Higher Education

The Edvocate’s List of 20 Must-Follow Higher Education Twitter Feeds

*The Edvocate is pleased to produce its “Best of the Best” resource lists. These lists provide our readers with rankings for education-related blogs, twitter accounts, influencers, products, etc. These lists are meant to be fluid, and for that reason, they are regularly updated to provide up to the moment information.*

Twitter is often waved off by academics as a way to pass the time when you have nothing better to do. However, there are some who understand just how useful Twitter can be a tool for reaching the younger generations. If you want to spread the word about higher education policies, critiques, or ideas, Twitter is a brilliant way to share ideas. And sometimes some individuals are so entrenched in higher education that they understand what people really need is a good laugh about the whole thing.

The following 20 accounts provide insight not only into the world of academia but into the right way to manage a Twitter account. Some of the accounts are run by individuals who have a lot to say about higher education, the cost, the lifestyle, and the pains, while other focus on making people laugh. All of them can help you keep things in perspective while teaching you a thing or two about how to wield Twitter in a way that is beneficial, entertaining, or both.

Our list has been compiled with the following four key qualities in mind:

  1. Activity. The account sends out tweets regularly to disseminate the very latest news and trends in higher education.
  2. Originality. The tweets add value with content that’s different from all the other higher education focused Twitter accounts out there.
  3. Helpfulness. A good higher education Twitter account should teach you something new, direct you to a useful resource, or at least get you to think in a new way about something.
  4. Authority. The author/authors have the authority and credentials to tweet about the topic of higher education.
  1. @AcademicsSay

This blog can help you keep things in perspective when you are frustrated or tired after a long day in the higher education realm. Constantly poking fun at some of the absurdities and taking a new perspective on the things that get under your skin, this feed can make you laugh despite everything else happening. It reminds you to take things less seriously because sometimes the things that seem normal in the academic world are shown to be just as silly or complicated as you thought they were.

  1. @thesiswhisperer

Managed by Dr. Mewburn of the Australian national University, this Twitter feed takes a look at many different aspects of dealing with that final thesis. It covers the basics, such as font and spacing, and more complicated and difficult questions, such as getting the right flow. No field is off limits either, making it a great feed if you are writing or deal with a thesis on a regular basis. There is nothing quite like feeling like someone understands your pain.

  1. @studentactivism

Written and managed by Angus Johnston, this blog will keep you updated on the latest news and events in the student activism realm. There are few places where activism has so much passion and dedication. This feed can help you understand the latest movements and events that matter to students.

  1. @TheLitCritGuy

This is not a feed for just English and Literature. Every field has their own literary needs and rules. The Lit Crit guy helps professors get a grasp on all of the complaints and problems with dealing with student work. It also manages to sympathize with students when it comes to meeting hard deadlines and keeping an open mind when it comes to criticism.

  1. @dynarski

One of the biggest criticisms (and complaints) about higher education in the US is the cost and access for the vast majority of students. Due Dynarski covers many of the commercial areas of the industry, although her feed is not limited to it. There is a good bit of politics and academic stories mixed into the feed as both can affect numerous aspects of higher education.

  1. @hashtagoras

Managed by Joseph a Howley, this feed is full of humor and academic/nerdy references that can help you laugh on the roughest of days. Naturally, there is no particular field or area of focus. It is free.

  1. @Chemjobber

If you are in chemistry (or any science field), this particular Twitter feed can be incredibly helpful in keeping current with changes and news. Naturally, there is a bit of humor cooked into the feed as well.

  1. @OED

While not technically a blog just for higher education, it is certainly a Twitter feed that everyone in academia should be following. The Oxford English Dictionary feed provides a daily look at the language one word at a time. They also celebrate certain events, such as the birthdate of a famous person who helped change the field (J.R.R. Tolkien was honored on January 3 with the word he created, Orchish), as well as taking a look at the world through the words chosen.

  1. @AcademiaObscura

You can get a look at some of the most obscure and bizarre things in the academic world by following this Twitter feed. For example, if you can check out the most often googled ideas by entering “Why are professors” or “Why are academics” into Goggle. It can help you see just what people think of the profession. Many of the posts are funny, largely because of how much you will identify with them.

  1. @raulpacheco

This feed is for those who are in the academic world for the long haul. It details what it is like living the life of an academic, especially the amount of writing required to stay in the field. It covers a wide range of topics, from school and government politics to policy to the daily grind.

  1. @academicpain

If you prefer a visual, every post on this feed contains a GIF. That makes it easy to process each point without having to engage your brain too much. A quick look at the page will help you destress and laugh when things just aren’t going the way you planned. The posts are usually generic, so you are almost guaranteed to find something familiar from a new (and more interesting) light.

  1. @Jessifer

Jesse Stommel manages this feed, and it is the ultimate place for pedagogy on a different level. The feeds often remind you that no matter how far you make it, there is always some way to improve. It is a great reminder that everyone can do better, so never sit back and be complacent.

  1. @AlexUsherHESA

This particular Twitter feed focuses on higher education in Toronto, but many of the points are absolutely universal. Through the healthy dose of policies and politics, you can find things that are similar to what you have to deal with regularly.

  1. @bonstewart

Managed by Bonnie Stewart, this feed looks at many of the different issues with being an educator in higher education. She offers advice and anecdotes on class methodology and dealing with online classes.

  1. @ubcprez

The only feed to make the list run by a higher education president, this feed goes beyond the usual college feed. Santa J. Ono offers students information about the school, as well as providing information on a wide range of areas, such as dealing with Twitter and the problems that are universal on any campus.

  1. @saragoldrickrab

This is another Twitter feed that provides details on being an activist in academia. It is not limited to being just a student activists either so that anyone who wants to start making a difference can find ways to join or assist in the areas that matter to them.

  1. @chronicle

Chronicle is based in Washington, DC and it focuses on many of the different aspects of higher education. It publishes news stories from around the US about policies, reports, and findings related to higher education. It also posts information that will help students with college life and the transition into a career.

  1. @GdnHigherEd

The Higher Education Twitter account was created to give everyone within the higher education arena a place to find news, post ideas and opinions, and to hold professional debates. It is a part of The Guardian, a UK news agency, but many of the posts are relevant regardless of where you live.

  1. @rkelchen

Whenever a big story breaks about higher education, you are likely to find information on it here. Managed by Robert Kelchen, this feed posts congratulations, information, news, and trends happening in the US.

  1. @MalindaSmith

Malinda Smith works at the University of Alberta as a professor in political science. Her Twitter feed is full of information and news about equality, civil rights, diversity, and bias within higher education. Nor are her posts restricted to the news in Canada, as there are about as many posts on US higher education as on Canadian news.

Conclusion

It is easy to think of Twitter as a shallow method of communicating when used right; Twitter can actually be a highly effective way of reaching thousands or millions of people. For those in higher education, it is a boon to ensure that you are keeping current with all of the latest changes, trends, and information. It also provides the perfect outlet to step back and laugh.

What causes mind blanks during exams?

This article was written by  Jared Cooney Horvath and Jason M Lodge

In our five-part series, Making Sense of Exams, we’ll discuss the purpose of exams, whether they can be done online, overcoming exam anxiety, and effective revision techniques.


It’s a pattern many of us have likely experienced in the past.

You prep for an exam and all the information seems coherent and simple. Then you sit for an exam and suddenly all the information you learned is gone. You struggle to pull something up – anything – but the harder you fight, the further away the information feels. The dreaded mind blank.

So what is going on?

To understand what’s happening during a mind blank, there are three brain regions we have to become familiar with.

The first is the hypothalamus. For all intents and purposes, we can conceive of the hypothalamus as the bridge between your emotions and your physical sensations. In short, this part of the brain has strong connections to the endocrine system, which, in turn, is responsible for the type and amount of hormones flowing throughout your body.

The second is the hippocampus. A subcortical structure, the hippocampus plays an incredibly important role in both the learning and retrieval of facts and concepts. We can conceive of the hippocampus as a sort of memory door through which all information must pass in order to enter and exit the brain.

The third is the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Located behind your eyes, this is the calm, cool, rational part of your brain. All the things that suggest you, as a human being, are in control are largely mediated here: things like working memory (the ability to hold and manipulate information in your mind), impulse control (the ability to dampen unwanted behavioural responses), decision making (the ability to select a proper response between competing possibilities), etc.

How a mind blank happens

When you are preparing for an exam in a setting that is predictable and relatively low-stakes, you are able to engage in cold cognition. This is the term given to logical and rational thinking processes.

In our particular instance, when you are studying at home, seated in your comfortable bed, listening to your favourite music, the hypothalamus slows down the production and release of key stress hormones (outlined below) while the PFC and hippocampus are confidently chugging along unimpeded.

However, when you enter a somewhat unpredictable and high-stakes exam situation, you enter the realm of hot cognition. This is the term given to non-logical and emotionally driven thinking processes. Hot cognition is typically triggered in response to a clear threat or otherwise highly stressful situation.

So an exam can serve to trigger a cascade of unique thoughts – for instance,

If I fail this exam I may not get into a good university or graduate program. Then I may not get a good job. Then I may perish alone and penniless.

With this type of loaded thinking, it’s no wonder that those taking tests sometimes perceive an exam as a threat.

When a threat is detected, the hypothalamus stimulates the generation of several key stress hormones, including norepinephrine and cortisol.

Large levels of norepinephrine enter the PFC and serve to dampen neuronal firing and impair effective communication. This impairment essentially clears out your working memory (whatever you were thinking about is now gone) and stops the rational, logical PFC from influencing other brain regions.

