human patient simulator to provide
enhanced training to nursing students. The unit from METI of Sarasota, Fla., will demonstrate symptoms
through faculty programming, said Jim Hull, LLC vice president of academic services.
The board also accepted 2 + 2 agreements with Millikin University to assist LLC students with transfers to
the university for seeking degrees in marketing, accounting, information technology, including Webbased, computer applications, network administration and programming, business management, and
associate in science in business management through online or traditional classes.
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Journal Gazette & Times-Courier, April 13, 2009 (Page 2 of 2)
These agreements make transferring credits easier from the community college to four-year schools.
Board policy revisions were also approved to expand family medical leave for employees of military
personnel. The employee vacation policy was adjusted to earned vacation time and an addition was
made: a requirement of forwarding requests to the college director of human resources.
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SIUC eyes 4.5 percent tuition increase

BY SCOTT FITZGERALD, THE SOUTHERN
Tuesday, April 14, 2009 11:02 PM CDT
CARBONDALE - Southern Illinois University Carbondale administrators have prepared different 2009-10
financial budgets contingent on what lawmakers appropriate for higher education in the state budget,
Chancellor Sam Goldman told members of the SIUC Faculty Senate during a meeting Tuesday in the
SIUC Student Center.
"We are facing a very tight budget. We've worked with the deans on efficiency and productivity," Goldman
said.
The top priority is to avoid any cutbacks in faculty and staff. Each budget contains projected salary raises.
"We will meet our contractual obligations," Goldman said, noting SIUC has received 5,754 registrations so
far this year from continuing students.
The chancellor said a 9.9 percent tuition increase announced initially for the upcoming budget was to
show board members the needs of the university.
"We weren't going there (9.9 percent) at all," Goldman said after the meeting.
Gov. Quinn has requested the state reimburse 2.5 percent of funding it drew from the higher education
fund in the 2008-09 budget and add another 1 percent that would boost a higher education funding
increase by 3.5 percent, Goldman said.
The governor's proposal, with a 4.5 percent tuition increase, would be the best scenario for SIUC for the
approaching fiscal year.
But, administrators have drawn up other budgets with a 4.5 percent tuition increase without increases in
state higher education funding, Goldman said.
He told faculty senate members about some particular budget line items that stand out, such as his
request for $300,000 more for Morris Library to purchase learning materials, such as periodicals.
"We've heard much about the library. We don't want any more cuts," he told faculty senate members.
"It's a tough situation," Goldman said about a tightening of projected revenues and increasing costs for
the upcoming fiscal year. "This university has a way of being resilient through tough times."
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Quincy Herald-Whig, April 15, 2009
JWCC officials say $3 tuition hike will be offset by new

tax credit as part of stimulus package
By KELLY WILSON
Herald-Whig Staff Writer
A $3 per credit hour tuition hike approved on Wednesday by John Wood Community College trustees is
the smallest percentage increase since 2001 and will be offset by a new tax credit available to students
as part of the federal stimulus package.
The 2.9 percent increase will bring in-district tuition and fees to $107 per credit hour and out-of-district
tuition to $207 per credit hour. Online tuition will remain at $130 per credit hour.
An in-district student taking a full load of 15 credit hours per semester will pay $45 more per semester.
Administrators say a students actual out-of-pocket costs are expected to be lower than this year because
of provisions in the stimulus package.
The real story here is the true cost of attending JWCC will shift from about $3,600 (per year) for a fulltime student paying full tuition to about $1,200 or less with the implementation of the American
Opportunity Tax Credit next year as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, said JWCC
President Tom Klincar. Next year its going to cost one-third of what it is this year. Id say thats a
bargain.
The tax credit covers 100 percent of JWCC tuition and fees up to $2,000, plus 25 percent of the next
$2,000 in qualified tuition and fees for the next two years. If a JWCC student does not earn sufficient
income to pay taxes, 40 percent of the tuition and fees will be refunded by the federal government rather
than tax-credited.
In addition, more than 70 percent of JWCC students received other financial aid this year, $4.8 million in
all.
All but one trustee, Reggie Coleman, voted in favor of the tuition increase.
I just have a concern, every time I see an increase in the cost to our constituents ... while it is true that
our costs are rising, their costs are rising, Coleman said.
The tuition hike will generate about $174,000 in additional revenue for the college, said JWCC Director of
Fiscal Services Mary Arp. The move was recommended by college administrators to help offset increases
in operating expenses, including expected increases in utility costs and transportation, while funding from
the state of Illinois is uncertain.
State appropriations have dwindled from 34 percent of the college budget in 2001 to 26 percent in 2009,
plus an additional $80,000 recision.
Klincar said much of the reason that administrators proposed just a 2.9 percent tuition increase is that the
college has received more than $1 million in grants and gifts in the past nine months. He also said the
college is holding the line on spending and working to manage escalating costs.
Trustee Randy Sims said he was glad that the proposed increase was as low as it was, but said those
who use should pay, and supported the hike to avoid going to taxpayers or reducing spending even
more. kwilson@whig.com/221-3391
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Campus Technology, April 15, 2009 (Page 1 of 2)
Why is Web 2.0 Important to Higher Education?

By Trent Batson
I heard someone say (parenthetically) "I hate that term," meaning Web 2.0. Understandably, it's easy to
confuse "Web2.0" with all the other fads and hype that information technology advocates and
entrepreneurs have spewed over the past 25 years. But even the jaded must recognize that Web 2.0 is
like "Pearl Harbor" or "D-Day," or "9/11," or "The Sixties." Web 2.0, defined now in dozens of ways--data
existing in one place and functionality in another, or "the social Web," or AJAX, and so on, will be
remembered as a cultural moment, a turning point, and the moment when our world changed. Nowhere
else outside of higher education will the impact of this Web 2.0 moment be felt more poignantly.
No, it really is not just the technology. Tim Berners-Lee says the technology was always there. What
changed was that Web sites became easy enough to use and sufficiently served some new purpose so
the mainstream population became avid users. No longer the exclusive domain of the geek or the brave,
the Web is now a gathering place, an Oahu, for the world.
For decades, a minority among educators has advocated alternate forms of teaching and learning. The
umbrella term for these alternate forms is "open education," (cf Opening Up Education, Kumar and
Iiyoshi, MIT Press, 2008). The litany of alternate forms is long: co-op learning, experiential learning,
service learning, internships, semester abroad, field study, authentic learning, problem-based learning,
adult education, extension courses, and on and on. Each of these alternate forms was designed with the
assumption that traditional classroom learning was the norm.
With the dawning of Web 2.0, these alternate forms of teaching and learning are now becoming the
"native" forms for this age. Open education, open knowledge, and open resources are different faces of
the Web 2.0 revolution in higher education.
Culturally speaking, with the advent of Web 2.0, the "traditional classroom" with one speaker and many
listeners is now an oddity, a throwback, a form that should represent 15 percent of undergraduate
interaction with faculty, not 85 percent as it does now. With so many ways to create knowledge now very
rapidly and collaboratively, we are freed from the necessity of a singular approach to teaching. It no
longer makes sense. If you are a faculty member and you are still walking into the classroom with a
lecture in mind and "the points to cover," as I did for many years, you are living in the past, a past that is
now obsolete. Granted, your job is easier and the students love it if you just talk, but do you feel right
about what you are doing?
The learning tools of this century and probably this millennium are not print-based. That world and all its
assumptions about permanence, authority, and scarcity are gone. It is no longer the authority lecture but
the conversation that is the emerging norm. The new textbook is student work; I'll say it again: The
textbook of this age is the work that students generate under your guidance and within your design.
Strong statements, but it is time to get past the rationalizations of "not enough support," or "what about
plagiarism?" or "I've always taught this way, I was taught this way, and I'm not about to change now." The
salient fact about Web 2.0 is that the technology that now dominates our world and which is knowledgegenerating technology (the car, the plane, the steam engine, or the dynamo were not knowledgegenerating technologies, keep in mind), leads to a "native" way of creating knowledge diametrically
opposed to how we created knowledge with books and print. This is no small point.
Books are usually solo voices talking to us over a long period of time (the time it takes to read the book
and the time that the book lasts, making received knowledge at any point seem immutable). Books made
us believe in a learning mode--solo and autonomous--that is completely at odds with human nature. Web
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Campus Technology, April 15, 2009 (Page 2 of 2)
2.0, the social Web, is us finding ourselves once again. And, it is finding how we naturally learn--not in
timed segments in a regimented and pre-packaged way, but constantly, in conversation, in groups,
serendipitously.
David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, in the Op Ed piece "The End of Philosophy," April 6, 2009,
refers to a new view of evolution that adds another layer to the general belief that competition is the driver
behind human evolution. "...in recent years," Brooks says, "there's an increasing appreciation that
evolution isn't just about competition. It's also about cooperation within groups. Like bees, humans have
long lived or died based on their ability to divide labor, help each other and stand together in the face of
common threats... We are all descendents of successful cooperators."
He goes on to say "people are not discrete units coolly formulating moral arguments. They link
themselves together into communities and networks of mutual influence."
Web 2.0 technologies and open education learning design, employed by imaginative teachers, create a
landscape of learning--collaborative, problem-based, experiential--that is closer to our nature than the
ranked, single voice classrooms so abundant in recent times. The single voice classroom developed
because of the lack of other ways to help students learn. We no longer lack the resources and tools to
develop learning designs that fit how people learn.
In The Chronicle's Wired Campus on April 6, 2009, a lively discussion developed about technology in the
classroom being a "distraction." The discussion is worth reading. But, keep in mind that if the technology
was not in the room, and the students quiet, does that mean they are not internally distracted? Would
anyone make the claim that all students are tuned in 100 percent during a lecture? Or is a much lower
percentage more realistic? And perhaps the lecture itself is distracting from some internal productive
thinking for some students.
One person, in this online discussion, said "I understand faculty feeling the need to focus the attention of
students on a particular subject, however you can do both. Tell students to turn their laptops away, or
close them during certain parts of your presentation/lecture to be sure they are paying attention. Then,
when you want them to actively take the information you've given them and find other examples, or recent
articles from today's news, you can have them use that wifi Internet connection."
To make the transition from a predominant lecture format to a more "studio" approach to learning requires
trust that students really are curious and really do want to engage in learning. Let's not assume the
teacher is in competition with the students for control, let's instead assume that teachers and students
really want to cooperate, the human trait that is most central to our survival.
Welcome back to humanity. Some technologies take us away from ourselves (think cars and rush hour
and road rage) and others bring us back. Web 2.0 is helping us rediscover our naturally cooperative,
creative, and gregarious nature.
Don't think, therefore, of Web 2.0 as something foreign or hyped-up or all about geeks; Web 2.0 is the
rebirth of teaching and learning that fits what we are as a species.
About the Author
Trent Batson, Ph.D. has served as an English professor, director of academic computing, and has been
an IT leader since the mid-1980s. He is currently acting director of The Association for Authentic,
Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL), an emerging professional association for the
ePortfolio community. He is the former Chair of the Board of the Open Source Portfolio Initiative, and
Senior Contributing Editor for Campus Technology's Web 2.0 e-newsletter. batsontr@mit.edu
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Chicago Tribune, COMMENTARY, April 12, 2009 (Page 1 of 2)
Paranoia.edu anxieties
By Brian Goedde | Academic adviser at the University of Iowa
April 12, 2009
"Hawk Alert," the text message read, one morning last spring. "An active shooter is reported to be in the
Iowa City area. He is a white male in his mid-40s driving a 1998 tan Toyota Sienna minivan."
"What? Emily!" I woke up my wife with the news, then called the office."We don't know what's going on
either," said Donna, the administrative assistant.
"Should I come to work?"
"That's up to you," she said. Not the answer I had hoped for.
Emily and I sat on the edge of the bed, wondering aloud how one makes such a decision. What are the
chances I'd see the shooter? Are any chances worth taking? Would "terror-stricken" be "vacation" or
"sick" leave?
It's a strange time to work at a university. Thursday marks the two-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech
shootings, an event that has so profoundly affected campus life I've heard people say "ever since Virginia
Tech" as if it were higher education's 9/11. Paranoia is high, and schools like the University of Iowa,
where I work, have been right to respond. Crisis training and emergency communication systems like the
Hawk Alerts have helped. They make us more aware and prepared. Another idea that has been
considered on campuses nationwide, and is being considered by the Texas legislature, is to allow
students, faculty and staff to carry guns. This, by contrast, would make campuses more dangerous and
exacerbate an already fearful campus culture.
A month after the Virginia Tech shootings, I completed my master's degree and became an academic
adviser, a job I had hoped would be relatively easy going -- "First take Chem I, then Chem II," right? Yes,
but also in my job training was how to work the panic buzzer on the underside of my desk. I hate to
meditate on when I might use it, but the button next to my sunken keyboard reminds me that I should.
I have encountered students in tremendous stress, despair and -- what concerns me the most -delusional anger. One student, for example, wanted to "quickly check in" and make sure his difficult
political science class was counting for his history major. It wasn't, I regretfully replied; only history
classes count for the history major. He looked shocked. "Another adviser told me it would," he said,
though no record of this could be found. (We keep track of our advice in part for this reason.) "Someone
here made a big mistake," he insisted, "and I want to know how I'm going to be compensated."
The words chilled me, and it's the only time I've thought of hitting the panic button. I didn't feel directly
threatened, however, so instead I suggested he come back to meet with my boss. He made the
appointment but never showed -- except in my fearful imagination, which would only intensify if the
university were to allow him to carry a gun around campus.
Last summer, in conjunction with the campus police, our office practiced what to do if a student were to
realize my nightmare. We called it the "henny-penny" drill, trying to keep the subject light. Like a murdermystery party, one of us holding a yellow squirt gun would attack "sometime very soon" after the staff
meeting. An unlucky adviser was then cornered in her office, and by means I won't divulge (lest I give
secrets to the enemy), the mock-dire situation was communicated to the rest of us.
The element of fun lasted until this point, when I closed my door and sat under my desk, my back to the
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Chicago Tribune, COMMENTARY, April 12, 2009 (Page 2 of 2)
file cabinet, away from the long, vertical window by the door, and listened for the campus police to tromp
through the hall. As it turned out, the scene didn't take place in my hallway so all the action was out of
earshot. I spent the quiet time under my desk, next to the panic buzzer, and as the silliness gave way to
somberness I felt grateful for the exercise. I now know what to do should this happen.
Now imagine me holding a gun under the desk. A gun license doesn't require its holder to know how to
handle a shooting. If I were to hear gunshots outside my door I'd be liable to shoot into the adviser's office
across the hall, who, for every good reason, would be shooting too -- back at me. We wouldn't be more
prepared; we'd be more dangerous, and in the very situation for which we were armed.
We should learn from our tragedies, not overreact to them. Virginia Tech has concluded that one of its
principal faults as an institution was its inability to notify danger quickly to students, faculty and staff. Our
Hawk Alert system, named after our Hawkeye mascot, was our university's way of learning from Virginia
Tech's shortcoming, and that morning last spring was its first big moment. The city police informed the
campus police what it knew about the situation, and campus police relayed the information over tens of
thousands of text messages, e-mails and automated phone calls. It created a near panic across campus,
but, in retrospect, I'm glad that I knew danger was afoot.
Emily and I soon learned the news online: A man had murdered his wife and children early that morning
and sped down the highway, committing suicide by crashing his car.
"My God," we said, horrified. The unspeakable had made it safe for me to go outside, however, so I
kissed Emily, left the house, and started toward campus with a sinking feeling: Can it be I'm so terrified of
a campus shooting that I was also relieved to learn of the murder-suicide?
To have such a thought makes it a dreadful time to work at a university.
At the office I got another Hawk Alert. "Police found a charred van matching previous description," it said.
"We have no signs the UI campus is under any threat" -- an ironic choice of words, since all around me I
see signs saying otherwise. These signs should signal our awareness, training, and preparation.
Increasing the presence of guns would increase the possibility of gun violence, which we don't need.
We're jumpy enough as it is.
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Chicago Tribune, OPINION, April 13, 2009
Status Quo University

