Posts published on November 10, 2010

Two New Books Harshly Criticize Universities

The debate over American higher education has been reignited recently, thanks to two critical new books.  HIGHER EDUCATION? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids–And What We Can Do About It (Times Books) by Andrew Hacker, a professor emeritus of political science at Queens College, and Claudia C. Dreifus, a journalist.  The other critical book is Mark C. Taylor’s CRISIS ON CAMPUS: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities (Knopf).

As David Kirp observed in his American Prospect review of Hacker and Dreifus said: “Not so long ago, colleges saw their students as young people whose preferences were to be formed, but in these market-driven times they regard students as consumers whose preferences are to be satisfied…Colleges spend scads of money to make their campuses as spiffy as suburbia.  The ratio of administrators to students has mushroomed…Most contentiously, Hacker and Dreifus contend that professors’ research gets in the way of education (by which they mean teaching).

Jobs For The Future Provides Useful Resources On College Completion and Early College Policies

Click here to read the full November 2010 NEWSWIRE on the JFF Web site. Here’s a preview of what
you’ll find:

SHARING THE EARLY COLLEGE PROMISE

The best way to prepare all young people to succeed in college is to provide them with substantial college experiences while still in high school. This idea is central to “early college designs,” which blend high school and college in a rigorous yet supportive program. In this issue of Newswire, you can read about how early college designs work in one community and about state policies that can bring this highly effective strategy to many more young people:

  • College Success for All relates the successes of Hidalgo, Texas, where more than 95 percent of seniors graduating in 2010 earned free college credit. Nine out of ten students in the high school are considered economically disadvantaged and 99.5 percent are Hispanic.
  • Policymaker’s Guide to Early College Designs helps states plan for and implement this effective approach to supporting all students in achieving college and career readiness.

 

Also featured in the November NEWSWIRE:

  • Tackling the Time Dilemma looks at data confirming that if you want more students to finish, it’s critical to help them go faster.
  • Online Tools for Reducing the Time to Degree can help institutions and policymakers think about ways to ensure that more students graduate faster.
  • Growing Their Own tells how community health centers in the Jobs to Careers initiative have changed the way frontline employees are trained, rewarded, and advanced.
  • Achieving Success, the policy newsletter of Achieving the Dream, features the Statway Project to redesign college math pathways.
  • The Workforce Partnership Guidance Tool, developed by the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, provides guidance on helping low-wage workers succeed, while at the same time improving the competitiveness of employers.