At the same time, large levels of cortisol enter the hippocampus and not only disrupt activation patterns there, but also (with prolonged exposure) kill hippocampal neurons. This serves to impede the ability to access old memories and skews the perception and storage of new memories.

In short, when an exam is interpreted as a threat and a stress response is triggered, working memory is wiped clean, recall mechanisms are disrupted, and emotionally laden hot cognition driven by the hypothalamus (and other subcortical regions) overrides the normally rational cold cognition driven by the PFC.

Taken together, this process leads to a mind blank, making logical cognitive activity difficult to undertake.

Is there any way to avoid this?

The good news – there are some things you can do to stave off mind blanks.

The first concerns de-stressing. Through concerted practice and application of cognitive-behavioural and/or relaxation techniques aimed at reframing any perceived threat during an exam situation, those taking tests can potentially abate the stress response and re-enter a more rational thinking process.

Another concerns preparation. The reason the armed forces train new recruits in stressful situations that simulate active combat scenarios is to ensure cold cognition during future engagements.

The more a person experiences a particular situation, the less likely he or she is to perceive such a situation as threatening.

So when preparing for an exam, try not to do so in a highly relaxed soothing environment – rather, try to push yourself in ways that will mimic the final testing scenario you are preparing for.

Read more from the series.

The Conversation

Jared Cooney Horvath, Postdoctoral fellow, University of Melbourne and Jason M Lodge, Senior Lecturer, Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education & ARC-SRI Science of Learning Research Centre, University of Melbourne

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Campuses aren’t safe. Are universities doing enough?

Kalpana Jain, The Conversation

In January 2015, a young woman was sexually assaulted while unconscious behind a dumpster on the campus of Stanford University. The victim was visiting campus to attend a fraternity party.

Last week, the perpetrator, Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, was sentenced to six months in jail and three years of probation. The lenient sentencing of the star athlete has provoked public outrage – on the Stanford campus and nationwide.

An analysis published June 7 by The Washington Post shows that nearly 100 colleges and universities reported at least 10 cases of rape on their campuses in 2014.

Scholars writing for The Conversation have been pointing to the enormous risks students face on campus. They have raised questions about whether universities are doing enough to protect students.

Students at risk

Over 20 percent of all women students surveyed experienced unwanted sexual contact while attending college in 2015, wrote Georgia State University Professor of Law Andrea A. Curcio.

The most vulnerable time is the first two months of the freshman year. In fact, to symbolize the danger, the first few months of the fall freshman semester are now commonly called the sexual assault “red zone.”

A public awareness campaign regarding sexual assault on campus. Wolfram Burner, CC BY-NC

Sarah Cook, professor and associate dean at Georgia State University, wrote about President Obama’s efforts in 2014 at convening a White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. She pointed out how the 2013 Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (SaVE Act), which “requires colleges to report more crimes” in their annual Clery Act reports, could have led to the “upsurge” in campus investigations.

Scholars also pointed out how like most other problems, campus assault does not exist in isolation. Leah Daigle, associate professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Georgia State University, noted that it is, above all, the party culture on campuses that puts students at risk.

About 65 percent of college students consume alcohol and just under half engage in binge drinking. Her research looks at which students are most vulnerable.

Lack of information

Knowing that students are at risk, are universities and colleges doing enough?

Elizabeth Englander, professor of psychology at Bridgewater State University and director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center (MARC), observed,

Only one-third or fewer of the websites had any information that might be useful to a victim of sexual assault, such as a hotline number, the importance of preserving evidence or how to report sexual assault to police.

To make campuses safer, Georgia State’s Curcio emphasized that studies should be conducted that examine the locations where sexual assaults were more likely to occur.

And, as Englander said, schools need to make sure everyone has access to quality information. However,

only 15 percent of university websites offered any information about how to file an anonymous report.

The Conversation

Kalpana Jain, Editor, Education, The Conversation

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

College is worth it. Who should pay for it?

Brendan Cantwell, Michigan State University

Presidential candidates from both parties have advanced proposals about how higher education should be funded. Democratic presidential candidates have called for debt-free or tuition-free college. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both have plans for reducing tuition through increased public spending.

Point Taken on PBS debated whether college is worth the price tag. WGBH

The way higher education is funded has become a topic of public interest. Data compiled by the annual report of College Board, “Trends in College Pricing,” show why.

Between 2005 and 2015, middle-income families saw their wages decline by two percent, while average in-state net tuition and fees (the amount students actually pay) rose by 73 percent at public four-year colleges.

Research also shows that declines in state support have been the most important factor driving up tuition at public colleges.

According to “Trends in College Pricing,” states spent US$9.74 on higher education per $1,000 in personal income in 1990. But by 2015, this figure dropped to just $5.55. As a result, the burden of covering the cost of college has shifted from taxpayers to individual students.

So, who should pay for college?

My experience as a higher education researcher tells me that the way this question is answered depends on who you think benefits. If you think individuals capture most of the benefits of higher education, then it is reasonable to ask individuals to pay the costs. On the other hand, if you think society shares in the benefits of college, then you might favor public support for higher education.

Why college is worth it

Today most people believe that going to college is important because it is the pathway to securing a good job and higher personal income. Results from a study conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA show that 70 percent of college freshman believe earning a college degree is “very important” in order “to be able to make more money.”

College graduates get better jobs and earn more money. Md saad andalib, CC BY

This view is supported by analysis by the Georgetown University on Education and the Workforce. Indeed, individuals with a college degree can expect an additional $2.5 million in earnings over a lifetime.

Understanding college as a pathway to personal gain is consistent with the idea of higher education as a “private good” and helps to explain why state legislatures no longer fund higher education as generously as in the past.

However, a recent study published in the Journal of Educational Finance by the economist Walter W. McMahon suggests there may be larger than expected public benefits from higher education.

McMahon finds:

The effects of higher education are not just on better paying jobs but are also on many outcomes beyond earnings from better healthcare and child development to political stability and lower criminal justice costs.

Results of McMahon’s analysis show public investment in higher education can improve states’ bottom line by boosting tax receipts and reducing welfare and law enforcement expenditures. Given these findings, he argues that state legislators should understand higher education as a “public good” worthy of taxpayer support.

Return on investment

McMahon’s argument is based on his analysis of data from Illinois. He finds that Illinois sees a return of 15.3 percent and 13.4 percent, respectively, on its investments in community colleges and public universities.

Individuals with a college education earn higher salaries. They are also healthier and less likely to claim welfare benefits and to commit crimes. Because these benefits increase tax revenue and lower public expenditures, public higher education spending can be a long-term boon to states budgets.

So, should states should invest more in higher education?

Who benefits from an educated workforce? UBC Library Communications Follow, CC BY-NC-ND

One way to evaluate the sufficiency of pubic investment in higher education is to consider how the United States stacks up internationally.

Data compiled by the Organisation for Cooperation and Development (OECD), a policy think thank representing highly industrialized countries, show that families in the U.S. support a hefty share of higher education costs while the public enjoys a substantial return on their investment.

Sixty-two percent of the costs for higher education in the U.S. are paid by private sources. This figure is well above the OECD average of 28 percent. For men in the U.S., the public return on investment in a college degree is 14.5 percent, and for women it is 9.2 percent. Both figures are above the OECD average of 10.6 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively.

As a researcher in the field of higher education, I believe American states are investing public higher education at levels below what is justified by the benefits. Increased investment in public higher education would likely slow the rate of growth in tuition prices and may over time also buoy lagging state budgets.

Editor’s note: This article was part of our collaboration with Point Taken, a new program from WGBH that debated the issue. The show features fact-based discussion on major issues of the day, without the shouting.

The Conversation

Brendan Cantwell, Assistant Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education, Michigan State University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Why the guns-on-campus debate matters for American higher education

Steven J. Friesen, University of Texas at Austin

As of Aug. 1, 2016, a new law allows concealed handguns in college and university buildings in Texas.

It’s already had an impact on me as professor of religious studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Thanks to this law, I set foot in a federal court building for the first time.

And I was not alone. The courtroom was packed. Other citizens were there as well to support three professors who are suing the state’s attorney general and the University of Texas for the right to ban guns from their own classrooms.

Why are these professors taking the extraordinary step of suing the state of Texas and their own university?

In order to understand the situation, we need to consider the political tensions between the legislature and the university, the ideological struggle over the goals of higher education and the possible dangers of bringing more guns to campuses.

Campus carry law in Texas

Until this year, Texas law allowed anyone with a Concealed Handgun License (CHL) to carry a loaded hidden gun on campus, but not inside buildings. This restriction kept down the number of people carrying weapons legally on campus.

During the 2015 legislative session, a majority of Republicans pushed the idea to allow guns on campus. University administrators, faculty, faculty council, staff, undergraduate and graduate students and campus police overwhelmingly opposed the idea.

University of Texas campus. Larry Miller, CC BY-NC

However, in spite of campus opposition, in May 2015, the proposed law, known as Senate Bill 11 (SB 11), was approved. So, as of Aug. 1, 2016, anyone with a concealed handgun license can carry a loaded, semiautomatic pistol into most offices, classrooms, hallways, public spaces, cafeterias and gyms at state universities. All that they need: four hours of training and a score of 70 percent accuracy on a shooting test.

Supporters argue that Americans have a constitutional right to protect themselves and carry weapons with as few limits as possible. Carrying guns into classrooms, they say, is part of that right.

