Universities Weblog

(Source: Stanford University)Remember the dot-com boom? Of course you do. You probably also remember the bust.

Well, intrepid MBA grads are beginning to return to the scene of the crime, namely California's Silicon Valley. Jobs are resurfacing, and evidently new grads are confident in a rebound.

Consider this from News.com:

While hard data is hard to come by, MBA candidates who have been touring the Valley in recent weeks say job prospects are better now than they have been since the Valley ran into trouble with the end of the dot-com era.

"We've seen job growth in this area the past two years," said Ruth Kavanagh, a labor market consultant for the state, adding that the upturn follows three consecutive years of declines.

Baby steps, to be sure, but steps in the right direction for techie MBAs.

With the number of overseas students steadily declining in the United States, President George W. Bush recently announced that he intends to do something about it.

I found the section on his reasons for increasing the study of 'foreign' languages especially interesting.

The Guardian reports:

Drawing Applause from more than 120 university presidents and representatives from higher education associations and societies, Mr Bush said it was "in our national interest" to create a balance between security concerns and the country's need for more overseas students.

"But we're going to get it right, because the more youngsters who come to America to get educated, the more likely it is people in the world will understand the true nature of America."

The trend of saving up for your golden years seems to be turning…from saving for retirement to saving for your child's college expenses.

Many financial advisors don't agree with this path, but this doesn't seem to be changing people's minds.

From
The Journal Star:

All those reports about the rising cost of a college education appear to be having an impact on the savings patterns of American families.

"People hear that and they say, 'Too bad about retirement savings; my kids are going to college."See, your parents really do care about you! Perhaps you could show your appreciation by making the Dean's List?

(Source: Allegheny College)The Ivies and potted ivies such as Amherst and Williams don't have to worry about filling their classes, and filling them with the best students. Neither do Stanford and Caltech and MIT. But many private colleges, especially those with small endowments and limited prestige, are competing with each other and less-expensive public institutions in a race to win students and balance budgets.

To do so, colleges engage in tuition discounting, which essentially means they're returning tuition dollars in the form of aid. Some of that aid addresses students' financial need, but increasingly scholarships are based on some form of merit. In other words, colleges are buying classes, often at the expense of campus improvements and other key investments.

Here's a passage from the New York Times:

Squeezed on one side by state universities, whose tuition is a tiny fraction of what private colleges charge, and on the other by elite private institutions like Yale, Princeton or Amherst, private liberal arts colleges like Allegheny are routinely offering merit aid to students these days. Such scholarships are particularly pervasive in the Midwest, where many liberal arts colleges award them to as many as half or even three-quarters of their students.

The result is a college pricing system that can feel as varied, or even mysterious, as buying airplane seats, with students sometimes shopping for the best deal. University officials, defending the era of $30,000-a-year tuitions, speak of a "sticker price" and "discount price" and note that many students do not pay close to the full costs of tuition.

You can read the rest here.

After her daughter died of colon cancer when her insurance coverage was revoked as a result of having to leave school, a mother fought back.

Student health insurance usually requires the student to be enrolled full-time in order to have coverage, which punishes the students who are so ill they must take a leave of absence, the students who need it the most.

Foster's Online reports:

Over the last year, AnnMarie Morse has led a crusade in the Legislature fighting for the legislation to help college students like her daughter. Michelle's Law was held in committee, where supporters feared the legislation would be squashed.

Without the help of the insurance, AnnMarie Morse said her only option was to pay $550 per month for C.O.B.R.A., which is 36-month temporary insurance coverage.
So, Morse said she will continue her fight in the state Senate, and then move on the federal level hoping to add the provisions of Michelle's Law to the ERISA laws.

We've all heard of bloggers being fired from their jobs for lambasting their employment situation online, even when they don't name the subjects. But what about college students 'guilty' of the same thing?

After a student at the Marquette Dental School criticized professors and classmates (though he did not name them) in his blog last month, he received severe punishments including suspension, a revoking of an academic scholarship, and orders to meet with a counselor.

