Study on faculty salary to be released

A new study comparing faculty compensation in the University of North Carolina system with peer institutions around the country will be released on Wednesday, May 9, at 11:00 a.m. at a press conference in the Legislative Press Room.

The study is published by the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy and written by Jon Sanders, a policy analyst and research editor with the John Locke Foundation. Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger (R-District 26) will host the press conference.


Should You Invest in Education?

A recent column by James Altucher that ran in The Financial Times touched off a debate between two of America’s most prominent intellectuals. Their argument on the benefits of a college education is worth investigating.

First, the column. Entitled “Why investing in education should pay off,” Altucher’s piece would seem to suggest that going to college is a smart move for young people. But that conclusion would show the folly of judging a column by its title, since the author begins by writing, “As far as I am concerned, college is a waste of time. Instead of going to college, I wish I had worked.” Years of taking classes don’t actually teach you much about life, Altucher suggests. Furthermore, he contends, “it is unclear whether costs of $200,000 – plus opportunity costs by the time all is said and done – are ever made back from your future cash flows.”


A mini scandal amid a maxi push for federal control

It’s happening beneath the radar of most media and the public, but it is a major conflict, nonetheless. The prize that is being fought over is accreditation – who decides which schools are “good enough” so that their students can receive federal financial aid (such as Pell grants).

Nominally, eight regional associations accredit most of the nation’s undergraduate school (they divide up the country like a cartel, says George Leef, and have little competition). But dissatisfaction with these organizations is strong, especially from Department of Education secretary Margaret Spellings. She is trying to persuade the accreditors to measure student learning, rather than tally inputs such as the number of books in the library.


Should students all be “college-ready”?

Recently adopted regulations for high school graduation are threatening to shrink vocational education. Following the increasingly popular nostrum that all students should be prepared for college, the state of North Carolina now requires all students to complete the courses required for admission to the UNC system. This requirement adds a course in advanced math and two courses in a foreign language.

Superintendent of Education June Atkinson concedes that vocational and arts courses could get pushed aside. Since the requirements were enacted, some legislators have fought to increase funding for vocational courses. S.B. 1473, introduced by Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, would provide $150 million in funding for high school regional vocational education centers that would teach subjects such as biomedical technology, automotive technology, and construction skills.


What If the U.S. News College Rankings Went Bye-Bye?

Ask Americans how they know which colleges and good and which ones aren’t so good and they’ll probably say, “the U.S. News college rankings.”

For several decades, the annual issue of U.S. News & World Report that focuses on the rankings of colleges, universities, and graduate schools has been treated with exceeding respect by the public. It purports to identify the best university, best liberal arts college, best law and medical schools and so on according to a complicated formula. Rarely do people analyze that formula and ask if it’s a reliable means of identifying schools where students are most likely to receive an excellent education.


Let’s Hold Off the Blame Game at Virginia Tech

It seems fruitless on this day to comment on the “inside baseball” of the state budget process or the academic climate within higher education. There are other days and other weeks for those serious conversations.

This week, all such policy discussions take a back seat to the briefness of life.

Today I turned my thoughts to my disbelief and anger over what occurred Monday at Virginia Tech. We were all shocked as news began to circulate that a gunman – in two separate shootings – killed 32 students and professors and then later himself, leaving 33 dead in all. The gunman was identified Tuesday as Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old Virginia Tech student originally from South Korea. Many at Virginia Tech described Cho as a “loner.”


Rate increase proposed for community colleges

RALEIGH – Members of the joint House-Senate appropriations committee Thursday proposed a 5 percent increase in community college tuition to help fund additional programs within the system.

If approved, the rate increase would be the first since 2005. It would provide $6 million of additional revenue.

The tuition hike was included in the spending report of the Joint Appropriations Subcommittee on Education. It includes what areas the joint committee intends to fund and how much. Now, the committee will split to work on appropriation matters in their separate chambers. House members are expected to release a budget document by May.


The Higher Ed Completion Hobgoblin

There is a cottage industry in the U.S. (located mostly in Washington, DC, but with satellite plants scattered around the country) that produces hand-wringing policy reports saying that America faces a crisis unless it finds a way to put more students into and through college. (Here are two recent examples: “The Waning of America’s Higher Education Advantage” published last June by the Center for Studies in Higher Education at UC Berkeley, and “American Higher Education: How Does it Measure Up for the 21st Century?”) H. L. Mencken once wrote that politics is a game of menacing the people with “an endless series of hobgoblins” to keep them clamoring for governmental officials to make them safe. This business of scaring people into thinking that we’ve got to get more students through college fits that description perfectly.

The most recent addition to this genre is a paper released March 7 entitled “Hitting Home: An Analysis of the Cost, Access and Quality Challenges Confronting Higher Education Today” published by the group Making Opportunity Affordable. The paper’s big point is that the U.S. suffers from a “degree gap” that threatens our economic future. In the words of the author, “In fact, the size of this gap – the difference between degrees produced in the United States and those produced by nations who are among our top competitors – could reach almost 16 million degrees by 2025….” To close this supposedly dangerous gap, the paper advocates government action to get far more young Americans into and through college – thus “producing” the degrees that will enable us to keep right up with those competitors.


Senate elects BOG candidates

Just as the state House did last week, state Senate members elected three new members to the UNC Board of Governors and re-elected five others during voting held Thursday.

The Senate elected Frank A. Daniels Jr., Ann Goodnight and Clarice Cato Goodyear as new members to the BOG. They join Ronald Leatherwood, Purnell Swett, and Marshall Pitts, Jr., who were newly elected earlier this week by the state House.

Daniels, Goodnight, and Goodyear were joined in election by R. Steve Bowden, John W. Davis, III, Peter Hans, Adelaide Daniels Key, and Estelle Sanders, all of whom were re-elected by the Senate.


Commission Turns Thumbs Down on “UNC-Rocky Mount” Proposal

Last week, a study commission examining the feasibility of bringing North Carolina Wesleyan College into the University of North Carolina system released its findings and recommendations.

The study commission was created through legislation backed by legislators from eastern North Carolina last year. Political and business leaders from Rocky Mount had hoped that adding North Carolina Wesleyan into the UNC system would give a large boost to the region’s economy, described by one supporter as like a “Third World country.” While acknowledging the economic concerns, the report made it clear that UNC had to look at what was best for the entire state not just that particular region.