April 13, 2009
Chicago State University paid a local executive -recruiting firm $75,000 to help with its search for a new
president. The South Side school supposedly was looking for a fresh start after the resignation last year
of President Elnora Daniel.
You remember Daniel. She let the school pay for her fancy cruises, swanky dinners and high-priced
home furnishings, while four out of five students who enrolled at her school were leaving without a
degree.
She reimbursed the money and retired.
You'd think the school's trustees would be red-faced and determined to find a new leader who would be a
dynamic turnaround specialist.
Instead, the trustees have named two finalists for president: Wayne Watson, 63, chancellor of the City
Colleges of Chicago, and Carol Adams, 64, secretary of the Illinois Department of Human Services.
Students at Chicago State are steamed about a selection process that seems destined to perpetuate the
status quo at their school.
Watson is capable, but he announced last year that he would retire this summer from his City Colleges
job. What makes the Chicago State trustees think he's ready to lead the profound revolution they
desperately need?
Adams was former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's pick to run Human Services. In 2007, she drew heat because
her agency had hired "special assistants" who were little more than chauffeurs for some agency bosses.
When Adams was asked about her own "special assistant" she said: "Does he drive? Yes. He's much
better at it than I."
Oh my, Chicago State, doesn't that sound familiar?
Students and professors seem to be a lot more concerned about the future of their school than the
trustees are. "I think the board made a bad decision with the two picks," senior Gread McKinnis told
Tribune reporter Jodi S. Cohen.
"I have yet to find anyone on campus who has anything good to say about either of these candidates,"
said Ann Kuzdale, a Chicago State history professor and a member of the presidential search advisory
committee. "I don't have much hope for the change that everybody wanted."
Change? That's what special assistants need when they pull up to a parking meter.
The Chicago State trusteesChairman Betsy Hill, Rev. Richard Tolliver, Jim Reynolds, Rev. Leon
Finney, Peggy Montesneed to restart their search.
They should be deeply embarrassed by the 16.2 percent graduation rate at their school in 2007.
They should be deeply embarrassed by Daniel's tenure.
They should be deeply embarrassed by their failure to help their school.
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The New York Times, OPINION, April 16, 2009 (Page 1 of 2)
How to Raise Our I.Q.

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Poor people have I.Q.s significantly lower than those of rich people, and the awkward conventional
wisdom has been that this is in large part a function of genetics.
After all, a series of studies seemed to indicate that I.Q. is largely inherited. Identical twins raised apart,
for example, have I.Q.s that are remarkably similar. They are even closer on average than those of
fraternal twins who grow up together.
If intelligence were deeply encoded in our genes, that would lead to the depressing conclusion that
neither schooling nor antipoverty programs can accomplish much. Yet while this view of I.Q. as
overwhelmingly inherited has been widely held, the evidence is growing that it is, at a practical level,
profoundly wrong. Richard Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, has just
demolished this view in a superb new book, Intelligence and How to Get It, which also offers terrific
advice for addressing poverty and inequality in America.
Professor Nisbett provides suggestions for transforming your own urchins into geniuses praise effort
more than achievement, teach delayed gratification, limit reprimands and use praise to stimulate curiosity
but focuses on how to raise Americas collective I.Q. Thats important, because while I.Q. doesnt
measure pure intellect were not certain exactly what it does measure differences do matter, and a
higher I.Q. correlates to greater success in life.
Intelligence does seem to be highly inherited in middle-class households, and thats the reason for the
findings of the twins studies: very few impoverished kids were included in those studies. But Eric
Turkheimer of the University of Virginia has conducted further research demonstrating that in poor and
chaotic households, I.Q. is minimally the result of genetics because everybody is held back.
Bad environments suppress childrens I.Q.s, Professor Turkheimer said.
One gauge of that is that when poor children are adopted into upper-middle-class households, their I.Q.s
rise by 12 to 18 points, depending on the study. For example, a French study showed that children from
poor households adopted into upper-middle-class homes averaged an I.Q. of 107 by one test and 111 by
another. Their siblings who were not adopted averaged 95 on both tests.
Another indication of malleability is that I.Q. has risen sharply over time. Indeed, the average I.Q. of a
person in 1917 would amount to only 73 on todays I.Q. test. Half the population of 1917 would be
considered mentally retarded by todays measurements, Professor Nisbett says.
Good schooling correlates particularly closely to higher I.Q.s. One indication of the importance of school
is that childrens I.Q.s drop or stagnate over the summer months when they are on vacation (particularly
for kids whose parents dont inflict books or summer programs on them).
Professor Nisbett strongly advocates intensive early childhood education because of its proven ability to
raise I.Q. and improve long-term outcomes. The Milwaukee Project, for example, took African- American
children considered at risk for mental retardation and assigned them randomly either to a control group
that received no help or to a group that enjoyed intensive day care and education from 6 months of age
until they left to enter first grade.
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The New York Times, OPINION, April 16, 2009 (Page 2 of 2)
By age 5, the children in the program averaged an I.Q. of 110, compared with 83 for children in the
control group. Even years later in adolescence, those children were still 10 points ahead in I.Q.
Professor Nisbett suggests putting less money into Head Start, which has a mixed record, and more into
these intensive childhood programs. He also notes that schools in the Knowledge Is Power Program
(better known as KIPP) have tested exceptionally well and favors experiments to see if they can be
scaled up.
Another proven intervention is to tell junior-high-school students that I.Q. is expandable, and that their
intelligence is something they can help shape. Students exposed to that idea work harder and get better
grades. Thats particularly true of girls and math, apparently because some girls assume that they are
genetically disadvantaged at numbers; deprived of an excuse for failure, they excel.
Some of the things that work are very cheap, Professor Nisbett noted. Convincing junior-high kids that
intelligence is under their control you could argue that that should be in the junior-high curriculum right
now.
The implication of this new research on intelligence is that the economic-stimulus package should also be
an intellectual-stimulus program. By my calculation, if we were to push early childhood education and
bolster schools in poor neighborhoods, we just might be able to raise the United States collective I.Q. by
as much as one billion points.
That should be a no-brainer.
I invite you to visit my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook , watch my YouTube videos
and follow me on Twitter.
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The New York Times, EDITORIAL, April 16, 2009
The battle over student lending

