Today’s Chronicle of Higher Education (here) has a piece by Ben Gose, that starts with this: The notion that college professors lead easy lives isn’t quite dead, but it may soon be history. A decade or two ago, it wasn’t…
Category: The national context
The Widening Education Gap
If you haven’t seen it (or all of it), much has been written over the past several days about the widening gap between workers with degrees and the jobs that require those degrees. On Monday, Georgetown University released a report…
Changes in the Legislature
Earlier this week, State Representative Mary Hubler (D-Rice Lake) announced she would not run for re-election in the fall. She’s the fifth-longest serving member of the Assembly, having served 26 years. Hubler is the fifth Democrat who will leave the…
Keeping Quiet About the Rising Cost of Higher Education
Regardless of your opinion of political activist Tom Hayden, he deserves credit for continuing the conversation the rising cost of higher education. Writing for the Chronicle of Higher Education, Hayden offers some thoughts about how the cost of higher education…
Daily Cardinal on faculty pay
If you haven’t seen today’s Daily Cardinal, you should look at it — this article, “Power up professors’ paltry paychecks: UW should more actively solicit donations for professor salaries”, suggests refocusing spending from buildings to faculty salaries. PROFS and other…
Materials from the forum on financing public higher education
With the permission of the presenters, we’re posting the slides from yesterday’s forum. As one presenter said afterwards, most of the slides may be cryptic to those who weren’t at the forum, but there’s a lot of information in there.…
Public Attitudes Towards Higher Education
There is an interesting, and troubling, article in today’s New York Times. A new study shows an increasing number of people believe that colleges are focused more on operating like a business than on providing a quality educational experience. And,…
Flyer for the forum on financing public higher education
The reaction to next week’s forum has been very positive and we’re getting requests for copies of the flyer for the event. The image below, a small jpeg version, can be downloaded here. We are already discussing future forums, building…
Campus Forum on Financing Public Higher Education: Feb 23, Memorial Union
How will we pay for public higher education in Wisconsin and at UW–Madison in the years to come? This will be the topic of a public forum later this month on the UW–Madison campus. PROFS, the Public Representation Organization of…
Efforts to Improve Graduation Rates at Other Universities
Wisconsin is not the only state looking to dramatically increase the number of graduates in coming years (see this post). This recent article from the New York Times highlights the efforts in other states.