Clash of ideologies

For many of us, however, this conflict is about a larger ideological battle over the goals and character of higher education in Texas, with one side emphasizing obedience to authority and the other the need to critique authority.

Let’s consider these two views of education.

The ideology of higher education in the U.S. has historically focused on critical thinking, and faculty overwhelmingly see this as the primary goal (see especially Table 3) of college and university classes. According to this view, universities and colleges are encouraged to question orthodoxy. In other words, higher education should subject all truth claims to intense scrutiny.

The goal of this process is not to tear down society but to make it better, to allow us to develop our full potential as individuals and as a nation in the pursuit of liberty and justice.

Will guns on campus allow critical thinking? Joeri van Veen, CC BY-NC-ND

But here is where the conflict comes in. As the discussion below shows, the campus carry movement has, it seems, a different ideology for higher education. The underlying motivation is that traditional authority must be maintained and, in the end, disagreement is resolved by force, not by debate. For this ideology, critical thinking is a potential threat to authority.

Republican Party principles

Evidence for this comes from the ideas expressed in the Texas Republican Party platform, a formal declaration of the principles on which a party stands and makes it appeal to voters.

The 2012 Texas Republican Party Platform took an explicit stand against “critical thinking skills and similar programs…that focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”

Subsequently, the 2016 Texas Republican Platform stepped back from that extreme statement. But it still asserted that parents or guardians – not the government – should have ultimate control over the education of their children.

In the 2016 platform, both guns and religion are discussed in the section on education. Here is what it looks like:

The section on education supports the radical position that all law-abiding citizens should be able to carry guns anywhere without restriction. It says,

“We collectively urge the legislature to pass ‘constitutional carry’ legislation, whereby law-abiding citizens that possess firearms can legally exercise their God-given right to carry that firearm as well. We call for the elimination of all gun free zones. All federal acts, laws, executive orders, and court orders which restrict or infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms shall be invalid in Texas, not be recognized by Texas, shall be specifically rejected by Texas, and shall be considered null and void and of no effect in Texas.”

Another paragraph in the education section discusses “safeguarding religious liberties.“ This one begins by saying,

“We affirm that the public acknowledgment of God is undeniable in our history and is vital to our freedom, prosperity, and strength.”

It goes on to denounce “the myth of separation of church and state,” and it supports the right of businesses to refuse service to anyone based on religious conviction.

What this does is to reaffirm the ideology of the Republican Party of Texas – that education should be governed by traditional authorities of family and conservative forms of Protestant Christianity and not by critical inquiry.

In other words, religious commitment of individuals is more important than civil rights. Furthermore, according to this traditionalist view of authority, liberty and safety are preserved not so much by critique and analysis as by encouraging everyone to carry a gun.

Views from ground zero

This raises the question of how this ideology affects students and professors in the classroom.

As the political battle raged in the Texas legislature in spring 2016, I taught a science and religion class in which we spent the semester analyzing the volatile debates in the U.S. about human evolution and creationism.

I asked my students how they would feel about the possible presence of guns in classrooms.

One student self-identified as having a concealed handgun license and did not have trouble with the presence of guns. But most others thought that it would make them more cautious and less forthright in class. One student said she would be vigilant about how other students were acting. Another said she would censor her opinions.

Protests on campus against campus carry.Katie Labor, CC BY-NC-ND

The sentiment they expressed was confirmed in anonymous polling I conducted before our discussion. Two students (11 percent) were in favor of concealed carry on campus as demanded by SB 11, while 13 (68 percent) thought guns should be completely illegal on campus except for law officers. Only three students (16 percent) felt that SB 11 would make them safer, while 11 (58 percent) expected that the law would make campus less safe.

While one class is hardly a representative sample, these numbers reflect discussions I’ve had with my classes over the last few semesters. The numbers also match a variety of conversations I’ve had on campus.

What might change on campus?

As a professor, I have other concerns for my students beyond the classroom. We work with students at a difficult time in their lives as they work through the transition to adulthood. Some of them also face serious emotional issues. When I have to deal with failed exams, missed assignments and occasional plagiarism or cheating, I sometimes worry about how they will respond.

So far I have not encountered physical threats to my own safety, but I know faculty who have. While waiting in line for the security screening at the federal courthouse, I learned of two more examples. One was a professor of computer sciences who told me about the time when he was physically shoved and verbally abused by a student who got a B rather than an A.

He decided not to press charges. But when the legislature passed the campus carry law, he retired rather than face the possibility of legal weapons in university buildings. Another faculty member told of the time she had to convince her dean to drop a student from her class midsemester for anti-Semitic remarks the student made about her.

Systematic studies point toward other problems that await us if we increase the number of guns on campus. We can expect more accidental shootings, more successful suicide attempts and perhaps even an increase in sexual assaults. In the event of an actual active shooter event, we can expect that an armed civilian will make no difference or even make the situation worse.

Will guns change the character of higher education?

The ideological struggle will continue. Polling early in 2015 showed that Texans were divided on campus carry: 47 percent were in favor, 45 percent were opposed and 8 percent were unsure (this included 22 percent strongly supporting and 32 percent strongly opposed). Campus protests and a satirical student campaign against SB 11 are planned.

What’s the difference that the new law will make? Gun image via www.shutterstock.com

Supporters of the law have filed a formal complaint with the attorney general’s office to make the law stronger by preventing faculty and staff from banning guns in their own offices. Legal papers filed by the University of Texas and the state attorney general have stated that professors would face disciplinary measures if they barred guns from classrooms. There is significant political pressure and special interest money to expand gun rights.

If the lawsuit of the three professors is not successful, we will begin to find out fairly soon what difference SB 11 will actually make in real lives – in the classroom, in the relationships of students, faculty and staff – and in the character of higher education in an American setting.

The actual difference will not be abstract or theoretical. Both opponents and supporters of SB 11 claim that the struggle over guns on campus is a matter of life and death.

The Conversation

Steven J. Friesen, Professor, Louise Farmer Boyer Chair in Biblical Studies, University of Texas at Austin

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

HBCUs at Their Finest

Historically black colleges and universities in the United States were created when African Americans were blocked out of predominantly white institutions. Today’s climate is much different now that black students can attend the schools they were once not allowed to attend. This leaves HBCUs in a unique position.

Does America still need HBCUs?

As college enrollment numbers rise, with Black college students at their highest enrollment levels ever, the role of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs, have come into question. Before 1964, and even as recently as two decades ago, an increase in the number of Black young adults with college aspirations would have been welcome news for HBCUs.

Today, more Black college students do not automatically translate into higher enrollment numbers at HBCUs because the college landscape has changed so drastically since the golden days of these institutions. Diversity recruitment programs on traditional campuses, the ease of online degree programs, and the rising credibility and offerings at community colleges have eclipsed the cornered market that was once enjoyed by HBCUs when it comes to enrolling Black and other minority students.
As a result, it’s been suggested that HBCUs are no longer relevant and their purpose is now outdated and unnecessary for the students who used to depend on their offerings. With respect to the many quality non-HBCU higher education institutions, I’d argue that HBCUs are more relevant than ever and are in many ways, even MORE, necessary than their counterparts.  Here’s why:

HBCUs are still havens for the disadvantaged. The achievement gap in K-12 learning may be narrowing, but it still exists. Even minority students who end up graduating from high school drop out of college at higher rates than their white peers. While all types of colleges are picking up on this weakness and looking for ways to retain students, many HBCUs stand out as examples of how to succeed at having students return after freshman year. A U.S. News ranking lists Spelman College (at 88 percent retention), Morehouse College (82.5 percent), Howard University (82.3 percent), Florida A&M University (79.5 percent) and Winston-Salem State University (78.3 percent) as the top five HBCUs for having students return to campus after freshman year.

As a comparison point, the top 10 predominantly white institutions, or PWIs, had retention rates that ranged from 97.5 to 99 percent – BUT the retention numbers for minority students was lower. The campus culture and student-centric programs at these PWIs are stellar, but it also stands to reason that the students are attending top PWIs, like Brown University and the University of Notre Dame, are predisposed to staying in college anyway – while HBCUs have many more obstacles to overcome when convincing and encouraging their attendees to stay. HBCUs are also proving to be thought leaders when it comes to advancing rights for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender students, with Morehouse College offering its first LGBT course this past spring.

HBCUs are blazing STEM trails. Many HBCUs are powerhouses when it comes to offering strong degree programs in science, technology, engineering, and math. HBCUs are important hubs for developing the greatest STEM minds in the nation, with 65 percent of all Black physicians and half of all Black engineers graduating from HBCUs. The Tuskegee University College of Engineering and Alabama A&M University of College Engineering, Technology, and Physical Sciences are not just top engineering schools among HBCUs – they are among the best in the nation. Spelman College is the second largest school in the nation that sends Black undergraduates on to medical school. Jackson State University receives the highest amount of HBCU federal research funding every year, at $68 million, and is known for its “research intensive” programs.

Claflin University students work alongside the South Carolina Center for Biotechnology and receive hands-on industry training and connections in the field long before graduation. The Xavier University of Louisiana has a consistently top-ranked pharmacy program and is a sought out school for those hoping to advance to medical school. Florida A&M University consistently ranks at the top of all colleges that graduate Black students with doctorates in natural sciences and engineering. In June, Fayetteville State was awarded a $718, 000 government research grant that included plans to oversee STEM instruction to local high school students. The advancements these schools are contributing to STEM fields are not just relevant; they are groundbreaking and an asset to the industries the graduates eventually serve.