April 16, 2009
Private companies that reap undeserved profits from the federal student -loan program are gearing up to
kill a White House plan that would get them off the dole and redirect the savings to federal scholarships
for the needy. Instead of knuckling under to the powerful lending lobby, as it has so often done in the
past, Congress needs to finally put the taxpayers interests first.
That means embracing President Obamas plan. The proposal takes the long-overdue step of phasing out
the portion of the student-loan program that relies on private lenders. At the same time, it expands the
more efficient and less expensive portion of the program that allows students to borrow directly from the
federal government through their colleges.
About three-quarters of this countrys college lending is carried out through the private program, known as
the Federal Family Education Loan Program. Under this galling arrangement, lenders are paid handsome
subsidies to make student loans that are virtually risk-free, since they are guaranteed by the government.
The subsidy was created at a time when lenders werent interested in the student business and was
intended to keep loan money flowing through tough economic times. But that did not happen during the
credit crunch, when the federal government had to inject liquidity into the system by buying outstanding
loans.
The direct-loan program suffered no such disruption. In addition to being more reliable, direct lending is
also less expensive. Equally important, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the country would
save $94 billion over the next decade by switching completely to direct lending.
This would not in fact grow government, as conservatives in Congress have already begun to charge.
The loans would be handled through colleges, just the way Pell Grants are now. The loans would then be
serviced and collected by private companies that are already competing for this lucrative business.
Forcing service companies to compete permits the government to get the best possible deal for the
taxpayers. The service contracts would be periodically re-evaluated, based on how well the companies
treated their customers and how successful they were at preventing borrowers from defaulting.
The new program would, of course, trim the bottom lines of some corporations, but it would not create
enormous job losses, as some critics are suggesting. The work force needed to service, say, $100 billion
in student loans must surely be comparable in size to the work force needed to lend the same amount.
Beyond that, government rules forbidding foreign nationals from handling federal assets would ensure
that the servicing jobs were not shipped abroad.
The direct-lending proposal is clearly in the countrys best interest. But it will have a tough time in a
Congress that has been historically more interested in pleasing the lending lobby than in looking out for
families struggling to educate their children.
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Inside Higher Ed, OPINION, April 17, 2009 (Page 1 of 3)
From survival to sustainability

April 17, 2009
By Peter Stokes
You may think things are bad now -- and youre right, they are. But todays economic concerns are
obscuring what may prove to be even bigger strategic challenges ahead for higher education.
Everyone knows that weve entered a period of profound anxiety and uncertainty. Everywhere we look -from this publications own headlines, to university cabinets strategy sessions, to our now more thinly
attended professional association meetings -- we see people devoting tremendous amounts of energy to
the work of decoding the economic predicament in which we find ourselves. Were working feverishly to
understand what this economic downturn will portend for everything from bond financing to financial aid to
endowment management to enrollment performance, and much else besides. In many respects, our key
focus right now is survival. We are striving to protect the core of our colleges and universities. And we are
hoping that higher education may yet again prove to be counter-cyclical to prevailing market conditions
a rare winner in the economic lottery.
Beyond survival, however, higher education has to be thinking about its own sustainability. Even as we
struggle with present conditions, a number of farsighted universities are working hard at decoding the
future, too -- because change is certainly coming. Demographics are shifting. Competition for talent is
global. And the very financial structures that have supported higher education for the past 40-plus years
may now be at risk.
In our current circumstances, these forward-looking universities read signs that the old ways of doing
things may be approaching obsolescence. As a senior executive at one large, private university recently
said to me, Were not persuaded that the business model or the economics of higher education are
sustainable. Were asking the question, What if we were to start from scratch?
In short, now more than ever, we in higher education need to rethink our place in the economy and how
we deliver value. What markets will we serve? What programs and credentials should we offer? How will
they be delivered? How should we define success?
Faced with these questions, many of us will retreat to our intellectual comfort zones -- those familiar ideas
supported by anecdote as often as by evidence. Why should higher education change? some of us will
ask. Were doing just fine. Others will be certain that we should follow this or that path -- stick to our
knitting, or reinvent ourselves completely. But it pays to spend some time with these questions before
rushing off to whatever answers may be nearest at hand. As former Secretary of the Treasury Robert
Rubin once observed, Some people are more certain of everything than I am of anything. In transitional
and uncertain times such as these, we should be cautious of following the lead of those who peddle
certainty, those who know exactly what they think.
Its much harder psychologically to be unsure than it is to be sure, wrote the investment guru Seth
Klarman recently. But uncertainty also motivates diligence, as one pursues the unattainable goal of
eliminating all doubt.
Diligence is critical to evaluating not only the challenges that higher education faces today, but also the
opportunities. In a number of respects, this is a best-of-times/worst-of-times moment in higher education.
For example, President Obama has asked every American to commit to at least one year or more of
higher education or career training. The Lumina Foundation and others have called upon the higher
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education community to produce 16 million additional degrees by 2025. And old industries -- energy
among them -- are about to become new again.
At the same time, we may at last be reaching the tuition ceiling for many parents, and there is the very
real prospect of enrollments drifting toward less expensive institutions. Shrinking endowments are
creating significant challenges for managing university operations. And a business model based on
exclusivity does not scale; it limits the potential for impact -- whether intellectual or economic.
Growing numbers of universities see this special moment as a unique opportunity to reassess their
business strategies. Developing a strategy, of course, involves not only deciding what you will offer and
how you will serve the market, but also -- and just as importantly -- what you will not do. Many higher
education institutions suffer from trying to be too many things to too many people -- a very risky strategy
for any enterprise. If we are going to successfully protect the core, and also plan for the new realities
awaiting us in the future, then we are going to have to focus our investments of time, money, and human
capital.
Because higher education in the U.S. involves so many diverse types of institutions serving so many
diverse markets, the choices we face as a system of higher education are myriad. But among the choices
that college and university leaders must face are these: by what means can a quality institution be
simultaneously selective and open? Should the institution strive to be global in reach or regional? Will it
continue to prioritize so-called traditional students or adjust its operations to better serve working adults
and employers? Will it emphasize a unique, place-bound experience at a single campus or the delivery
education services through multiple and widely dispersed sites and online? Will it prioritize research or
teaching? Will it be a leader in emerging industries? Fundamentally, what form of value will the institution
create?
In conversation with university presidents, provosts, and other academic leaders over the last six months,
Ive often asked what higher education can do to avoid the classic investor error of buying high and
selling low. Jack Wilson, the president of the University of Massachusetts, responded to this question by
saying that he anticipated a return to value investing in higher education -- something akin to the
longstanding investor practice of buying stocks in companies that are trading below their intrinsic value.
The last few decades, people have not thought about higher education as a place to look for value, Jack
said. But now, theyre going to be looking for quality institutions that offer a great experience, and a great
value at a great price. Theres going to be a lot of pressure on higher education institutions to get their
value propositions in place.
This is whats coming down the track at us. We have to protect core. We have to survive. We have to stay
in business. And yet at the same time, we have to create more value and become more competitive. We
have to develop a focused strategy and choose from among numerous competing opportunities. And if
that werent enough, we have to achieve all of this in a period of tremendous demographic transition.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2007, 37 percent of the U.S. population over
the age of 25 had earned an associate degree or higher. That doesnt sound altogether bad, but degree
attainment rates within the U.S. have been relatively flat for decades while countries such as Canada,
Japan, and Korea have advanced beyond 50 percent of their adult populations earning the equivalent of
an associate degree or higher. Reading the economic tea leaves and sensing where this growing
asymmetry may leave us, the Lumina Foundation has set out what it characterizes as an audacious
goal of ensuring that 60 percent of the adult U.S. population possesses an associate degree or higher by
2025.
There are numerous challenges associated with meeting this very laudable goal. First, it represents a
roughly 50 percent increase in our annual degree productivity on an annual basis for the next 16 years,
and would require an effort several times the scale of the post-WWII G.I. Bill. Second, if we were to
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achieve it, we would have to accomplish it under circumstances in which the demography of the college
age population is shifting dramatically.
Today, 29 percent of U.S. adults aged 25 to 29 possesses a bachelors degree or higher, according to the
National Center for Education Statistics. If we disaggregate this figure by race/ethnicity, however, we see
that 32 percent of whites, 19 percent of blacks, and 13 percent of Hispanics in this age group has a
bachelors degree or higher. What makes this especially significant is that Hispanics and blacks are
among the fastest growing populations within the U.S.
According to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, in 1980, whites accounted for 82
percent of our population. In 2020, this figure is projected to be 63 percent. Over the same 40 year
period, the proportion of Hispanics in our population is projected to have increased from 6 percent to 17
percent, and the proportion of blacks is projected to have increased from 10 percent to 13 percent. In a
paper published in 2005, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education goes on to argue
that if current racial and ethnic enrollment gaps remain, the net result would be a projected 2 percent
decline in per capita income over the period from 2000 to 2020. That may not sound like much, but
consider that per capita income grew by 41 percent from 1980 to 2000. If higher education leaders dont
attend to these challenges now, the result in another 10 years time may well be a shrinking tax base and
a weakened competitive position on the global stage.
Such an outcome would represent a more subtle but potentially longer-lasting economic downturn -- a
quieter crisis, but perhaps more profound.
Changing markets call for a change in strategy. Even if it doesnt prove necessary for most colleges and
universities to start from scratch to respond effectively to our changing demographic profile or to global
competition for the best students, it will be vital for us to move beyond our comfort zones and question
some of our basic assumptions about how higher education is financed and managed -- and
fundamentally reexamine which challenges and opportunities each of our thousands of colleges and
universities is best positioned to address.
Now is the time to reflect on our strategic objectives, our missions, and our success measures. The
institutions that are among the future leaders of U.S. higher education are likely to be those who embrace
these challenges and reflect upon these questions most seriously. It may well be that we need to do
something truly audacious to generate lasting value for our institutions, our students, and our economic
health.
Think about it.
Peter J. Stokes, is executive vice president and chief research officer at Eduventures, Inc., a higher
education research and consulting firm.
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The Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2009
Fewer Openings in Nursing Field