The decision ignited controversy over the issue of free speech. Recently, the punishments were reduced in severity.

From the Marquette Warrior:

The suspension has been overturned. Rather, the student will face three semesters of probation.

The punishment is still too harsh. The most that the Dental School should have done is for some administrator to take the student aside and say "off the record, don't you think those posts were a bit ill-advised? Don't you think that maybe you should take them offline?" The least the school could have done was to entirely blow off something that was, in reality, pretty trivial.What do you think? Did the school have the right to do this? Or are they hypocrites for punishing the practice of free speech and shared opinions, the very things higher education is supposed to encourage?

(Source: Vassar College)Anyone familiar with college fund raising knows that donors can restrict scholarship gifts so narrowly that it's sometimes difficult to find students who meet their criteria. Donors may prefer students with a particular major, or from a particular city, or with a particular set of extracurricular interests. And some donors combine all of those attributes in their restrictions. Good luck finding worthy candidates. As a result, millions of dollars go unclaimed each year.

Other obscure and peculiar scholarships do find happy recipients who happen to be lucky enough to fit the bill.

Here's a bit from the New York Times:

Every year, millions in scholarships and financial aid are awarded at more than 4,200 colleges and universities. But other scholarships, amounting to perhaps several million dollars more, are tied up in endowments that have rules so obscure and restrictive that they are rarely tapped—even as the cost of higher education soars. [....]

Loyola University in Chicago has a scholarship for Catholics with the last name of Zolp, which is currently filled. The university has not had to do any extraordinary recruiting. "We've had quite a few Zolps come through," said Edward R. Moore, the university's scholarship director. "They seem to know about it."So if you're strapped for cash and can't find enough financial aid, browse the scholarship catalog one more time. You just might find something bizarre enough to qualify for.

President George W. Bush will soon announce his plan to fund the inclusions of 'critical' languages into college and university programs. These languages include Chinese, Arabic, and other Middle Eastern languages.

The announcement premiered to mixed reviews.

From Inside Higher Ed:

Some language experts are excited about the administration interest and say that the additional funds could provide a needed boost for their work. But others — especially scholars of the Middle East — are troubled by the Pentagon role in the effort.

At the same time, he warned against false expectations. "Simple knowledge of language, put to narrow instrumental purposes, would not in and of itself solve the U.S. government's problems in the Arab World, as the example of Israel, which has lots of officials fluent in Arabic, demonstrates," he said.
Details of the new program are expected tomorrow, when President Bush speaks to a group of college and university presidents who were invited to a meeting in Washington.

Hmm…professors. The stereotype is the absent-minded, gray-haired curmudgeon who is not exactly student-friendly. This may be true for some, though there are many, many types. But a common problem exists among all: students often have trouble communication with them.

College is tough, and sometimes you need to laugh. With that in mind, I present to you a translation of professor-speak: what they really mean in those common phrases they use.

This list has been around for years, but it never gets old.

Some of my Favorites:

My office hours are by appointment only. (I like to get out of here early.)

The final will be comprehensive. (I'll expect you to recapitulate in two hours everything I couldn't fully cover myself in 15 weeks.)

Everyone will prepare in-class oral presentations. (This course is outside my specialty—I'll just bluff it and let YOU teach.)

Let's have class outdoors today! (I had beans for lunch.)

The full list is here.

(Source: Connecticut College)Econ 101, Poli Sci 101, Expository Writing and…The World of Reality TV? College freshmen these days have the opportunity to add offbeat seminars to their fare of standard courses. Some focus on rather whimsical topics, while others tackle more meaty issues. Consider the following from the AP:

For first-year students, they are kicking around some heady questions: Is there such thing as absolute mathematical truth? Can a perfect circle exist? What if two plus two didn't equal four?

"What we're doing is investing very expensive faculty time teaching both small groups of students and teaching students in their first year of college," he said.And what, we might ask, is wrong with that?