They make college more affordable. As college costs climb, HBCUs remain reasonable options for earning college degrees and come with plenty of financial aid options in the form of grants, scholarships, and federal loans. HBCUs like Coahoma Community College in Clarksdale, Mississippi cost as little as $4,940 for in-state students for an entire academic year (before any grants or financial aid) or just under $7,000 for in-state students who choose to live on campus. Even out of state students get a pretty good deal – adding just $1,000 more to that total. Even HBCUs with top billing offer affordable routes for their students, like Howard University in D.C. that saw 52 percent of students in 2012 with their financial needs fully met. The financial assistance programs at HBCUs have an inherent understanding that their students come from a place where college may not be an option without the sound advice and financial assistance – and they step up to meet the needs of those students.

They adequately staff the workforce – and help graduates land jobs. During the latest Recession years, college career centers faced even greater scrutiny when it comes to helping students find jobs when they leave campus. The state of unemployed college graduates reached nearly crisis proportions at one point, with college graduates returning home to live with their parents after receiving a degree. HBCUs stepped up and worked even harder to help their graduates find the work they were qualified to accomplish after graduation. The 2012 HBCU Career Center Survey found that over 90 percent of HBCUs offered career workshops, career counseling, one-on-one resume writing help, one-on-one interview coaching, on-campus job fairs and on-campus interviews from prospective employers. Nearly three-fourths of the HBCUs in the survey said they also offered career development services for alumni. HBCUs are not simply training their students and sending them off blindly into their future careers; these schools are supplying well-equipped, highly-educated workforce members through connection programs that happen long before graduation day.

They remind us that there are still battles to be fought. As much as I’m a proponent of diversity in all of our schools, from pre-K to doctoral programs, there is some solidarity at HBCUs that would be a danger to lose. Despite advancements against discrimination, it is important to remember that the fight for civil rights and equality still rages on – and it extends beyond the Black community. It is vital to remember why HBCUs were developed in the first place and what role they have played in the fight for justice – producing such civil rights trail blazers as Martin Luther King Jr. and Thurgood Marshall. Though the initial mission of HBCUs may have evolved with the times, the reminder that education is an inalienable right for all Americans and those who chose to study from abroad, lives on proudly at HBCUs and will always be a necessary pillar of the U.S. college and university system.

Thankfully, despite the rough climate for HBCUs today, not all HBCUs are taking it lying down. In fact, many of them are thriving even today. Here are some of the many things HBCUs are doing to continue their inspired legacy.

  1. Helping those in need

Many HBCUs demonstrate a commitment to service.

For example, students at Bowie State University, a Historically Black College and University (HBCU), have created an app geared towards aiding the homeless.

According to the school’s website, students “developed an electronic kiosk designed to link people seeking the help of local shelters with up-to-date information about what is available in their community.”

The students presented their idea and model in Washington D.C. at the Capitol Hill Maker Faire, a festival that allows makers who use technology to show off their ideas and models.

The kiosk is made-up of “a mini-computer, wireless internet adapter, and computer monitor.” This way those in need will have the ability to check for resources at local shelters and if those shelters have space available.

This project is targeted to those in need in Prince George County, “the second-most populous county in Maryland.”

While this model was created by students and only presented at the Maker Faire, hopefully, such an innovative idea will receive more attention and possibly implementation statewide.

The idea surrounding the kiosk has the potential to streamline county, state, and federal efforts to help the homeless and those in need of temporary shelter.

This also helps Bowie State in the long-run as the university prides itself on being an educational destination for students interested in pursuing a career in science and technology.

Another school, Grambling State University have started collecting books for a prison near the school during the holiday season in late 2015. The drive has attracted the attention of other HBCUs across the country who have also decided to get involved, resulting in nearly 5,000 books being donated to prisons.

According to knoe.com, students in Grambling State’s psychology and sociology club decided to start collecting books for the correctional facility after seeing the dearth of books in its library.

Knoe.com reports:

“The HBCU Book Challenge began as an effort by Grambling State University’s Psychology and Sociology Club members to bring more reading materials to inmates in Louisiana. After seeing a small prison library with a shortage of books, club members were inspired to organize a book drive last spring that collected 225 books for the inmates at Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe.”

This isn’t the first time Grambling has held the book drive. It was the great results from the first one that made students decide to do it again and give it the official title of HBCU Book Challenge.

Other HBCUs got involved, including Alabama State University, Alcorn State University, and Savannah State University.

All four schools collected almost 5,000 books “for prison libraries in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.”

The book drop-offs began on December 1st and were distributed throughout the month.

With the success of this program, it is likely to continue next year and for years after. I love the outreach these students have taken upon themselves, and I hope their acts of generosity improve the educational outlook for the prisoners they’ve gifted.

  1. Taking home lots of awards

In addition to doing good deeds, HBCUs are winning awards for their excellence.

Take Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) for example. Their president, Elmira Mangum, was awarded HBCU ‘President of the Year’ at the AARP HBCU Awards at Hampton University.

“Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) President Elmira Mangum, Ph.D., was awarded the prestigious Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) “Female President of the Year” Award presented by the HBCU Digest Friday night at the annual AARP HBCU Awards ceremony at Hampton University,” according to WCTV.tv.

Magnum’s presence has been good for the university. The article further states how well she’s been received and awarded this past year. In addition to receiving this award, she was also honored at the Onyx Awards, named to the USDA Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee (APAC), and was placed on EBONY magazine’s list of 100 powerful people.

In conjunction with Magnum’s good news, FAMU was recently named as the top HBCU in the nation by U.S. News and World Report. That’s a pretty big deal.

For recruiting purposes, this news will surely be used to lure more students to the prestigious university. Hosting a president of the year and laying claim to being the best HBCU in the nation isn’t a bad way to brag on one’s school. The accomplishments of schools like FAMU that attract news attention are good for all HBCUs because they lift the credibility, relevance and overall name recognition of the schools.

FAMU isn’t the only school that is worth recognizing.  

Raising $92 million to improve the University, receiving a $75,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and hosting the South Carolina Collegiate Journalist of the Year are fairly significant achievements all on their own. One university can claim them ALL as its own, though.

Claflin University was named HBCU of the Year by the HBCU Digest Alumni Association.

According to thetandd.com, the school likely got the award mostly for its participation from its alumni, though. The involvement of graduates who are returning their financial and workforce bounty back to their alma mater are boosting the clout of the HBCU.

“The combined success of the campaign and the generosity of Claflin alumni were largely responsible for Claflin winning the HBCU Digest Alumni Association of the Year Award. In 2013, alumni annual giving rose to an all-time high of 52.2 percent, among the best in the nation for all colleges and universities. Claflin continues to be the perennial leader among HBCUs in this category.

Claflin came just $8 million short of the goal for its capital campaign. The school’s board of trustees led a charge to raise $100 million to “build the endowment, strengthen academic programs and enhance facilities.”

Claflin has less than 5,000 students, so successfully raising nearly $100 million to improve the school’s positioning to recruit and make it more viable makes the feat look even better.

Alumni involvement, specifically financially, isn’t likely to tail off anytime soon. That’s good news for any student looking to call Claflin home for the next four years and really for other HBCUs that are hoping to recruit students.

And finally, one other school has a lot to brag about.

Dillard University in Louisiana has always been known as one of the nation’s best HBCUs. The institution for higher education has been nominated for some awards at the HBCU National Media Summit should come as no surprise.

The university’s president, Walter Kimbrough, was up for Male President of the Year, and the school was also nominated for Best Choir and Best Fine Arts Program.

According to The Times-Picayune and NOLA.com, of the HBCUs in Louisiana nominated for awards, Dillard received the most.

In addition to President Kimbrough, choir, and fine arts, Dillard was nominated for “Best Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program (Physics); Female Faculty of the Year (Kemberley Washington); and Male Alumnus of the Years (Michael Jones, ’82.).”

The awards are scheduled to take place in Virginia on the campus of Hampton University from July 9-11. NOLA.com reports that “proceeds from the ceremony will go the Center for HBCU Media Advocacy, a nonprofit that supports HBCU’s through media exposure and education.”

Other HBCUs from the state (Louisiana) nominated for awards are Xavier and Southern University.

This is great news for Dillard as this will surely shine a bright spotlight on how well the university is doing. Heralded as one of the best liberal arts colleges in the south, it shows through the nominations that Dillard has received. Honors like this come at an important time for HBCUs that are increasingly competing with online degree programs and increasing the quality of community college offerings. Congratulations to Dillard and the other HBCUs nominated.

  1. Creating online courses and tech programs

With many minority students opting for non-traditional routes to obtain their degrees, now is a great time to embrace the online course.

For students who might have to balance work, the demands of daily life, and school, the flexibility online courses offer is a perk. Thankfully, some HBCUs are catching on to this trend.

Let’s look at Florida A & M University. According to HBCUBuzz.com, Florida A&M and the University of Phoenix have partnered to offer online courses for minority students.

“A new research project by Florida A&M University Developmental Research School (FAMU DRS), the Thurgood Marshall Foundation and the University of Phoenix will provide support for the creation of online courses to better-serve minority students.”

HBCUs have tried to offer online courses or full degrees in the past but with little success. This project will tailor its offerings specifically towards African-American, bilingual, and poor students.

“The online curriculum will improve and complement classroom teaching and will focus on math, which states exam results show is the subject FAMU DRS students struggle with the most. The online courses will be accessible through the University of Phoenix’s online platform in the form of learning resources and other materials, workshops and tutoring opportunities.”