By KELLY EVANS
Finding a job as a nurse isn't as easy as it used to be.
Tiffany Hamilton will graduate in May from West Virginia University with a bachelor's degree in nursing,
but can't find a job in critical care. "We were always told we'd have no problem getting a job," she said,
"and here I am, senior year, having a horrible time trying to find one."
Licensed vocational nurse Lesley Shanholtz, who has worked on and off at East Texas Medical Center in
Tyler, Texas, for four years, recently re-entered the nursing profession after her husband lost his job.
Ms. Hamilton, 22 years old, wants to become an anesthesiology nurse, but most graduate programs
require at least one year of critical-care work. She began applying for positions in hospital emergency
rooms and intensive -care units in December, focusing on the Pittsburgh area, where she grew up -- but
hasn't gotten a single offer.
Her experience reflects a departure from years past when the U.S. health industry's rapid growth
outpaced the number of nurses entering the field. As of last summer, the nation had a shortage of roughly
125,000 nurses, based on vacancies at hospitals and in long-term care. That is still expected to balloon to
300,000 to more than one million nursing vacancies by 2020. But thanks to the recession, the nursing
shortage appears to be waning, at least temporarily.
Long term, there is still a need to replace the profession's aging work force and meet the growing demand
for health care -- particularly elderly care, a field that usually has trouble attracting nurses. But as is often
the case during tough times, former nurses are re-entering the work force after a spouse loses a job. This
time, the health-care industry is hurting, too, resulting in fewer positions for nurses. "It's caused the
otherwise severe nursing shortage to abate somewhat," said Bob Livonius, chief executive of Medfinders,
an Arlington, Texas-based staffing firm. His agency, which historically has been able to fill only 70% to
80% of employers' open positions, is now filling "in the 90s," Mr. Livonius said.
A recent survey of 658 hospitals by the American Hospital Association found more than half had negative
profit margins in the fourth quarter, raising concerns that more layoffs are on the way. SMDC Health
System in Duluth, Minn., a large health-care provider in the region, for instance, has laid off 55 workers
this year, including about a dozen nurses last month, from its staff of 7,000.
"I feel sorry for new people coming out of nursing school right now because in this area, at least, there's
not a lot of jobs," said Carol Gentry, 49, a nurse in Portland, Ore. Ms. Gentry has been a nurse for 25
years, working her way up from the night shift to emergency-room management in Taos, N.M. But when
she and her husband moved to Portland last year, she spent several months looking for a similar
management job, to no avail. Two hospitals in the area had hiring freezes, while others were slow to
make any hiring decisions. She finally accepted a job as a nurse at Legacy Emmanuel Hospital, putting
her back on the night shift, and she is supplementing her income on her days off through a staffing
company.
Like many who have re-entered the work force, Lesley Shanholtz, 29, was a stay-at-home mom with her
two children in Lindale, Texas, until her husband was laid off last month from his job in the oil industry.
She has gone back to work full time through NurseFinders, a division of MedFinders, working 12-hour
hospital shifts for days at a time to bring home $1,500 or so a week. "Now he's Mr. Mom and I'm working,"
she said.
"I see more nurses working now who might have stayed home when times were good," she said.
Write to Kelly Evans at kelly.evans@wsj.com
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How researchers classify biracial subjects skews

study results, authors say
By PETER SCHMIDT
San Diego
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
For higher-education researchers, the choice of how to classify people who identify themselves as biracial
is hardly as simple as black and white. In fact, a paper being presented here on Thursday at the annual
conference of the American Educational Research Association says that each of three commonly used
approaches to classifying biracial or multiracial people has benefits and drawbacks, and the choice of
which one to use can significantly influence a studys results.
The authors of the study are Karen Kurotsuchi Inkelas, an associate professor of college-student
personnel at the University of Maryland at College Park; Matthew Soldner, a doctoral student at
Maryland; and Katalin Szelnyi, an assistant professor of education at the University of Massachusetts at
Boston. They conducted their analysis using data on more than 22,000 undergraduate students at 49
colleges gathered as part of the 2007 National Study of Living-Learning Programs, for which Ms. Inkelas
serves a principal investigator. The study provided an ideal source of data for them because it uses a
survey instrument that lets students identify with as many races and ethnicities as they please.
The researchers crunched their numbers using three commonly used approaches to classifying biracial
and multiracial students, to see how each approach would affect their results.
With one approach, researchers classify subjects who belong to two or more racial or ethnic groups as
simply being biracial or multiracial. With a second approach, subjects who identity with two groups are
classified as belonging to the least prevalent one, so that a student who reports being both white and
black is designated as black.
Under a third approach, used by the federal Office of Management and Budget, most biracial research
subjects are given biracial classifications that reflect their backgrounds, such as white-black or whiteHispanic. But, for the sake of keeping the number of categories manageable, researchers disregard data
from any biracial subset that accounts for less than 1 percent of the total sample studied. (With the
student data collected by the National Study of Living-Learning Programs, such an approach left the
researchers focused only on those biracial or multiracial students who identified as white and Hispanic,
white and Asian American, white and Native American, or white and black.)
Ms. Inkelas and her colleagues sought to see how using each of the three different racial-classification
schemes would affect a statistical analysis of students responses to survey questions about making the
transition to college. They found that the schemes produced sharply different results, and each skewed at
least some of their findings. In classifying students who had identified themselves as white and Native
American as being Native American, for example, they drastically overestimated the percentage of Native
American students who were receiving merit-based aid.
How researchers classify a biracial population, says the paper summarizing the authors' findings, can
have profound implications for both the descriptions of students that arise from those researchers' work
and the conclusions that result from their analyses. Unfortunately, it says, there is no single solution to
this empirical dilemma. Indeed, each approach has its strengths and its limitations.
By, for example, classifying all students who identify with two or more groups as being simply biracial or
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multiracial, researchers avoid erroneously lumping student together with single-race peers but run the
risk of glossing over significant differences between biracial populations.
Although they do not recommend a way around the problem, the authors suggest that it may be
worthwhile to conduct studies determining how biracial or multiracial students would themselves prefer to
be classified. After all, they say, the constituency affected most significantly by the various classification
schemes, one could argue, should have a stake in how they are ultimately treated.
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The Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2009 (Page 1 of 2)
Training without a campus

Private firms educate managers with more tailored, less pricey programs
By ALINA DIZIK
APRIL 15, 2009
The pressure on corporate profits has left few cost areas on companies' budgets unscathed -- including
executive education, the intensive training programs typically delivered by business schools to select
executives and managers.
Before budgets started tightening two years ago, companies were more willing to send star managers to
one-off executive-training programs on business-school campuses. Training budgets ran into the
hundreds of millions at large firms and big-name professors from top-notch schools were often part of the
courses, which could last several days or even weeks. The courses typically focused on leadership
development but did little to address company-specific problems.
These days, companies are looking for immediate impact and are keeping closer tabs on training, reining
in unnecessary programs, and turning to faster and more specific training to educate top managers.
"Companies are asking for external experts to come in and do something very specific," says Josh Brand,
a former senior director of executive education at Babson College and co-founder of Freemont Learning
Inc., an executive development firm in Lexington, Mass.
Companies say they aren't doing away with executive education, but instead are doing more training inhouse and contracting out key pieces of executive development to private providers like Development
Dimensions International Inc. in Bridgeville, Pa., and Forum Corp. in Boston. The shift is a result in part of
cost-cutting efforts, but also of corporations looking for programs closely tailored to their specific needs.
"Now the focus is more on how we move an organization forward," says Portia Mount, vice president of
marketing at the Center for Creative Leadership, or CCL, a leadership-development organization in
Greensboro, N.C.
While profits have been flat at most private executive-education consultancies this year, many of those
companies experienced strong growth prior to the downturn. With the exception of this year, CCL has
experienced annual revenue growth of 10% to 20% since 2002 and Development Dimensions' executivedevelopment program, which launched in 2004, already has trained 2,000 executives.
Executive-education consultancies are going the extra mile to quickly pull together custom programs as a
way to court companies and meet demand for company-specific executive training, says Pat Galagan,
executive editor at the American Society for Training and Development, a Alexandria, Va., trade
association for workplace learning professionals.
And Mr. Brand says that private training firms' pricing can be as much as 50% lower than that of a
business school. So while business has been flat at firms like CCL and Forum, some business schools
are reporting declines of 15% or more in executive -education revenues.
Many corporations are looking to provide employees with immediately applicable skills -- the sort that can
help them navigate the downturn. And that's something they say private education providers can offer
expediently. "When you have trained leaders in bad economic times, it makes a world of difference," says
Tim Bray, vice president and chief learning officer for Quintiles Transnational Corp., a Durham, N.C.,
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The Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2009 (Page 2 of 2)
pharmaceutical-services company that hired Forum Corp. to provide most of its senior-manager training
programs several years ago.
Mr. Bray says he has shied away from sending employees to broader business-school courses because
executives now are focused on delving into company problems and the current economic climate. "They
see our balance sheet," he says. "They don't [need to] go to Wharton and see a balance sheet."
Non-business-school providers are taking advantage of this need and marketing themselves partly on
their ability to customize courses by allowing company leaders to participate as teachers. "Consulting
firms tend to be more flexible than business schools," says Mr. Brand who has noticed more employees
collaborating with outside experts. Firms "are a little bit better at adjusting."
Many companies say that, aside from this flexibility, private executive-education providers go a long way
to maintain client relationships. Boston Scientific Corp. began a formal assessment of the course
offerings it had for employees several months ago. So far, Maria Van Parys, director of global leadership
and organization development, says she is impressed with the level of support from private firms,
compared with the business-school partnerships the company maintains for some courses.
Recently an executive-training provider sent over extra instructors and spent hours going through Boston
Scientific's new orientation process. "The providers that we are selecting are really an extension of
ourselves," says Ms. Van Parys. The firm typically buys customized courses from the American
Management Association. The company is looking to team up with several more firms for more
customized, one-off courses.
The need to coach managers abroad has sparked interest in the international reach of training providers.
Mr. Bray says training executives, who work out of Quintiles' 59 countries, without requiring air travel is a
priority. After considering various options last spring, the company hired Forum Corp., which has nine
global locations, to customize management courses for leaders in emerging markets like Hungary and
Indonesia. And Mr. Bray says that expenses are at least 30% lower with a private firm than if the
company went with a business school.
Budget-conscious managers also are attracted to the online offerings being created by non-school
providers, says Susan Dunn, a partner at Oliver Wyman, a New York consulting firm that offers executiveleadership training. With more expense restrictions in the past few months, the firm's leadershipdevelopment group started offering its Web-based courses -- traditionally targeted at middle management
-- to top-level executives to meet demand for programs that can be done quickly and in the office.
Others are offering off-the-shelf and ready-to-use courses for firms that don't have formal training efforts.
CCL launched In-House Solutions, a series of courses for smaller companies that can be taught by
internal employees. The center, which started selling the courses in February, hopes to attract clients
looking for more training in a recession, but don't have the means to attend courses. "Essentially, it's a
do-it-yourself kit," says Ms. Mount. And another upside: Each course costs about $1,000, 85% less than a
regular on-site workshop.
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North Star Writers Group, April 15, 2009
U.S. education reform is great,

