Here’s an interesting editorial from the Atlanta Journal Constitution by an educator who argues that there’s a key reason the U.S. is falling behind the rest of the world in education, even though we’re spending more per student than any other country. According to Patrick M. Callan, state legislatures need to stop funding public colleges and universities based on how many students they enroll, and start looking much more closely at how many of those students actually complete a degree or certificate program. Read more here.

An interesting article in the New York Times today stated what has to be obvious to anyone who has put a kid through college lately: that if college tuitions in the U.S. keep rising as quickly as they are now, it won’t be long before nobody can afford college. The news comes from a report by the National Center For Public Policy and Higher Education, which says higher education tuitions rose over 430% from 1982 – 2007, even with adjustment for inflation, while average family incomes grew just 147%. Some educators point out, correctly, that there are many low-cost community colleges and other institutions that keep at least some colleges within reach for middle and lower class kids. But it’s clear that major university and college fees are headed for the stratosphere.
When I graduated from Union College in 1976, the annual cost (tuition and room and board) was $4,000. per year. When my son graduated from Boston University this year, the annual cost was $47,000. They’re both private schools so it makes sense to compare the costs.
That would indicate that college fees are rising about 2.25 times every 10 years. Roll that multiple forward, and we can estimate that Boston University and other private schools will cost about $105,000. per year by 2018 and almost $240,000. by 2028. I’m not sure who is going to be able to attend college at those prices, but that’s where the costs will be.
My son had a great educational experience at B.U., but it always felt a little odd scrambling to pay the tuition and then visiting him there – walking to his dorm past the new multimillion dollar hockey rink, the immaculate new lacrosse stadium and into the sparkling new cafeteria, where they had a guy who did nothing but make crepes. That always struck me - the crepe guy. I’m not sure who declared that college students must study in such gilded palaces, but it seems like everyone has bought into the idea. The one thing that always stuck in my craw was this: Many of the presidents of these private colleges are earning more than $1 million per year.
By the way, one of the things the National Center For Public Policy And Higher Education suggests colleges use to keep costs in line is more distance education.
More from the NY Times article here

I just put a new page of quotes about nursing on my online degrees site. I made a point of digging up some quotes from regular nurses; not just the usual quotes by Florence Nightengale and other famous people. Some favorites:

“Our job as nurses is to cushion the sorrow and celebrate the joy, everyday, while we are ‘just doing our jobs.’”
- Christine Belle, RN, BSN

“When I first started working in longterm care, after I’d been in a hospital setting, I bet I went home crying every night for 6 weeks because I said this just isn’t what I like. But the more I stayed, the more I understood it’s a different kind of nursing…We’re all going to die—that’s a part of life. Just when and how, we don’t know.”
- MarDee Dahlin, RN, quoted in “Caring For The Ages”

“The RN’s role is huge. We advocate for and mediate between patients and physicians. We also get social services involved to work with insurance companies and we give the patient the care that they deserve.”
- Lisa McDew, registered nurse in the orthopedic medical-surgical unit at Woodwinds Hospital, Woodbury, MN

Find more quotations on nursing here

Rising interest rates and rapid growth in the cost of tuition are making it super-hard to pay for college. But there are ways you can make it easier - if you use your head. Beyond the Stafford Loans, private loans from local organizations and that can help you borrow, you can look at options like an accelerated degree program. These often cost less than normal degrees. Also, looking at a college that is firmly within your grade and SAT score range can be helpful. The smaller schools you don’t have to “reach” to get admitted to are often those most willing to offer reduced rates or school scholarships to get you. Read more about smart ways to pay for college.

OK, OK, I know that music industry news doesn’t relate directly to online education. But college students are among the main targets of the Recording Industry Association of America, and I would just love to see the RIAA get its comeuppance. I don’t think there’s a trade organization in the world that’s done more to turn customers against the top companies in its industry than the RIAA has. Happily, a Harvard professor is tweaking the group with a countersuit claiming that the law being used by RIAA to sue a student at Boston University is unconstitutional. RIAA’s witch hunt tactics are well known. Law professor Charles Nesson is arguing in his countersuit that the RIAA has not right to use the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 to pursue civil cases, as it has frequently done. We wish professor Nesson all good luck. Read More

Yet another student loan company has agreed to pay a “fee” to a fund run by the New York State Attorney General, to resolve an investigation into its practices. Goal Financial got in trouble when it used mailings that looked like they were from the government and offered all sorts of gifts to lure people into taking out student loans. Seven other student loan companies have paid about $1.4 million into the fund over similar allegations. All have now agreed to a code of conduct that should put some limitations on their marketing. It’s a huge business: one of these companies sent out more than 60 million piece of direct mail to push student loans in one year recently. Read More here

My computer is good at doing lots of things. But it’s never given me any free money.
Students at the University of Kansas Edwards have a different story to tell. Over 400 of them recently got tuition refunds in the form of checks or direct deposits, most running in the two to four-hundred dollar range.
Then reality set in. The happy students were informed that the reimbursements were a mistake caused by a flubbed upgrade of the bursar’s office computer system. It seems that a few goodie-goodies ruined the windfall – the school only became aware of the glitch when several honest students called in to alert administrators of the mistake.
Students are generally even better at blowing money than they are at studying, and some of the recipients have already gone through their “reimbursement,” which they got in late September. The university regrets the error, and has given them until mid January to pay back the money.

The State of Florida has taken a rather bold step of requiring every single school district to give students the option to go all the way from kindergarten through 12th grade via online learning, without ever having to step into a live classroom.
While distance learning is pretty much universal in higher education, Florida is going to be a bit more in the position of inventing the wheel when it comes to getting kindergarten children to study 100% online. As always seems to be the case with legislators who love technology but seem a little mystified by how it works, the Florida law is extremely vague. It appears to offer big cost savings to the state, but it’s actually unclear whether the savings from not having to build classrooms for all students will be offset, or even overwhelmed, by the costs of getting a computer into every kid’s hands, making sure they have internet access, retraining teachers and redesigning the curriculum.
According to the Miami Herald, about 57,000 students took an online course in the Florida public school system last year, but almost none studied online 100% of the time. The new law doesn’t specify what school districts will be required to provide to students or teachers, or how parents will need to be involved to make this big leap forward.
Other states will clearly be watching to see whether Florida succeeds. The lack of a clear plan makes one wonder if Florida will get burned like several state and private universities, who have found that the hype around online learning is no guarantee of success, and that diving into it with a vague roadmap can be a disaster. The Miami Herald story seems to have been taken down from their website. You can read the story on this blog

The newest person to be pilloried on the press for claiming fake academic credentials is Ali Kordan, Iran’s Interior Minister. Members of Iran’s parliament were yelling today for Kordan’s impeachment, claiming the he lied when he said he had an honorary degree from Oxford University. It’s now come to light that he also lied when he said he had a bachelor’s degree from Iran’s Open University. It’s just more proof that the higher you go in this world, the more dangerous it is to lie about your academic credentials.

Islamic nations have traditionally taken a far more conservative approach to credit than their western counterparts. But that doesn’t mean that these countries, most of which have a lot of oil money to manage, don’t need well-trained financiers. A new program that’s a joint venture of the Bahrain Institute of Banking & Finanace and De Paul University of Chicago will teach students in Bahrain about how to do compliance, corporate banking and risk management in “both conventional and Islamic financial markets.” Read more