So far, FAMU (Florida A&M University) has been the first HBCU to utilize the online offerings that the University of Phoenix offers. Educationnews.org reports that Phoenix “made its online platform available to historically black colleges and universities” in 2014.

The end goal for all involved in the project is to increase the number of minority students, specifically African-American students, who have successfully taken classes online. Moving beyond that, FAMU likely wants to offer an assortment of degrees online.

Then, going beyond online courses, there are initiatives to help students who attend HBCUs to the STEM field. According to the PR News Wire, the Apple HBCU Scholars Program and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund partnered “to create [a] diverse talent pipeline.”

Apple committed $40 million to the project to attract more HBCU students to the tech field. Needless to say, this could be an incredible boost to diversity in tech fields which have been traditionally dominated by white males.

“The multi-year commitment includes funding to build a talent database, internships for high achieving students, exposure to Apple’s campus and work environment, and funding of faculty innovation grants focused on developing successful ways to accelerate HBCU students into the tech field.”
To participate, students must be in their last year of study at an HBCU or PBI (Predominately Black Institution).

“Thirty successful undergraduate student recipients will be awarded sizable scholarships and receive year-long mentorships by Apple employees to include a paid internship at Apple headquarters next summer.”

Apple’s partnership cut to the heart of a well-documented issue: the tech sector and Silicon Valley are lacking melanin.

According to a report by The Washington Post, companies like Facebook and Yahoo are two of the Valley’s worst offenders.

“Yahoo disclosed last week that African Americans made up just 2 percent of its workers, while Hispanics stood at 4 percent. Those revelations came days after Facebook reported that in 2014 it had employed just 81 blacks among its 5,500 U.S. workers.”

By cultivating such a large effort, Apple at least attempted to curb the apparent lack of enthusiasm that some minorities hold towards the tech field.

  1. Prepping students for the workforce

A Gallup-USA Funds Minority College Graduates Report shows that “HBCU graduates are more likely to prosper after graduation than students who graduate from non-HBCUs.”

The news comes as HBCUs are under scrutiny for effectiveness and if black students are better served by attending Predominately White Institutions (PWI).

Some HBCUs are struggling to survive due to debt, but this report shows that the product being produced at America’s predominately black colleges and universities is pretty good. For anyone who has been lauding the relevancy of HBCUs for some time now (like me), this is music to our ears.

The study found that over 50 percent of HBCU graduates who were surveyed viewed their prospects after graduation as positive while just under 30 percent of black graduates from PWIs viewed them as positive.

Again–all good news for soon-to-be graduates and the health of HBCUs. Of course, there is always a ‘but’ when studies are released.

“The report found that four in 10 black HBCU graduates are more likely to thrive financially while fewer than three in 10 black graduates of other schools can say the same.”

That news is likely tied to the overall health of the economy and how graduates may find their place in an ever-changing workforce. I’m also not sure what the definition of “thrive” is in this case. There is a difference, I think, in being comfortable or being affluent.

Overall, though, this news is great for HBCUs and the students who attend them. The report found that graduates from HBCUs are better emotionally, have stronger relationships, and are more goal oriented as well.

  1. Discussing the future

During HBCU Week at the White House in September 2015, education leaders gathered to talk about the future of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Vice President Joe Biden spoke to those gathered regarding the role that HBCUs play in America’s economy.

“The people who were once left out have to be brought in. One of the ways to accomplish this is to make sure we have the best-educated, most-skilled workforce in the world.”

Biden also noted that many volunteers from his first campaign for Senate were from Delaware State University, an HBCU he leaned on for support.

In addition to talking about the importance of sustaining HBCUs, Biden spoke of what the Obama administration has done to aid in the financial success of HBCUs, stating that the federal government invests about $1 billion into the collection of colleges each year.

But there is still work to be done regarding the health of many HBCUs. Some are facing financial ruin, and others are teetering on the edge of collapse. This conference will surely help to quell some of those fears as the White House works to reassure leaders that they are there to support and help to ensure that HBCUs are here to stay.

  1. Inspiring support from all over the country

Believe it or not, HBCUs have the support of more than just their students and alumni.

Known for his zeal for supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities, host of the nationally syndicated “Tom Joyner Morning Show” Tom Joyner gives away scholarships to a high school senior planning to attend an HBCU every year.

Joyner said that because the cost of college isn’t decreasing, he wants to assist a “high school senior with a chance to attend a Black college to pursue their dreams.”

Since its inception in 1998, the Tom Joyner Foundation “has provided scholarships to more than 29,000 students, and, more than $65 million has been raised to support our HBCUs.”

Joyner is not the only one to award money to those who attend HBCUs. Coors Light ended the HBCU (Historically Black College and Universities) classics football season by providing $100,000 in scholarships to HBCUs across the country.

According to lasentinel.net, Coors Light gave scholarships “benefiting juniors and seniors aged 21 and older” who attended HBCUs.

“Supporting higher education and investing in our communities have always been priorities for us as a brand,” said Joe Sargent of the Coors Light multicultural marketing team. “The HBCU Classics are a great way to celebrate the unique culture and experience these institutions offer, and we’re happy to continue supporting higher learning within the African-American community.”

The support that Coors shows for HBCUs isn’t new. Over the past 25 years, Coors has given over $1 million to support higher education over the past seven years. 

Conclusion

The bottom line is that people and corporations from all walks of life, whether they are radio show hosts or former athletes, see the value of HBCUs as a cultural legacy and as a haven for minorities, low-income, and other non-traditional students. HBCUs, in general, are enduring many problems today, but they still manage to rise above it all with their efforts and with the heartfelt support of others.

 

 

How to Provide Minorities with a Richer College Experience

College is often an exciting and unique place to be for students and faculty alike, and the college experience is something that many Americans prize today. But it is possible that minorities miss out on some of the opportunities their white counterpart’s experience? Read on and learn some reasons minorities may find their college experience lacking.

Colleges in the United States are captivating places. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac, some are major research hubs (such as Johns Hopkins University with its $2.2 billion annual research and development budget). They are also hot education destinations for some 270,000 new Chinese students each year. Many colleges are still expensive and average $9,140 in tuition every year, still, churn out business and marketing majors, and are the ticket to landing a better job.

But for minorities, college can also be inaccessible and hostile places. And this doesn’t just apply to students, either. It applies even more to faculty (the overwhelming majority are white) and, as you’ll read soon, to college football coaches.

Here, I will share with you how minorities often experience college. I’ll also give some suggestions on what to do to enhance the college experience for minorities.

The first step to having a positive college experience

College would be a lot more enjoyable if you were prepared for it, right?

Unfortunately, when it comes to minorities who graduate high school and are ready for the rigor of college coursework, numbers are bleak. A new report from the College of Education at the University of Arizona found that less than 1 in 10 minority high school graduates in the state are adequately prepared for college. Non-minority students are not much better off, though, with only 2 in 10 prepared for college after graduating from high school. A rise over the past 15 years in minority students in elementary and high school in the state, as well as economic disparities between students of color and their white peers, are cited in the study as drivers behind the high school graduation-college readiness gap.

Arizona should not be singled out, though. Of the 1.7 million high school graduates that opted for the ACT college entrance exam in 2012, only 60 percent were deemed “college-ready.”

Arizona is a standout example, though, of the way the changing landscape of the country is impacting P-12 education and the college demands that follow it. Childhood classrooms today look vastly different from the ones even ten years ago and children, minority or white, come with different need sets. Teachers can learn only so much from textbooks and their school experiences – they must have the resources to reach students from different backgrounds, and understand how those students will change over the course of the teachers’ careers.

In the case of Arizona, some mandatory Spanish-language education would be a start, but the language barrier is only the tip of the iceberg. If students in Arizona classrooms are first-generation Americans, their parents are not familiar on a firsthand basis with classrooms in America and certainly not the university system.

Even students who are academically ready for college may not be emotionally ready for the pressure and responsibilities of self-learning – both things that need to be taught before high school ends.

I also think that the assimilation mentally of generations-past needs to be forsaken. It seems that all of the energy that goes into trying to “change” minority students who enter the classroom would be better spent adjusting teaching methods to ones of inclusion. The global economy demands that students understand that the world is made up of diverse people with a variety of backgrounds, and languages. To succeed as a nation, that recognition must take place, and those lessons must be included in the process of educating.

The “passing the baton” mentality also needs to be abandoned if students are truly expected to succeed academically after high school ends. If America truly wants to live up to its “Land of Opportunity” moniker, this generation of P-12 students needs to be viewed as a responsibility of their educators long after the high school graduation benchmark has been met. Instead of letting students make their mistakes in early adulthood, at least when it comes to the future of their careers and livelihoods, educators should stay involved and help bridge the high school-college gap.

Why Hollywood makes it all even worse

The 88th Oscars certainly stirred the pot on diversity in Hollywood, and how it impacts the rest of society.

Whether you are a fan of Hollywood, or Chris Rock, or none of the above, it’s important to understand the impact of what we see on-screen – and what it means for our next generation of P-20 students.

A recent report from Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism highlights the “whitewashing” of Hollywood films. In essence, the report found that even when there are roles available for minorities, they are given to white actors who then “dress the part” to pull it off. The roles the report mentions go above and beyond the old-school blackface that white actors used to throw on in film’s earliest days. Some are simply characters that were historical of color but were changed to have Caucasian characteristics in the films.