but Europe is not the model
Lucia de Vernai
April 15, 2009
When in Rome do as the Romans do is good advice for first-time tourists, surely meant to mitigate the
harm to national pride that white tennis shoes in cathedrals represent. It does not, however, apply to
domestic problems, although you wouldnt know it from the zest for copying European higher education
reform by privately funded pilot studies in Utah, Minnesota and Indiana.
The Bologna Process started in Italy almost a decade ago as the blurred borders of the European Union
allowed workers from over 25 countries to theoretically work anywhere else in the Union, if their
credentials checked out. That turned out to be a problem, since the majority of universities on the
continent are controlled by sovereign national authorities, and comparing degrees was almost impossible.
In a global economy, it made sense to do as Americans do and unify and harmonize higher education to
increase efficacy by setting common standards for degrees.
To make sure that everyone was on the same page and that economics majors in London and Warsaw
were getting roughly the same idea of what capitalism is all about, they came up with the Tuning Process
to allow each discipline to agree on certain universal criteria. Faculty meetings ensued and today 145
European universities are on board.
Struggling with higher education problems of its own, the U.S. decided to follow suit. Unfortunately,
instead of forgetting that the EU was trying to reach our current state, we followed in kind, trying to catch
up with ourselves. The Lumina Foundation, concerned about the state of American post-secondary
education, has given $150,000 to each of the states to do some tuning. Faculty meetings ensued on this
side of the Atlantic as well.
The project incorrectly presupposes that Americans face the same problem as Europeans in the labor
market, which is not the case. The objective is to have each discipline agree on how to make sure each
student has the skills necessary to fulfill the requirements of a civil engineer or journalist anywhere in
the country. Much needed in Europe, in the U.S., when jobs are available, a biologist from Texas and one
from Vermont are regarded by employers as having on par education. They also speak the same
language, which is an advantage a biologist from Finland and the Czech Republic may not have.
Looking to Europe to lead the way in higher education reform is only undesirable because it ignores the
unique needs of our labor market and demographics. Even if enormous public universities with class
sizes of over 200 and private liberal arts colleges with a one-t o-12 faculty student ratio could come up
with mutual standards, their achievement would prove impossible. The disparity between available
faculty, facilities and funding would either leave some schools unable to meet the demands or elite
schools would complain that the plebes are dragging them down. Whats the point of being Swarthmore
if you have to keep Ohio State standards? theyd say.
Rather than seek remedy to a problem we dont have, private money should be going to projects that
focus on problems that are distinctively ours quality in junior colleges, racial diversity across disciplines
and that penchant for white shoes.
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Colleges ask donors to help meet demand for aid

By STEPHANIE STROM
April 16, 2009
Faced with one of the most challenging fund-raising environments anyone can remember, colleges and
universities are appealing to donors to help meet the swelling demand for financial aid.
Using such demand as a fund-raising tool totally makes sense in this environment, said Richard J.
Krasney, a wealth manager and philanthropy adviser. More than ever, people want to know that their
money is being used to address current needs.
Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., has increased its financial aid budget for the coming school year
by 7.5 percent, to $21.5 million, a point its fund-raisers are making to donors.
The incoming student body for the fall of 2009 will have higher financial needs than in the past, said
Clay Ballantine, Hampshires chief advancement officer. I tell donors these are excellent students and we
want to take financial concerns out of their decision-making process, and were looking to you to provide
a gift that will help us do that.
Chapman University in Orange, Calif., has seen demand for financial aid increase 88 percent and that
does not include requests for support from students accepted for next fall. Were very open and honest
about that in all our communications, and it resonates, said Sheryl Bourgeois, executive vice president of
university advancement.
Ms. Bourgeois has shared letters from students with potential donors. Typical of the letters is one from a
young woman whose mother holds down two jobs to keep her daughter in school but just lost her house.
Telling potential donors about the surge in need helped Chapman exceed the $175,000 goal it had set for
its phone-a-thon this year. Its gala, slated to raise $2 million, raised $2.1 million.
More recently, though, things have slowed.
It is getting tougher, Ms. Bourgeois said. I think maybe people have had even more requests coming to
them from other nonprofit groups.
Just a year ago, universities were emphasizing new buildings, research and sports centers and faculty
recruitment in their fund-raising pitches, but those things turn people off now, experts in fund-raising said.
Mitchell Moore, vice president for advancement at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va., said the
university was making a case to donors that money raised through its annual fund campaign would be
spent on immediate needs.
At the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, fund-raisers are telling potential donors that some $30
million in requests for aid remain outstanding. The endowment is down 25.6 percent, and Gov. Bev
Perdue has proposed cutting state financing to the University of North Carolina system by 5 percent.
We have a lot of donors whove given to our annual fund consistently for 30 years but have never been
challenged to increase the amount they give, said Patti Stewart, vice chancellor for university
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advancement at Greensboro. Were doing a better job now of asking them to do that, and its a good
thing we have.
U.N.C. Greensboros annual fund has collected 6 percent less than it did last year, Ms. Stewart said. In
the past, the annual fund has raised 3 percent to 5 percent more each year. She said she expected to hit
the annual fund target of $3 million by the end of the school year, which would be flat compared with last
year.
Hamilton Colleges $6 million annual fund drive is already flat compared with last year, and that makes
Jon Hysell, director of annual giving, happy. Flat is the new up, Mr. Hysell said.
The college, in Clinton, N.Y., based its pitch on a recent alumni survey in which almost 90 percent said
they wanted their donations to support scholarships.
So, rather than talking about how a $100 donation buys 45 compact fluorescent light bulbs, were talking
about how their gift affects a student in need, Mr. Hysell said.
Several institutions said they were also approaching donors who had created endowed scholarship funds
that had lost value. Laws in roughly half the states prohibit charities from spending out of endowed funds
that have fallen below their initial dollar value, which has crippled many charities at a time when money is
scarce.
Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss., has begun approaching donors who established such funds and
asking them to consider making a gift to offset the loss of the money that would normally flow from those
funds.
If someone created a $100,000 endowed fund that is now under water, Ill ask them to make a $5,000
gift, which is about what their fund would generate for our use under normal conditions, said Charles
Lewis, Millsapss vice president for institutional advancement. We have several donors considering that
now.
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Duncan and Chinese Minister Sign HigherEducation Agreement

Washington Arne Duncan, the U.S. secretary of education, and his Chinese counterpart today signed
a statement pledging to work together to encourage closer collaborations between universities in the two
countries and to better share information about their higher-education systems.
In the statement, Mr. Duncan and Zhou Ji, Chinas minister of education, said they would try to foster
partnerships between American and Chinese universities that could lead to joint - and dual-degree
programs, student exchanges, and shared research projects. Each also committed to improving the
information available about his countrys higher-education systems. In a separate work plan, they laid
out one way of doing so, posting links to Chinese academic-accreditation Web sites on the site of the
U.S. Network for Education Information, and posting American links on Chinese sites.
The pair also agreed to an effort to deepen mutual understanding of each others language and culture.
As part of that effort, the U.S. Education Department will encourage the development of Chineselanguage and Chinese-studies programs at American colleges.
The Chinese minister visited as part of a delegation led by Liu Yandong, the highest ranking woman in
the Chinese government and the only female member of the Politburo and the State Council. Ms. Liu is
the council member who oversees all programs relating to science, technology, education, culture, and
sports. Karin Fischer
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The SAT 'at War With Itself'

SAN DIEGO -- When American high school students take an SAT that is an hour longer than it used to
be, and that includes a writing test many top colleges ignore, Richard Atkinson may be the man they have
to thank.
Atkinson is the former president of the University of California. When he announced in 2001 that he was
recommending that the university system stop requiring the SAT of applicants, he got the attention of the
College Board in a way that other critics of the test never could. The prospect of losing all of those
University of California applicants led to all kinds of changes in the SAT (and succeeded in keeping the
university among the institutions requiring the test).
In a speech here Wednesday at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association,
Atkinson said that while the changes had resulted in "significant" improvements, he was decidedly
unimpressed with the results. He said that the essential criticism he made in 2001 -- that colleges need
measures of achievement and knowledge, not some sense of students' aptitude -- was still valid.
He argued that high school grades and the SAT II (the subject matter tests) could give admissions offices
the information they need far more than the SAT I (the main exam, which most people just call the SAT).
Atkinson was particularly critical of the "critical reading" portion of the SAT -- and said that it appeared to
serve no real purpose, and that it was "remarkable" (and not in a good way) that adding a new test and an
hour's time to the SAT had failed to improve its validity.
The remarks were significant for all kinds of reasons. Not only was Atkinson the person who set off the
changes in the SAT, but the University of California is now moving in the opposite direction that he
endorsed -- eliminating the subject test requirement and keeping the SAT. Atkinson's criticism was also
notable because of his background and perspective. Some critics of the College Board are generally
opposed to standardized testing. But Atkinson said he strongly believes there is a need for standardized
testing. And he's spent years studying the subject, in research on cognition and as past chair of the Board
on Testing and Assessment of the National Academy of Sciences.
Atkinson's talk was based on a larger paper he co-wrote with Saul Geiser, who has conducted extensive
research for the university system on admissions issues. The paper, "Reflections on a Century of College
Admissions Tests," is available on the Web site of the Center for Studies in Higher Education.
In his talk, one of Atkinson's themes was that the underlying flaw of the SAT is that it was designed to
measure student aptitude, and remains so, long after the College Board removed "aptitude" from its
name. Atkinson said that there is a much higher validity to tests based on actual knowledge learned in
courses, and that -- grade inflation being what it is in high schools -- admissions officers genuinely benefit
from a national tool to compare students boasting A's in calculus, chemistry or French at high schools
where an A may mean different things. (Despite those concerns, Atkinson stressed his view that grades
in college preparatory courses are the single best way to predict college success.)
Prior the reforms of this decade, Atkinson said, the SAT was known for "trickery" and "esoteric analogies"
that encouraged students to try to learn test-taking skills. He applauded the elimination of the muchmocked analogies section and applauded especially the addition of the writing test to the SAT. Not only
does it test something that students actually need to do in college, Atkinson said, but it sends a message
to high schools to take writing instruction seriously.
But while backing these changes, he said that the SAT was "at war with itself" because it tells different
things to different people. Atkinson noted that the writing test -- the part of the SAT of which he is most
fond -- is ignored by many colleges, where educators don't believe it encourages the best student writing.
102
So while the College Board tells Atkinson and like-minded people to focus on the writing test, the College
Board tells admissions officers elsewhere that they still have the "old SAT."
And even with the improvements, he said that the SAT remains designed to theoretically measure
potential, which he said is very difficult to do well, rather than what students have actually learned. (The
ACT, the College Board's main competitor, tends to boast that it is more focused on classroom
instruction, and Atkinson applauded its roots in that belief, but offered what for him was clearly a damning
criticism in that he said that the ACT has become more like the SAT over the years.)
Fundamentally, Atkinson said, the College Board "wants to have its cake and eat it, too," producing tests
that really measure learning (he mentioned Advanced Placement tests and the SAT II tests), while still
encouraging millions of students to prepare for an aptitude test of limited value. "The fundamental
question is: what is the SAT measuring?" he said. The answer (aside from writing) is that it is testing
things that are "remote from what students encounter in the classroom."
Atkinson also directly challenged the spin that the College Board placed on last year's validity studies of
the new SAT. The studies found that the new test was as successful as the old test, and the College
Board declared that a major success. Atkinson said that if you overhaul major features and add time to a
test, success would be increased validity, not the same validity.
The irony in Atkinson's presentation was that the University of California is moving in the opposite
direction. The university is dropping the SAT II tests as requirements, while keeping the SAT I. The move
is designed in part based on the belief that more black and Latino students will apply and enroll, although
Asian American leaders are urging the university to reconsider its plans because of projections that Asian
American enrollment will drop.
In his speech, Atkinson did not mention the university system's actions. But an audience member asked
him about it and he noted that he is no longer president, and suggested that those interested in the
university's current position on the issue consult the university's Web site.
A spokeswoman for the College Board said that the organization was "gratified that Dr. Atkinson
enthusiastically supports our Advanced Placement program and the SAT Subject Tests." But she also
defended the SAT I. "Years of independent research and thousands of studies consistently show that
combining SAT scores and high school grades is the best indicator of college success," she said.
"Virtually every college that does not have an open door admissions policy uses multiple measures when
evaluating students. The College Board has always vigorously recommended that SAT scores be used in
conjunction with grades, the rigor of courses and other measures. Ultimately, no single measure or test
fully reflects a student's readiness for college."
She also said that Atkinson was citing studies of the old SAT and that studies of the new SAT have found
that it is in fact "more predictive" than Atkinson gives it credit for. "Colleges can depend on SAT scores as
fair measures of college preparedness," she said.
While audience members appeared to have mixed feelings about standardized testing, one college
president questioned Atkinson for not going far enough.
Robert Weisbuch, the president of Drew University, said that minority applications surged when the
institution ended its SAT requirement. If the SAT reliability remains "so low" and it provides "such a minor
help" in admissions, while it "mis-shaped kids' lives" by teaching them about education in a "very
mechanistic way," Weisbuch said, why tinker with the SAT at all? "Why don't we just blow the whole thing
up?"
Scott Jaschik
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Examiner.com, April 17, 2009
Applying for financial aid? You might need a college

