Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Tuition remission…okay, now what?

Tuition is only $1747 a year.  But then comes the other part…austerity budgets and as state support dwindles, one aspect is that creative cost shifting flourishes.  The tripling of student debt since 2004 are discussed here. And graduation rates remain flat. From the chart provided at Umass Amherst bursar’s office per semester costs are shown, excluding room and […]

Clinton Global Initiative, Day 2 – Empowering Girls and Women (Plenary)

Moderator is Katie Couric, News Anchor and Managing Editor at CBS News. Panelists are Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah , Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia Muhtar Kent, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Coca-Cola Company Mr. Kent’s favorite book is Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat. […]

Infrastructure and Human Capital Interlude

Busy week, so just a couple of things of note. Via Dr. Black, my old neighborhood gets a chance to build a better future: “It’s a great partnership among a number of researchers from academia, the private sector and national laboratories. It’s a great collaboration for a solid project that will help the environment,” said […]

How to Manage Variable Costs, Arkansas-Style

Via the Chronicle of Higher Education (link may not be public): The Arkansas legislature is taking a different approach to reining in soaring tuition costs: Today it sent a bill to the governor’s desk that would cap the amount of money public colleges can spend on scholarships. Increases in scholarship aid lead to higher tuition […]

There’s a reason Pimco hired the last leader away

A depressing sentence from Daniel Gross (h/t Mark Thoma): The 13-F shows Harvard with some 231 positions worth nearly $2.9 billion, highly concentrated in popped macroeconomic bubble plays. We now have the title of the book about Henry Paulson’s time at Treasury: Popped Macroeconomic Bubble Plays.

What We Learn from Sports

Compare and contrast: Philadelphia, after a first-time-in-25-years win: The School District of Philadelphia – as if to prove you don’t need miserable weather to rain on a parade – has no plans to close for a victory celebration, no matter how momentous the occasion might be. “Our expectations are that students will report to school […]

The Mukasey Rules: Schools not to send your children to

The traditional annual list of Party Schools now has a jump-start. In no particular order, except the way CNN listed them: DukeDartmouthOhio StateSyracuseTuftsColgateKenyonMorehouseMiddlebury CollegeRhodes College The reasoning is such that Only the Current Attorney General could love: “This is a law that is routinely evaded,” said John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont […]

Opportunity. Costs.

Tyler Cowen takes a premise of Arnold Kling’s: My guess is that most of the younger (aged 30-34) highly-educated folks are children of two highly-educated parents. My guess is that many of the older (aged 55-59) highly-educated folks are children of a college-educated father but not a college-educated mother. I don’t think we have a […]

About funding education

From Rdan’s Sallie Mae post I got the urge to hunt because vtcodger mentioned greed. Greed? Yes, I have recently learned that one person who works to manage the endowment fund for Harvard got a bonus for last year performance that was less than the year before of $2M. Imagine that! The endowment is so […]