If you’ve been paying any attention to Hollywood over the past decade, none of these findings are shocking. In one of the most purportedly progressive industries in the world, women and minorities get much less screen time, talking time, and pay than their white, male peers.

So what does all of this mean when it comes to our college students? How does something as seemingly insignificant as Hollywood affect diversity in higher education?

Not enough role models

We already know that there are just not enough roles for black actors in movies or on television but let’s break that down a little further. Think about some of the most popular movies that showcased college students in the past decade – Neighbors, Old School, Van Wilder. In the spirit of classics like Animal House, these movies represented the fun side of earning a college degree in a constant state of inebriation but most of the students were white. You can probably spot a token minority character in each, but the lead roles all went to white males who, despite their often ridiculous antics, were still awarded degrees in the end. If they weren’t awarded degrees, they still landed on their feet with some other sort of job (unrealistic for all college students). The problem with leaving black students out of this college conversation on film is that it subtly sends a message that a higher education is something reserved for white, privileged men (and some women, too).

The scenario doesn’t improve when movies graduate to the adult world. When you think of a black man in a movie that is set in contemporary times, what role comes to mind? A police officer or detective? A drug dealer or pimp? How about a black woman? Except for breakthrough roles like Viola Davis’ lead in the hit TV series “How to Get Away with Murder,” there are not a lot of women in professional roles on-screen. As already mentioned, even roles that could feasibly be played by people of color are given to white people who are then praised for their outstanding performances acting like a person totally different from who they are. In truth, minorities are a vibrant, important part of the American workforce. They are professionals (who aren’t always in law enforcement), teachers, CEOs and small business owners. Where are these characters on screen?

The problem with slave movies

Even historical films have their issues when it comes to the way diversity is portrayed. Hollywood likes to pat itself on the back for films like Twelve Years a Slave but do they represent progress? These movies certainly tell important stories, but they provide roles that show black actors in a stereotypical light. Why have the only black-led films to win Best Picture awards centered on slavery? It’s almost as if Hollywood has decided that to fix this problem of diversity on screen, movies that have “black” roles need to be made.

That’s not the entire solution, though. How about making that fictional lead character who is a teacher a black actor? Putting black actors in a ready-made film category is part of the problem; it further distances them from the mainstream movie industry. It essentially sends the message that only explicitly black roles go to black actors – and that hurts the overall portrayal of diversity everywhere, including on college campuses.

Solving the Hollywood diversity problem won’t directly improve inclusion on college campuses, but it certainly can’t hurt. As higher education professionals, we should support the push to change what we see on screen – and point out the problem whenever possible to our students of all races and ethnicities.

Learning what matters to minority students

The upcoming elections are a great time to find out what issues are important to minority college students.

After all, there’s a lot of rhetoric in election years centering on young voters. What do young people want from politicians, and how can those politicians get those young people registered and to the polls? While voters who are older than college and young-adult age certainly outnumber this group, understanding what college students want from the people they elect matters a lot – both short term and long term.

So what do the college students, particularly minorities, want during the election of 2016?

Affordability

If we’ve learned anything since Mitt Romney’s race for the Presidency in 2012, it’s this: Telling college students to have their parents “write a check” for their education just isn’t going to fly. Asking college students to take on heavy loads of debt is also a no-go. The students entering college today have the advantage of their not-so-much-older graduated peers who are more vocal than any other group in the past about why college attendance needs to be more affordable.

It makes sense. No one feels the squeeze of what college costs than the students who are living it and the young adults attempting to pay back high amounts of college debt on low salaries. Today’s college students saw their parents struggle through the latest recession. Some may have even lost homes. They are well aware of what a load of college debt means, and why it is imperative that affordable options be available to students from all life backgrounds.

President Obama’s proposal to have two free years of community college available for students who qualify academically has been met enthusiastically by young people all over the country, and their parents. Pay it Forward programs, like the one in place at Oregon state colleges, are being welcomed with open arms. The idea that hard work, not economic background, can help reduce the overall cost of obtaining a degree resonates with a lot of young people.

Today’s college students want a candidate who recognizes the significant financial sacrifice of earning a degree but who also believes it should cost less, period. This is an advantage particularly to Bernie Sanders, should he land the Democratic nomination, and even Donald Trump could be viewed favorable by young people for his public denouncement of federal loan programs that profit off of college students and parents. Hillary Clinton has also spoken out about not “saddling” students with decades of debt simply to earn an education.

Social issues

When President Obama too office in 2008, the idea of legalizing same-sex marriage across the nation was a far-fetched one. It was an issue that had passionate discourse on both sides, but not one that appeared it would move forward in the course of the President’s two terms. Thanks to very vocal supporters, and also to the rise of social media informing more people of the issue and hand and humanizing it, we all know that progress was made faster than anticipated.

The same is true of other issues now seeing greater awareness, in part again because of social media. Some of those include paid maternity/paternity leave, abortion, and reproductive regulations, and the gender- and race-gap when it comes to wages. These are important to college students and boils down to their elected officials doing what is right by them, and their peers. The social issues that matter most to each college student will determine the particular candidate of choice, and a range of conservative and liberal stances are represented among frontrunners Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

Environment

College students today are hyper-aware of the issues surrounding sustainability on the planet. From oil fracking to water conservation to global warming – these young voters care what happens to the place they call home. Denial of such issues as problems is futile. Donald Trump’s recent comments that he wants to revive the coal industry are sure to turn off most young voters while Hillary Clinton has vowed to push comprehensive energy changes that support renewable sources and clean energy technology.

It’s almost surreal to think that by this time next year, we will have a new Commander in Chief. While college voters may not make the biggest impact at the polls, their voice will make a difference in who is chosen – and how that person is held accountable while maintaining the highest office in the land.

Is Entrepreneurship Pushed Enough for Minority Students?

In my decade-plus of working in higher education, I’ve noticed a trend when it comes to minority students: encouraging them to learn skills for jobs with high demand. Healthcare is a good example. We need more nurses, more certified nursing assistants, more X-ray technicians and so as a collective group, we push minorities towards these fields. Science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) are other areas where we see an uptick in the aggressive push to find trained workers to fill openings. A US News analysis by Jonathan Rothwell found that advertising for STEM vacancies lasts more than twice as long as other fields and that there are roughly 4 million computer science jobs needed in America and only 400,000 graduates with those skills every year.

So we see that demand, and we tell students that’s where they should focus their learning efforts if they want to be successful, land a job, and contribute best to the economy as a whole. It’s not a bad practice from a job security standpoint. Training traditionally disadvantaged students in fields where they will likely find work is a sound principal. In doing this, however, are we neglecting the leadership opportunities where minority workers are so desperately needed?

In the push to fill demand in the already-established workforce, are we forgetting about the leadership and innovation possible with entrepreneurship?

Stats on Entrepreneurship in the U.S.

Most of the businesses in the United States are small ones, by definition. Some are sole proprietors, and some employ others (small businesses account for 55 percent of all U.S. employment). Collectively small businesses bring in 54 percent of all annual revenue in the U.S, according to the Small Business Administration.

Even though minorities are nearing the majority of the population, minorities head just 14.6 percent of businesses in the U.S. Black business owners make up 49.9 percent of that figure, and Asians are 29.6 percent. Hispanic business owners are at just 10.3 percent, but are the fastest growing minority business owning group, according to the SBA.

Many of these entrepreneurs do not possess MBAs or advanced leadership degrees. They are simply people who have melded their skills and talent into a business model that works. What if those people were given entrepreneurship advantages when they were still in college, but within their programs? What if, in the case of minorities, those classes were tailored to fit the challenges and needs of a traditionally at-risk population that is underrepresented in business leadership? Imagine the way those small businesses would look if their owners had just a little boost of support when it came to leadership skills.

What Can Colleges Do?

Colleges and universities should not just recruit diverse students for fields that need more workers – they should recruit them for every field. This means taking a few extra steps to get those students in leadership roles, no matter what their desired career, and not just training them to feed a pipeline of vacant jobs. Those steps include to:

Incorporate entrepreneurship in all fields. Let’s not simply train our students to work for someone else – let’s train them to start and run their companies. In every field entrepreneurship classes and paths should be available and students should know what it takes to rise to the top of their fields.

Hire minorities for leadership spots. Let’s show our diverse student populations what minority leadership looks like in practice by having higher education spots filled with them. Empower these college leaders to speak to classes on leadership and to be a present face that students relate to on a regular basis.

Administer leadership testing. Not every person is cut out to lead, but many may have the traits, but have never been given the opportunity. Colleges should administer leadership tests for all students, or at least those that show promise in their fields. From there, these leaders should be fed into a mentorship program that further builds their skill level.

Our mentality when it comes to educating minority students at the college level needs to shift from one that values necessity to one that envisions a brighter future. That starts by giving more minority students access to leadership skills and fanning the flame of interest.

What to tell our college students instead of “toughen up.”

In a piece for The Washington Post, Ferentz Lafargue, the director for the Davis Center which explores positive social change at Williams College in Massachusetts, pushes back against the mentality that protecting college students from hate speech and discrimination “coddles them.”

Lafargue’s comments come on the heels of two canceled speakers on the campus that had unpopular views. The first, conservative Suzanne Venker who has voiced her opinion that feminism has failed, and the second John Derbyshire, a mathematician who once wrote for the National Review until his writing revealed him to have racist views. Venker’s appearance was canceled following student backlash, and Derbyshire’s was canceled by the university president himself.