degree to fill out the forms
Lauren Starkey
April 17, 7:38 AM
If youre planning to apply for financial aid of almost any kind, the first hurdle youll need to clear is the sixpage FAFSA form. The Department of Education estimates it takes about an hour to complete, but that
number is incredibly unrealistic. It took me about four hours, and Kathy Peterson, an office manager for a
telecommunications trade association, told The Chronicle of Higher Education it took her twenty . I just
kept going from one screen to the next, wondering, When is this going to end? she said.
During his confirmation hearing, Arne Duncan, whos now Secretary of Education, said you basically
have to have a Ph.D. to figure that thing out. The form is much longer and more complicated than a 1040
tax return, and the end result, the expected family contribution reveals how much youll have to pay
without offering an anticipated amount of aid. Some families who wont give up on the form are paying for
assistance. Go to www.fafsa.com and instead of getting the form, youll find Sacramento-based Student
Financial Aid Services Inc., which charges 99 dollars for help with the FAFSA.
Every year about 8 million students, most of whom are eligible for aid, dont file the form. Thats more than
40 percent of all college students. And the Department of Education doesnt have figures for the number
of online applications that are started but never completed. So why not just simplify the FAFSA?
The Department of Education Department is now studying ways how to do it. They are consulting with the
Treasury Department about automatically filling out portions of the FAFSA with information from tax
returns as well as simplifying the formula used to measure need. Critics charge that the latter would result
in aid awarded to some students who dont need it. But Mark Kantrowitz, who publishes the excellent
website FinAid, said If you have more low-income students graduating because of a simpler form, isn't it
worth spending a little extra on people who don't really deserve that much aid?
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Inside Higher Ed, April 17, 2009
Survival of the wealthiest

April 17, 2009
If colleges have money, they wont be forced to shut down. No surprise there, of course.
But in examining which colleges closed over a period of 30 years, research presented Thursday at the
annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, a new study also challenges some
common assumptions about which colleges are most likely to be vulnerable to closure or merger.
Stephen R. Porter and Trina J. Ramirez, both of Iowa State University, studied what happened to all 824
private colleges and universities that existed in 1975 to see what happened to them and found that 11
percent no longer existed as independent institutions in 2005. The authors note that this means that
mergers or closures, while rare in any given year, are not uncommon events. (The researchers say that
they didnt examine public closures because they are so rare.)
Some have noted an increase in the number of college closures or mergers in the past year or so. And
some experts predict more such closures with the economy in such bad shape. In the study presented
Thursday, the researchers noted that the five-year period during which the greatest number of colleges
ceased to exist (26) was 1976-1980, The high point for college survival (only 5 closures) was 1996-2000.
Porter and Ramirez then examined a number of factors to see whether they suggested colleges were
more or less likely to merge or close. Some of the findings and the researchers' analysis:
Wealth: Endowment per student was a clear factor, with the wealthier institutions less likely to
close. However, other measures that also relate to wealth and that some might have expected to
correlate with closure, didnt. The study didnt find a link, for example, between percentage of total
revenue gained from tuition and colleges survival rates.
Enrollments: Again, no surprise, but the more students a college has, the more likely it is to stick
around. In addition, the more selective a college is in admissions the more likely it is to survive. But
another enrollment factor that the researchers thought might be relevant wasnt. They examined
whether institutions solely or overwhelmingly focused on undergraduate education were more
vulnerable, based on the belief that colleges that have added more professional and graduate
programs earn revenue off those degrees. But despite conventional wisdom that an undergraduate
focus may not be, financially, a sure thing, there was no correlation found. Similarly, single-sex status
did not increase the odds of an institution closing (although the single-sex institutions that have
started to admit both men and women would not count as closures, so the change in that sector may
not be completely visible in this study).
Religion: While religious colleges include both large, well endowed institutions, and small
institutions without much money, the study found that they were more likely than secular institutions
to survive. The researchers say that they are unsure of why this is the case. But they speculate that
there may be an enrollment advantage: even if religious affiliation means that some colleges have a
smaller pool of potential students, those students may be more likely to enroll at a religious institution
Porter said that the economic downturn has increased interest in the topic of why colleges fail. The
project was originally proposed and rejected for an Association for the Study of Higher Education
conference, he said. "When it was accepted by AERA last November, I wasn't sure how much interest
there would be. But then the economy tanked and now it's a hot topic."
Scott Jaschik
105
Why reverse transfer?

April 17, 2009
Administrators have long suspected that most students who reverse transfer from four-year institutions
to community colleges -- given that they are typically from low-income families -- do so for financial
reasons. A new report, however, argues that parents' level of education has a bigger impact than does
income, and that academic difficulty in the first years of college is more likely to be the reason behind
reverse transfer.
This months issue of Sociology of Education -- a journal of the American Sociological Association
features a report that attempts to explain the socioeconomic differences among college transfer students.
The research of Sara Goldrick-Rab, professor of education policy studies and sociology at the University
of Wisconsin at Madison, is based on the latest numbers from the National Educational Longitudinal
Study. These numbers come from students who graduated from high school in 1992, and follow them
through 2000.
Goldrick-Rab used a sample group of students who started their postsecondary education at a four-year
institution. In this group, 33 percent transferred at least once within eight years of graduating from high
school. Nearly 20 percent transferred laterally, from one four-year institution to another, and 15 percent
transferred in reverse to a community college.
Lateral transfers were significantly more likely than reverse transfers to complete a bachelors degree
69 percent compared to 22 percent. Both figures are still lower than the 79 percent graduation rate of
those who did not transfer at all. Among those who reverse transferred and eventually made it back to a
four-year institution, however, the graduation rate was 49 percent.
This, Goldrick-Rab noted, gives these reverse transfers a greater chance of earning a bachelors degree
than students who start at a community college and then transfer upward to a four-year institution. She
argued, however, that this is not an effective pathway for students to take, given the decreased
likelihood that they will attain a four-year degree once they have transferred to a community college.
Transfer direction (lateral or reverse) was significantly affected by the students socioeconomic
background. Students with families from the lowest income bracket were not quite half as likely as
students with families from the highest income bracket to transfer between four-year institutions. They
were three times more likely, however, to transfer to a community college.
The strongest indicator of transfer status, however, even considering income levels, was level of parental
education. Students whose parents had more than a bachelors degree were some of the least likely to
reverse transfer. At the opposite end, nearly 25 percent of those students whose parents had not
completed high school reverse transferred.
The report attempts to account for the motivations behind the demographic differences made clear
between these two types of transfers.
Lateral transfer students appear to be a relatively elite set, since their levels of household income and
parental occupational status are higher than average, the report reads. Their motivations for changing
colleges may be based on expressions of personal preference, possibly striving to move to a better
school, but are clearly not connected to inadequate academic preparation in high school or poor
performance in college.
106
Though the rationale for reverse transfer might seem apparent, given the lower socioeconomic status of
these students, Goldrick-Rab noted she was surprised to find that money was not the key issue for this
cohort.
The levels of academic preparation, informational and financial resources, and educational expectations
found among the children of less-educated parents do not explain these students tendency to reverse
transfer, the report reads. Instead, the analyses clearly showed that students who are equally well
prepared for college but come from less-educated families show a higher propensity to leave the fouryear college track because they struggle academically in their first year of college. This finding is
consistent with other research that has identified significant challenges for first-generation students,
particularly during their first year of college.
Although this data was taken from college students during the mid- to late 1990s, Goldrick-Rab believes
the rationale for reverse transfer is still less about money, even with the economy forcing some to
reconsider their college selection. As more data become available about todays students, she expects to
see a further increase in the number of students who chose to reverse transfer.
From a policy standpoint, Goldrick-Rab believes that four-year institutions should bear most of the burden
when it comes to stemming the tide of reverse transfers. She said that four-year institutions should adopt
mandatory advising programs to help students resolve their academic challenges and stay at a fouryear school. Ideally, she added, these programs should cater to students whose parents did not attend
graduate school -- the most crucial population in the report.
The function of community colleges shouldnt be to do the job that a four-year school should have done,
Goldrick-Rab said. Four-year schools need to not think about losing some of these students to
community colleges as inevitable. Its been their problem all along. There has to be something to catch
these students on the other end.
She recommends that four-year institutions promote advising resources to students who are considering
transferring -- such as a sign that says "Thinking of leaving? Feel like you can't make it here? Talk to us."
She said that these students, and sometimes their parents, often do not understand that reverse
transferring to a community college lowers their chances to earn a four-year degree, as the data show.
A lot of people dont have a lot of information on hand when things dont go well at a four-year school,
Goldrick-Rab said. Theyre not savvy about things and will think it fine to just go home and attend their
local community college. Thats fine, but the chances of getting a bachelors degree are drastically
diminished. Theyre derailing their stated ambition of getting the degree they wanted. I dont think a lot of
them realize the consequences, and I think [reverse transferring] can be prevented.
David Moltz
107
Ohio, Plain Dealer, April 12, 2009 (Page 1 of 3)
Large salaries at Ohio's public universities take heat

