Universities Weblog

Education in Tennessee seems to be constantly on the chopping block. The revenue stream in Tennessee is less predictable than in most states because there is no state income tax - just an outrageous sales tax.

The Pacer, an independent paper at UT-Martin, carried a story back in late September that quoted UT President John Petersen:

"Education and higher education were protected for a long time, and the hole got deep enough that they (the governor and the legislature) couldn't do that, and we ended up with about a 4.1 percent cut across the state, which for us at the University of Tennessee is a little bit over $22 million," Petersen said.

the Pacer piece said that Petersen and the UT Board of Trustees were trying to balance rising costs, budget cuts and tuition increases. UT upped tuition by 6 percent for 2008-09.

Now a piece this week in the Chattanooga Times Free Press that the $22 million figure has been reduced to about $17 million. But statewide revenue is still running over $100 million short of budget needs, the size of the cuts could eventually grow…

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Bill Manning

The Chronicle of Higher Ed is among news sources that covered the announcement last week from the Department of Education concerning the financial aid application process.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced this evening, as part of an address at Harvard University, that she had been able to whittle the main federal financial-aid application, known as the Fafsa, from 120 questions in six pages down to just 27 questions.

Congress urged Spellings in August to simplify the form. One Department of Ed official suggested back in July that the form could be reduced to just nine questions.

Inside Higher Ed also ran an informative piece on the smaller FAFSA last week.

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, TIM MCCAIG

University Business ran a story today about Texas A&M's program offering free tuition to incoming freshmen who are residents of Texas.

The program is need based. Freshmen whose families make less than $60,000 a year are eligible for the free tuition offer. In-state tuition at Texas A&M is just under $8,000 a year. Recipients can still apply for other forms of financial aid to cover living expenses at the university.

Texas A&M estimates about 80 percent of its students receive some type of financial aid.

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Günay Mutlu

A report by the Rethinking Student Aid Study Group at the non-profit CollegeBoard has blasted the U.S. financial aid system, calling it "peicemeal" and "rickety."

"There's a growing recognition that the federal student aid system is simply too complicated," The report's co-author Sandy Baum told the Christian Science Monitor. Baum is an economics professor at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. "We're seeing proposals in Congress; we're seeing the Department of Education talk about simplification…. People are really ready to do something more dramatic to the system."

"We believe that the most important purpose of student aid is to expand the educational opportunities available to those young people and adults who face financial barriers to college enrollment and success," the report's authors said at the CollegeBoard website. In their estimation, the federal government is failing to do that despite spending $86 billion a year on financial aid at the moment.

© cydneycap

Since the start of primary season, the amount of misinformation available about the voting rights of college students has increased exponentially. Last week the Chronicle of Higher Ed carried a news blog about the continuing controversy in swing states like Colorado - where a Republican county clerk "was criticized for falsely stating that students could not register to vote in Colorado if their parents had claimed them as dependents in another state."

The truth is simple. You CAN vote in your college community. Or, you can vote by absentee ballot in your hometown. You just can't do both.

© andrewdavid89

NPR ran an excellent story on campus mental health last week. And while it was set on the campus of Johns Hopkins University, the outreach the story describes could serve as a model for successfully dealing with mental health issues on any campus.

The story quotes Richard Kadison, a college mental health at Harvard University, who says that the stress of the transition to college can bring out depression and other problems. In addition, he says, "more people with diagnoses are going to college because they get treated earlier, and with treatment people are able to get to college, students who never would have been able to get to college in the past."

How does a campus deal successfully with that? Listen to the story here.

© lawmurray

It may well be. Kaplan released a report last week in which a survey of 320 college admissions officers showed that about 10% of them look at the social networking sites of high school seniors who've applied to their college. The news is not good…

In 38% of the cases where an admission officer looked at an applicants Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, or some similar page it had a negative impact on the student's application. In 37% of the cases it had no impact. And in only 25% of the cases the student's social networking page had a positive impact on the application process.

The percentage of admissions officers who look at an applicant's social networking site goes up for professional schools. About 14% of law school admissions offices and 15% of medical school admissions officers look at social netowrking sites that their applicants have online, according to Kaplan.

© pseudoplacebo

The federal Pell Grant program is staring into the face of a huge shortfall for the 2008-09 academic year, according to the NY Times. The grant program that provides assistance for college on the basis of economic need could see a short fall of as much as $6 billion for the academic year just now starting.

A number of factors have come together to create the problem. The Chronicle of Higher Education points to the increased size of the Pell Grant as one factor contributing to the short fall.

© Tracy O

Duke University is introducing an ambitious new model for its global MBA program, according to Business Week. The new model will have students moving between campuses in Shanghai, Dubai, London, St. Petersburg in Russia, Johannesburg, and New Delhi in a fairly radical reworking of the global MBA concept.

The program is described more fully in a statement released by Duke.

"With the simultaneous launch of our new international locations, Fuqua will be the first truly global business school, shaped and driven by the fundamental issues of our time," said Blair Sheppard, dean of Duke's Fuqua School of Business. "The depth of our activities in each location ensures we will become truly embedded in each region. By engaging with these regions through education and research, we will be able to examine the world's opportunities and problems, explore interdependencies between regions, create solutions to address world issues, and prepare practitioners to be change agents and informed leaders."

© phoosh

"Although coed dorms can be fun, they also can be hotbeds of sexual harassment."

Naomi Rockler-Gladen has a gift for understatement…

In a recent piece at Suite101, Naomi talks about how to recognize sexual harassment. While catcalls and sexual propositions are easy to recognize as sexual harassment, dorm residents need to understand that conversations that make you uncomfortable can also constitute sexual harassment once you've asked that a topic be avoided around you.

Naomi goes into some detail in explaining how to identify sexual harassment After all, you can't report it if you can't identify it. And sexual harassment is, well, illegal. Her article is worth reading. You can read the whole article here.

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