Lafargue applauds the university’s actions in both cases. He counters that allowing such speakers at the expense of college students does not prepare them for the real world. It implies that wanting to change those attitudes is wrong.

In the piece, Lafargue writes:

The real culprits — on campuses and in the real world — are the persistent effects of homophobia, income inequality, misogyny, poverty, racism, sexism, white supremacy and xenophobia. When students refuse to accept discrimination on college campuses, they’re learning important lessons about how to fight it everywhere.

Lafargue’s spot-on analysis got me thinking a little more about the role of college campuses in changing the future “real world” that exists after students earn their degrees. Instead of telling these students to toughen up, perhaps we should tell them these things instead:

Your words matter

Whether you are speaking out against injustice or belittling a peer, what you say makes an impact on the larger world. This goes for verbal words that come directly out of your mouth and those that are written – in emails, in texts, on social media, and more. Use those words to lift others up and to further causes that benefit society and beyond. You do not need to tolerate the words of another that offend you – ever. Know who you are and speak those truths into existence.

You don’t deserve discrimination

Hate, intolerance, and judgment are not just acceptable parts of life. They are wrong, plain and simple. Just because they exist, and have since the dawn of time, does not make them a part of your life that you must simply deal with and move past. You cannot change the way a particular person thinks or acts but always recognize that the fault is with them, not you. It’s not your job to adjust to a world that discriminates against you unfairly.

Progress is hard but worth it

The road to positive change is full of obstacles. Sometimes working towards that change is downright disheartening. This doesn’t mean to just accept the status quo. It means to work even harder to push back against the negative viewpoints and deep-rooted belief systems that are holding that progress back. It’s not an easy task to steer a ship a new direction, especially one that goes against the current, but it’s necessary to get to a new place. Never stop fighting the good fight. Eventually, with persistence and optimism, you will win.

Youth is not a disadvantage

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you that your lack of years lessens your importance. Your viewpoint matters just as much, if not more, than those whose opinions are more about hardened lines than true progress. Use your voice and all of that youthful passion for blazing new trails. Your inexperience in the ways of the world makes you an asset to it because your choices are based less on outside influence.

You are safe here

At least while you are on this campus, and a student at this school, we will have your best interest at heart. Nowhere in our university mission does it say that we strive to toughen you up for the real world by allowing you to be attacked, verbally or otherwise. You matter to us. You are protected. You are a priority.

We can’t coddle our college students by insisting they demand fairness. Let’s stand behind them as they continue the good work to progress past discrimination and backward thinking. Let’s believe together that the next iteration of the real world ushered in by our best and brightest will be an even better one than what we see today.

Why isn’t there enough diversity in college sports coaching?

College sports are incredibly popular.  People of all genders, races, and cultures are avid fans of sports like football and basketball—even at the college level. The diversity in college sports leadership does not reflect the diversity of the sports-viewing audience, or even of the athletes themselves.

Let’s specifically talk about college football for a moment. It is arguably the most popular sport at the nation’s colleges and universities. Bringing in over $90 million annually in revenue at the highest grossing University of Texas, it is no wonder that school leaders view the football team as less of an extracurricular activity and more of a moneymaker. The revenue that is generated by college football programs only represents a small piece of the overall financial benefits. Schools with strong athletic programs, particularly in the area of football, bring in more prospective students and have larger booster groups in place.

The Facts

Not many African-American head coaches at the college level have had the same success as Strong – mainly because many have not been given a chance. Of the 124 Division 1-A college football schools, only 15 had African American coaches in the 2012 season, according to an executive report by the Black Coaches Association. The Big Ten conference has seen zero black head coaches in the past ten years.

While head coaches are the most visible, support positions are severely underrepresented as well. Only 312 of 1,018 of college football assistant coaches are black, and only 31 of 255 of offensive and defensive coordinators are African American. Combined, black football coaches and support staff represent a measly 5 percent of Football Bowl Subdivision numbers.

At Division II and Division III schools, diversity is even worse. The Black Coaches Association reports that in the 2012 season, only nine schools of 113 in these two categories had head coaches of color. These numbers exclude historically black universities.

The Problem

Despite the thousands of black college football players in recent decades, barely a handful of them have been trusted with leading teams. These ex-players obviously understand the game and know what college athletes face on the field — so what gives?

Part of the problem is that schools are quick to dismiss coaches of all backgrounds when immediate improvement does not take place. The most recent high-profile example was the firing of Jon Embree by the University of Colorado in November. Floyd Keith of the Black Coaches Association called the firing a “disappointment” and wished that the school had given Embree a third season to prove himself. The school pointed to a 4-21 record over the course of two seasons as the reason for the firing but critics, like Keith, say that just two years is simply not enough time to turn a team around.

Many critics are also quick to point out that white coaches with bad numbers are often still considered a hot commodity by other schools when they are on the market, whereas black coaches have historically been given just one shot to prove their talent.

It is also important to note that a college football coach does not have the same responsibilities as an NFL one. Winning is valuable to the university, but so are other aspects like graduation rates of players and team conduct. Both play an indirect role in the revenue the school can generate in future years by attracting new students. With turnover rates of all college coaches rising every football season, a shift toward a “winning takes place on the field” mentality is evident.

Solutions

The statistics are indisputable when it comes to underrepresentation of African Americans in all levels of college football coaching. With so much being said about this issue, not much in the way of problem solving has arisen. Colleges and universities would do well to take a cue from the NFL when it comes to hiring minority coaches. Established in 2003, the Rooney Rule requires NFL teams to interview at least one minority candidate for all vacant head coaching positions and other executive football operation spots. After just three seasons, the Rooney Rule lead to an increase of 22 percent in the number of African-American head coaches in the NFL and those numbers rise every season. A similar rule only makes sense in a college athletic setting, especially since so many other aspects of higher education use affirmative action programs to bolster diversity and opportunity.

Another possible option is for schools to set up coaching mentorship programs for minority players that show leadership potential. An even better approach would be an NCAA-sanctioned program that seeks out talented players and gives them some exposure to coaching and maybe even a certificate program. These earmarked players could then begin working their way through the coaching ranks sooner and have a common knowledge base.

All changes need to be initiated by the NCAA, college athletics governing body. For a real dynamic shift to be felt across the board, every school needs to have the same diversity opportunities and rules as all the others. It is not enough to wish that more schools took a closer look at African Americans to fill head football coaching spots; an overarching game plan needs to be in place for true change to occur.

It’s not just college football that needs an overhaul, either

If there was ever a space to easily incorporate more diversity on college campuses, it’s in athletics. From physical trainers to marketing offices to head coaching spots, it’s a sub-area of the college landscape that benefits greatly from varied backgrounds and points of view.

Richard Lapchick of the University of Central Florida has published his Racial and Gender Report Card: College Sport since the early 2000s. Lapchick is the director of The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at UCF, and his latest version of the report evaluates racial and gender issues in college sports in 2014.

The latest report has the worst combined grades for racial and gender hiring numbers for college sports since the report was first issued.  Of the dismal stats, Lapchick said: “It was especially bad news that the opportunity for people of color among men’s and women’s basketball head coaches declined significantly.”

According to the numbers, and Lapchick himself, the state of diversity in college coaching is getting worse.

So how did we get here? Colleges are supposedly some of the most progressive places in the nation, and we continue to see problems with hiring practices when it comes to racial and gender diversity – in administrations, in tenure-track professorships, and in athletics. Perhaps the more important question, though, is what we should do now to improve the diversity in college athletics, especially coaching. Colleges can take a few immediate steps to try to remedy the situation, including to:

Take a cue from pro sports

While professional sports certainly have their share of diversity problems, they at least have some policies in place to turn that tide. The most visible of these is the Rooney Rule, a National Football League policy that makes it mandatory for all teams to interview minority applicants when there are head coaching or senior leadership positions open. There are certainly those who have pointed out, and rightly so, that the Rooney Rule isn’t having as big a positive impact as intended. Still, the mere awareness the publicity surrounding it has brought to the lack of diversity in the NFL, and other professional sports leagues, is worth noting. Colleges should do the same thing, and they should start by looking at the candidates already working in their programs or athlete alumni members.

Put players on coaching tracks

Leadership on college teams doesn’t just happen from above. There are players within the team ranks who rise above and exhibit traits worthy of leaders. These players may not always have the best stats or the most acclaim, but they are evident in the way they treat their teammates and strategize the game. When coaches see these players, they need to speak up and encourage these young players to consider coaching later on.

Start small

The head coaches get most of the spotlight when it comes to sports, professional and college, but there are plenty of other opportunities for diversity. A college that truly wants diversity at the highest levels of sports organizations needs to start by looking for opportunities to hire minorities and women in the lower spots too. By doing this, colleges can build a feeder system of diverse candidates who can aspire to the highest positions and will arrive at them more than qualified.

Hire more women

It’s common for men to be head coaches on women’s teams, but incredibly rare for women to coach men. At the very least, women should be coaching their sports. There are plenty of positions that women are more than capable of filling in the positions on the way to top spots, too. Rather than writing off college sports as too tough or “manly” for women, the culture surrounding it needs to shift to view the input of women as equally valuable as their male counterparts.

Diversity in college coaching won’t just happen on its own. It will take targeted initiatives from individual colleges and universities and the entire college athletic system as a whole. That starts with recognition of a problem and the right leadership to step up and vow to better the situation.

Conclusion

Let’s make college truly welcoming for everyone

In an increasingly diverse society, it is best for us as Americans to make sure that we are all getting access to the same opportunities. As educators, keeping an eye out for what equality looks like on college campuses is also a good idea, especially for those of us who work or plan to work at a college or university.