Posted by Janet Okoben/Plain Dealer Reporter April 12, 2009 06:00AM
Ohio has the country's highest-paid university president at the nation's largest university.
But while the base pay of Ohio State University leader Gordon Gee is clearly unrivaled at more than
$800,000, thousands of other employees at the state's public universities pull down six-figure salaries
under the radar.
And in the current economy, fat salaries are drawing fire. Just ask any AIG executive -- or a parent paying
college tuition.
At OSU alone, 285 employees made $200,000 or more in base salary last year. At public universities
statewide, there were 420.
"I think that it is incumbent on colleges and universities to really take a look in the mirror in this economic
environment," said James Boyle, president of College Parents of America, a Washington, D.C.-based
group that advocates on behalf of students and parents.
Records show that 2,041 OSU employees made at least $100,000 last year, many of them affiliated with
the university's medical center. In all, 4,555 employees of the state's 13 four-year public universities had
base salaries of at least $100,000.
The number of top earners at two-year community colleges adds to that total. Lakeland Community and
Lorain County Community colleges both had eight employees with base salaries at $100,000 or more last
year, while Cuyahoga Community College had 25 employees in that category.
With only a portion of their operating budgets coming from state funds -- the bulk from tuition, endowment
earnings and other sources -- public colleges aren't seeing their salaries scrutinized by state lawmakers
wrangling with the next two-year budget. University trustees and administrators set the campus salaries.
But the salaries deserve scrutiny, said Boyle.
"Roughly three-quarters of a university's cost has to do with their payroll, so if there is to be meaningful
cost reduction, or at least holding the line on costs, then, in any economic climate, I think schools and
their leadership need to hold the line on pay," he said.
Eric Fingerhut, the state's higher-education chancellor (base salary: $196,019), has repeatedly said the
old strategy of slashing programs and raising tuition in tough times shouldn't be repeated. Instead, he
formed an efficiency council with financial officers from public colleges. Their goal is to find ways to share
services or otherwise save money in creative ways.
Fingerhut has said he won't -- and can't -- pressure campuses to bring down their salaries.
University of Cincinnati President Nancy Zimpher's comes the closest to Gee's among Ohio public college
presidents, with a base salary of $418,788. University of Toledo President Lloyd Jacobs is third at
$392,700.
New 'competition for leadership' at OSU
At OSU in particular, salaries have been on a deliberate upward slant as the university tries to achieve its
goal of becoming one of the nation's top research universities.
Larry Lewellen, OSU's vice president for human resources (base salary: $206,210), said recent top-level
108
hires -- such as Christine Poon, the new dean of OSU's Fisher College of Business -- have come from the
private sector. Poon was vice chairwoman of Johnson & Johnson and now earns $475,000 at OSU.
Lewellen cited Dr. Steven Gabbe, OSU's senior vice president of health sciences, as an example of a
staffer lured to Columbus from a private institution. Gabbe, who worked at OSU early in his career, left his
job as dean of Vanderbilt University's medical school last year to make a base salary of $750,000 at
OSU.
No longer does OSU compare itself simply to other public entities or compete only with public institutions
for top talent, Lewellen said.
"The one important issue that President Gee has highlighted since he has been here is that we are in a
very different competition for leadership with his aspirations than we have been before," Lewellen said.
OSU uses consultants to gather statistics each year on peer institutions, keeping track of where OSU
administrative and faculty salaries fall on the spectrum. Lewellen said they're "very responsible, very
much at the center."
William Shkurti, OSU's senior vice president of business and finance (base salary: $341,550), said in an
interview last month that OSU is reaping savi ngs from changes made more than five years ago to
streamline purchasing and save money on energy costs. OSU also started encouraging preventive health
care for employees and made other changes that have brought down the cost of benefits, he said.
Because enrollment has been strong and "we've also been prudently managed," OSU is not in the
position of having to take draconian cost-cutting measures, Shkurti said.
"We have not suffered as much as some others in the short run," he said. "There's some cost reductions
that we really started in 2001, 2002, 2003 that have a long-term payoff that are beginning to pay off now."
Still, just a week after Shkurti was interviewed, OSU announced that Gee and 18 of his top administrators
would not take raises or bonuses this year. The money saved will go toward student scholarships.
Wright State University administrators also announced plans to divert raises for top earners toward
scholarships. And Kent State University recently announced a voluntary buyout option for employees, as
a cost-cutting measure, while also putting a temporary halt to paid sabbaticals. Miami University
President David Hodge announced in February that more than 200 jobs there will be cut through layoffs
and attrition.
Gee was paid $2M at Vanderbilt
Gee was in a league of his own -- pay-wise -- as president of Vanderbilt University long before returning
to OSU in 2007 for his second run as president. His total compensation at Vanderbilt was more than $2
million, making him the highest-paid private university president in 2006-07, according to a survey by the
Chronicle of Higher Education.
His base salary at OSU is now $802,125, making him far and away the highest-paid public-university
president. OSU is also the biggest university in the country, with a total enrollment of 61,000 and more
than 29,000 employees.
But it is Gee's highly paid cabinet that sets OSU apart from top salaries at similar schools. His hiring last
year of term-limited state Rep. Joyce Beatty for a base salary of $320,000 to serve as senior vice
president for outreach and development brought unrelenting attention to OSU salary levels.
At the time, Gee was unapologetic, saying he would pay to get the best people.
109
University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman (base salary: $531,996), in Cleveland in February for
a City Club speech, also said emphatically that university presidents must be able to hire and pay well, as
needed. Universities won't be able to attract talent if potential employees worry their salaries are going to
be subject to public scrutiny, she said.
Boyle, of College Parents of America, thinks the argument that universities must pay the salaries they do
to attract talent is a dated idea, especially now.
"Many people today are grateful just to have a job," he said. "So the notion that they have to pay these
high salaries to attract someone to come to their school versus another I just think is not operable right
now."
Plain Dealer computer-assisted reporting editor Rich Exner contributed to this story.
110
Georgia, The Augusta Chronicle, April 15, 2009
Tuition may rise for new students

By Tom Corwin | Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Georgia college students will get to keep their guaranteed tuition rate, but incoming students will get no
such promise -- and all students will get socked with a fee to offset state budget cuts.
The University System of Georgia Board of Regents voted Tuesday to let those on the guaranteed tuition
rate, known as "fixed for four," keep it, but it will not be extended to incoming freshman, the system said in
a news release.
In an open letter to parents and students, Chancellor Erroll B. Davis Jr. said the university system had to
overcome a $274 million cut in state funding for fiscal 2010, which begins July 1.
"The decisions that affect the cost of a student's education were difficult to make," Mr. Davis said. "I am
aware, as are the members of the Board of Regents, of the hardships many families face in this
economy."
Incoming freshman will pay the same tuition as the previous year but could face increases in the future,
according to the news release.
For those not on a guaranteed plan, tuition at Augusta State University after the summer period will be
$1,549 per semester for 12 credit hours, a rate of $130 per credit hour, according to the university
system.
Students not guaranteed another rate at Medical College of Georgia will pay $203 per credit hour per
semester, or $2,428 per 12-hour semester. Students at MCG and other research universities -- the
University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and Georgia State University -- also will be assessed a $100 fee per
semester.
Students at Augusta State will have to pay a $75 fee per semester.
The University of Georgia will have its own tuition policy for those not receiving the guaranteed rate.
Students taking a full load of courses, now defined as 15 hours per semester, will pay a flat rate of $3,035
per semester next fiscal year. Students taking six hours or less will pay a flat rate of $1,800 per semester,
according to the university system.
The board approved the tuition schedule Tuesday as part of an overall budget of $2.17 billion. It includes
more than $92 million in funding from federal economic stimulus efforts.
111
College counselors for all

April 16, 2009
Students who need the most help planning for either college or a career after high school often do not
receive it. Virginia Community College System officials, however, believe they have found a way to assist
these students, who are sometimes overlooked by their guidance counselors in favor of their gifted or atrisk peers. Their method? Meet these students where they are, right in the halls of their high schools.
For four years, the system has employed career coaches who are based on-site at a number of the
states public high schools. In 2005, the program had 11 coaches in 13 schools. Now there are about 110
coaches in more than 140 schools, serving about 40 percent of the states secondary students.
The program is Virginias answer to President Obamas call for every American to have at least one year
of postsecondary education, whether it is temporary skills training or the first step on the way to a college
degree. The program also promises to boost the number Virginians who seek some sort of further
education, and it is showing early signs of success at the community college level.
The coaches work one-on-one with students to set career goals and create an academic road map to
help them get where they want to be. Free from having to resolve the scheduling conflicts and disciplinary
issues that dominate the professional lives of many high school counselors, the coaches operate
differently from the guidance counselors, with whom they work.
Elizabeth Creamer, the system's director of Postsecondary Perkins/Tech Prep, compared the coaches to
executive headhunters who help career professionals find positions. She argued that, since they come
from the postsecondary world, they have a wealth of resources that most high school guidance
counselors do not, and can be a better advocate for their students.
The secondary role of these coaches shifts according to the needs of their local high schools. Sometimes,
Creamer noted, they will help students and parents figure out the financial aid system, or give pointers on
how to strengthen a rsum. At other times, she added that they will host career fairs and even offer
college placement testing at their high school.
Even though the coaches work for the community college system, they are not simply advocates
promoting their two-year institutions. Creamer said they make sure students are aware of the wide array
of postsecondary options they have, from career and technical credentialing to the state's four-year
institutions.
Community college enrollments, however, grew 7 percentage points more last academic year out of high
schools that have coaches than from those that do not. Though not the original intent of the program,
Virginia officials say it is a great side effect. The system currently only has numbers for community college
enrollment growth, but will track growth in four-year college-going rates beginning next year.
Elizabeth Whiston-Dean, a career coach at Pulaski County Senior High School who works for New River
Community College, said she was afraid, going into her position last year, that she would simply be seen
as a promoter for her two-year institution. But she said her students, their parents and the high schools
administration have not seen it that way.
I tell students up front that I dont work for the high school and that I work for the community college,
said Whiston-Dean, a former high school guidance counselor herself. I dont work on commission. I do
112
my job based on whats best for the student. Im here to reach students who didnt think they were college
material find their way. This is really a significant service from the community college with no strings
attached no matter the students choice.
Whiston-Dean believes that it is especially important for the program to reach out to students in rural
parts of the state, such as southwestern Virginia, where access to higher education is limited. Her high
school has even taken extra steps to ensure that her services are well promoted among the student body.
Although most career coaches give roving presentations about their services before classes in their high
schools, Whiston-Dean noted that her institution has promoted them in other ways. She said some
English instructors, for example, have assigned writing projects about possible careers that make it easier
for these students to start a dialogue about their goals. She noted that most juniors and seniors actively
seek her out, and she hopes that these other methods of promotion will help underclassmen do the same
when they begin thinking about life after graduation.
Nicole Walker, career coach at Booker T. Washington and Bayside High Schools, who works for
Tidewater Community College, said her schools have a formal referral process by which some instructors
or counselors can suggest that certain students see her if it is well-known that they do not have any postsecondary plans. Sometimes, she said, it is just a matter of showing qualified students that college is an
option for them.
Just recently, I had a student come back to see me after two years, Walker said. She wasnt planning
on doing anything after graduation. Her parents are factory workers and werent college educated. They
were just happy to have her graduate from high school. Even though she had a great GPA, she just didnt
think about college at all. She came to some meetings with me and now, I hear, shes at [the College of]
William and Mary. That doesnt say anything about the guidance counselors here. They were happy to
help. But I actually had the time to dig deep and help her out.
Jasmine Philip, career coach at Petersburg High School who works for John Tyler Community College,
echoed a similar sentiment. Contrary to popular belief, she said, todays students are not apathetic about
college and their futures, they are just uninformed.
What I find in these students is that they are seeking information, Philip said. They dont know that they
need some kind of post-secondary education. They often dont have parents or siblings that have gone
through the higher education system, so theyre just unaware. As a result, Im bombarded by students on
a daily basis.
Virginias career coaches program will cost about $1.8 million this year, though most of this is covered
by federal and state grants, including funds from the Workforce Investment Act, the Perkins Act and the
Department of Education's Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs.
Though Creamer said it was never the goal of the state to have these coaches at every public high
school, she noted more will almost certainly be added in the future. In addition, she noted that the
program is currently working on ways to track the success of its students as they enter either
postsecondary training or education to see the extent to which their methods are working.
David Moltz
113
Learning-Skills Course Appears to Help

Students Succeed
By DAVID GLENN
A learning and motivation course at Ohio State University appears to have succeeded in improving
students grades and retention rates, according to a study scheduled to be presented today at the annual
meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Diego.
The elective course, which modestly promises to teach students to manage their lives, offers a familiar
array of note-taking and reading-comprehension tips. But it also includes less-familiar lessons designed
to encourage students to take responsibility for their actions and to avoid procrastination and other selfdefeating behaviors.
There are 216 exercises in this course, so the students are getting a strong dose of these skills, Bruce
W. Tuckman, a professor of education at Ohio State, said in an interview this week. Mr. Tuckman created
the learning-and-motivation course in 2000, and he is the lead author of the new study. The co-author is
Gary J. Kennedy, a graduate student in Mr. Tuckmans department.
Roughly 1,000 Ohio State undergraduates take the course each year, according to Mr. Tuckman. Most
take it in the second or third quarter of their freshman year, often after referrals from advisers who are
concerned about weak grades. But the new study looks only at students who took the course during their
very first quarter at the university. That group is relatively small; between 2000 and 2006, a total of 351
students took the course during their first quarter.
Because it was impossible to set up a true random experiment, Mr. Tuckman matched each of the 351
students with a student who entered Ohio State during the same quarter but who did not take the course.
In each matched pair, the students had similar high-school grades, standardized-test scores, ethnicities,
and other characteristics. (In general, these students had weaker high-school backgrounds than did the
typical Ohio State student.)
Positive Results
The courses strongest effect appears to have been on retention. Among students who took the course
during their first quarter, 93.4 percent were still enrolled at Ohio State a year later. Among the comparison
group of non-course-takers, only 85.5 percent were still enrolled.
The course-takers also earned higher grades than the non-course-takers during each of their first four
quarters at Ohio State. (During the fourth quarter, the course-takers median grade-point average was
2.78, versus 2.66 for the non-course-takers.)
Mr. Tuckman and Mr. Kennedy also sought to measure the courses effects on students odds of
graduating from Ohio State within six years. For that analysis, they looked only at the 140 students in the
first three cohortsthat is, those who took the course in the fall of 2000, 2001, or 2002.
They found an interesting pattern. Among students who earned decent grades during their first quarter at
Ohio State, course-takers and non-course-takers eventually graduated at almost the same rate. But
among students who struggled during their first quarterthose whose first-quarter grade-point average
114
was below 2.0the course seems to have had a powerful positive impact. In this group, 48 percent of the
course-takers graduated within six years, but only 10 percent of the non-course-takers did so.
One potential caveat: Mr. Tuckman acknowledges that the effects he found in this study may be
somewhat exaggerated, because the course-takers and non-course-takers may have differed in hard-todetect ways. For one thing, the course-takers may have been urged to take the course by a zealous
parent or academic adviser, and that persons support might also have helped them more broadly in
college.
But Mr. Tuckman pointed out that this is just one of several studies that have suggested that the course is
effective. The findings have been consistent, so we have some confidence here, he said.
Computer-Learning Component
A major strength of the course, Mr. Tuckman said, is its hybrid format. Students take the course in a
computer laboratory. The course instructortypically a graduate teaching assistantlectures for 15 or 20
minutes, and then the students work at their own pace on computer-based exercises.
The students really hunker down, Mr. Tuckman said. They know what they have to do, and take the
time they need to get the exercises done.
The course teaches four basic strategies for college learning: Take reasonable risks, take responsibility
for your outcomes, search the environment for information, and use feedback constructively.
Ken Bain, vice provost for instruction at Montclair State University and the author of What the Best
College Teachers Do (Harvard University Press, 2004), said in an interview on Wednesday that study
skills courses can be important tools, but that he has two general qualms about them.
First, Mr. Bain said, such courses should encourage deep learning and not simply offer strategic tricks
that can help students earn high grades.
We have to be careful not to create a situation that implies that the entire game is memory, he said.
Students need the capacity to apply their knowledge and to extend it into new domains. People are most
likely to learn deeply when they are trying to solve problems or answer questions that they, the learner,
have come to believe are important or beautiful or intriguing.
Second, Mr. Bain said that he worried that study-skills courses are sometimes offered in a vacuum.
Colleges should do a better job, he said, of marrying faculty-development projects with student-affairs
programs. All faculty members, and not just those who teach study-skills courses, need to be engaged
with improving student learning, he said.
Mr. Tuckman echoed both of those concerns. He said that his course is designed to help students
contextualize for themselves, rather than simply relying on someone elses ideas.
And he said that while he has received tremendous support from Ohio States administration, he has
sometimes seen a lack of coordination between the universitys faculty-development and student-affairs
wings.
We have a learning center and a teaching center, he said. And theres a certain territorial divide.
115
The News & Observer, April 17, 2009
Colleges get mysterious millions

N.C. schools are among beneficiaries;
even top brass don't know who's doling out the cash.
BY MICHAEL J. CRUMB - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: Fri, Apr. 17, 2009 06:35AM
Modified Thu, Apr. 16, 2009 11:07PM
DES MOINES, Iowa -- A mystery is unfolding in the world of college fundraising: During the past few
weeks, at least nine universities -- including two in North Carolina -- have received gifts totaling more than
$45 million, and the schools had to promise not to try to find out the giver's identity.
One school, UNC-Asheville, went so far as to check with the IRS and the Department of Homeland
Security just to make sure a $1.5 million gift didn't come from illegal sources.
UNC-Greensboro received $6 million.
"In my last 28 years in fundraising ... this is the first time I've dealt with a gift that the institution didn't know
who the donor is," said Phillip D. Adams, vice president for university advancement at Norfolk State
University, which received $3.5 million.
The gifts ranged from $8 million at Purdue to $1.5 million donated to UNC-Asheville.
It's not clear whether the gifts came from an individual, an organization or a group of people with similar
interests. In every case, the donor or donors dealt with the universities through lawyers or other
middlemen. Some of the money came in cashier's checks, while other schools received checks from a
law firm or another representative.
All the schools had to agree not to investigate the identity of the giver. Some were required to make such
a promise in writing.
"Our chancellor was called to a Denver law office and had to sign a confidentiality agreement that she
would not try to find out," said Tom Hutton, spokesman at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
"Once the chancellor signed it, she was emphatic that we don't try to find out."
Each was delivered since March 1 and came with the same stipulation: Most of the money must be used
for student scholarships, and the remainder can be spent on various costs such as research, equipment,
strategic goals and operating support.
"We have no idea who this generous individual is, but we're extremely grateful," said Lynette Marshall,
president and chief executive of the University of Iowa foundation. "This is the first time in my 25-year
career that something of this magnitude has happened."
Usually when schools receive anonymous donations, the school knows the identity of the benefactor but
agrees to keep it secret. Not knowing who is giving the money can raise thorny problems.
William Massey, vice chancellor for alumni and development at UNC-Asheville, said the school contacted
the Department of Homeland Security and the IRS to make sure the money was legal before accepting it.
"There may be an ethical problem if you knowingly accept funds from ill-gotten gains," said Colorado
Springs' Hutton. University officials "do due diligence and ask the appropriate questions and receive
satisfactory answers."

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Higher Ed NewsWeekly

from the Illinois Board of Higher Education

46 Two-thirds of students get financial aid, federal

MONEY AND BUDGET

ODDS AND ENDS

97 U.S. education reform is great, but Europe is not

New UI business dean set to tackle challenges

Chicago State president finalist

South Side university scrambling for more students as

Students slam CSU president finalists

NU's law students offered help while waiting

COD extends Breuder's contract three more years

LLCC steps up help for the unemployed

Bill to help college students avoid credit card debt

Quinn tackles income tax plan,

State's schools to get $3 billion in

Arne Duncan: Education secretary warns Illinois of

Edgar says community colleges

Senate president: Capitol atmosphere improved

Cullerton promises a capital bill

Arne to Illinois: Shape up

Average college credit card debt

College students' credit card debt hits record level

Murky Picture for Faculty Salaries

7. California Institute of Technology

8. New York University

10. Yeshiva University

1. University of California at Los Angeles

2. University of California at Berkeley

3. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

4. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

5. (tie) University of Maryland at Baltimore

5. (tie) New Jersey Institute of Technology

7. Georgia Institute of Technology

8. Rutgers University at Newark

9. Rutgers University at New Brunswick

10. Rutgers University at Camden

6. Claremont McKenna College

7. Harvey Mudd College

9. (tie) Smith College

9. (tie) Swarthmore College

1. Westchester Community College

2. Hostos Community College

3. Queensborough Community College

4. LaGuardia Community College

5. Borough of Manhattan Community College

6. Kingsborough Community College

7. Miami University Hamilton

8.(tie) Bronx Community College

8. (tie) Union County College

2. California Institute of Technology

6. Thomas M. Cooley Law School

9. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

10. Cornell University (endowed units)

2. University of the Southwest (New Mexico)

3. Bethany College (Kansas)

5. Warner Pacific University

6. Kentucky Christian University

8. Iowa Lakes Community College

9. Union College (Kentucky)

10. Taylor University at Fort Wayne

11. Bethany College (West Virginia)