Many colleges claim to value diversity and inclusion. I hope that some of them will put their money where their mouth is and move toward solutions (such as those I have suggested) to promote a great experience for those who attend or work in a college.

The Cost of College: What happens when college costs spin out of control?

The rising cost of college is causing long-term problems for this generation of graduates. Now that Americans are beginning to recognize the damage student loans are doing, will the government focus on making college more affordable? Or is this just the way things are?

According to a new Gallup-Lumina Foundation poll, many Americans feel that college is no longer affordable. Just 17 percent of white Americans polled believe that “education beyond high school is affordable to anyone in this country who needs it” and only 19 percent of black people polled believe the same.

Hispanics are far more optimistic in their view of college affordability. By way of the Gallup poll, more than 50 percent of Hispanics polled responded that college is affordable to those who live in America.

Separated into three categories of white, black, and Hispanic, the gulf between how Hispanics feel about the cost of higher education compared to whites and blacks is staggering. That may mesh with how some view the outlook and direction of the country.

But this study also mentions the rising cost of tuition and the copious amount of debt that students are saddled with upon exiting college. According to Gallup, tuition at a “public four-year college has increased by more than 250% over the past three decades.”

That’s likely why many students carry an average of $30,000 in student loan debt and why some in the federal government want to extinguish student loan debt when filing for bankruptcy.

This new study is another in a long line of studies that show just how un-affordable higher education has become for some. With the rising cost of tuition and student fees, many students are being priced out of the ability to attain a college degree.

Even Senator Elizabeth Warren called out the federal government for its student loan problem. She said that outstanding student loan debt needs to be refinanced and that “college affordability and student debt” are issues that need to be included in the re-authorization of the Higher Education Act.

The cost is turning off some students as they are afraid of amassing thousands of dollars in debt and ruining their financial future. If anything, this shows just how dire the situation has become and why the federal government needs to act on fixing the problem.

Just how bad is this college debt problem, anyway?

Consider this. In the fall of 2012, 66 percent of high school graduates from that year were enrolled in college, and that number does not include students that waited longer to enroll or non-traditional adult students.

Currently, there is a call for a more affordable college education, which makes sense. It comes on the heels of a recession that undercut the value of a college education. Even those with a college degree were not immune to the financial hit that the economy took and those still paying off their student loans were often left without the very job they had always assumed would pay off their educational debts.

A study by the Urban Institute found that almost 300,000 Americans with master’s degrees were on public relief, along with 30,000 with doctorates. The average debt of a college graduate is $35,200 and that can take decades to pay off.

For black students, this issue can be even worse. A Gallup poll found that in the last 14 years, around half of black college students graduated with student loan debt exceeding $25,000. This is compared to 35 percent of white students had loan debt that high.

Often the only way for black students to afford a college education is by taking on these loans. Four out of five black students take student loans to attend college and typically have nearly $4,000 more student loan debt compared to white students, according to a 2013 report by The Center for American Progress.

There is deep inequality here in the U.S. In 2013, the median income for black households was $34,600, and the poverty rate is 27%, nearly three times that of white Americans.

Furthermore, college students with high debt tend to suffer long-term health issues

According to a new study via Gallup.com, college graduates “who took on the highest amounts of student debt, $50,000 or more, are less likely than their fellow graduates who did not borrow for college to be thriving in four of five elements of well-being: purpose, financial, community, and physical.”

The survey has an area of 25-years as Gallup only polled individuals who graduated college between 1990-2014. What the study found is that graduates who are burdened with $50,000 or more in student loan debt may struggle to repay their loans, which in turn has causes them to delay making large purchases, e.g. buying a new home.

Those saddled with debt are unable to save as much as their counterparts who do not have as much debt or none at all, and Gallup’s “thriving gap,” percentages between those with $50,000 in debt less the percentage of student’s without it, shows an 11 point percentage spread between the two parties.

The study also found that more recent college graduates seem to be performing worse than those who graduated before 2000. Those who obtained a college degree between the years of 1990-1999 are doing better socially, physically, and in purpose.

Student loan debt now outweighs credit card debt and has surpassed $1 trillion. With wage growth still stagnant and many individuals going without full employment, this will mean more health issues and many former graduates with void savings accounts as well.

Even the coveted private school does not pay off right away

Ivy League schools are prestigious, with many students vying for acceptance and few earning a spot as an attendee. However, for people seeking the cushiest early-career salaries, the Ivy Leagues aren’t paying off instantly.

Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Columbia don’t make it into the top 30 universities for starting salaries. The University of Chicago, a tie for fourth, doesn’t make the top 200.

The PayScale survey tells us that Princeton, the highest performing Ivy League school offers its graduates a median starting salary of $60,000 – earning is the 34th highest in the country.

And spending a year’s worth of salary for one year of higher education at Harvard does not always lead to great career results.

According to U.S. News and World Report, a recent Brookings Study shows that “other schools may either not cost as much and yield a similar salary and success of loan repayment, or they may cost about the same but generate higher earnings potential.”

On the other hand, going to an elite military or tech school might just be your best bet. For example, graduates of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis earn a median annual salary of over $80,000 over their first five years post-graduation, earning the school the top number of surveyed schools.

Now granted, the nation’s traditionally elite schools distinguish themselves with a salary growth near graduates’ mid-career. Graduates from Ivy League and like schools see their pay jump significantly when they are more than ten years past graduation. But the quick payoff that many students expect after graduating from Harvard or Yale may not happen.

On the flip side, there are options today, especially with online courses. With less red tape than the traditional college format, online students can earn credits while still working full time, maintaining families and dealing with illnesses. Whether students take just one course remotely or obtain an entire degree, they can take on the demands of college life more readily.

Each year online learning initiatives becomes less of a fringe movement and more of an incorporated and accepted, form of education. More than 6.7 million people took at least one online class in the fall of 2011, and 32 percent of college students now take at least one online course during their matriculation. It is even becoming commonplace for high schools to require all students to take an online class before graduation as a way to prep them for the “real world” of secondary education.

The flexibility and convenience of online learning are well known but what is not as readily talked about is the way distance education promotes diversity of the college population. With less red tape than the traditional college format, online students can earn credits while still working full time, maintaining families and dealing with illnesses. Whether students take just one course remotely or obtain an entire degree, they can take on the demands of college life more readily – leading to a student population with more variety.

The Babson Survey Research Group recently revealed that while online college student enrollment is on the rise, traditional colleges and universities saw their first drop in enrollment in the ten years the survey has been conducted. This drop is small – less than a tenth of one percent – but its significance is big. A trend toward the educational equality of online curriculum is being realized by students, institutions, and employers across the board. The benefits of a college education through quality online initiatives are now becoming more accessible to students that simply cannot commit to the constraints of a traditional campus setting.

A controversial experiment that could lead the way to even more college credit accessibility is MOOCs or massive open online courses. As the name implies, these classes are offered to the general public at a low cost, or no cost, in the hopes of earning their students college credit. California-based online course provider Coursera recently had five of its offerings evaluated by the American Council on Education for college credit validity. Four of the courses were recommended for college credit by ACE, and one was endorsed for vocational credit, providing student work verification through a strict proctoring process.

These credits are not earned through community colleges or online-institutions; Duke University, the University of California at Irvine and the University of Pennsylvania are on Coursera’s list of places the courses will earn credit for students that pay a nominal fee. Students that obtain these credits through Coursera can approach any higher education institution and seek their inclusion in a degree program, but the final discretion is up to the particular school.

MOCCs are certainly in an infancy stage and do not provide a “sure thing” yet for students that participate. In the Babson survey mentioned earlier, only 2.6 percent of schools offer a MOOC, but an additional 9.4 percent are building a MOCC plan. The potential for further diversity and equality in education through MOCCs is certainly on the horizon. This form of online learning means that students do not have to commit to an entire course of study to obtain credits or even commit to a particular institution upfront.

MOOCs will further eliminate the socio-economic barriers that keep promising students from seeking out college credits. Students are given more flexibility in scheduling at an affordable price. Though the MOOC trend has its dissenters, I believe it will win over even the most skeptical and increase accessibility for all people that seek higher education. After all, at one time the mention of online courses raised a few eyebrows in the educational community and look how far the concept has come.

Plus, not everyone is paying full price for a college education. In fact, a vast majority are paying below the advertised price.

By way of NPR.org, the National Association of College and University Business Officers conducted a study “of tuition discounts at private, nonprofit, four-year colleges and universities.”

The information released in the survey suggests that all colleges that were surveyed offered some sort of discounts to its students.

“They estimate 89 percent of first-time, full-year freshmen received some discount in 2014-2015. Of those students, the average grant they received is estimated to cover 54.3 percent of tuition and fees.”

That’s at least half off of student fees and maybe tuition

Still–even with the steep discounts, it’s not enough to curb the rising rate of students who carry too much debt. At least this survey doesn’t go into detail as to how these discounts may offset the full cost of college or how it impacts the load of debt that students carry post-graduation.

While the study is a brief overture into how some schools attend to the full cost of college, it also shows just how expensive some schools are if nearly 90 percent of freshmen can utilize discounts. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a college system that was just plain affordable for all students, without the trappings of all these discounts and needing to spend so much time tracking down the money to attend?

Who wants to make college affordable again?

As it stands, things may not be looking good

According to a study, there is a correlation between the rising cost of Medicaid and declined spending on higher education. Created by Moody’s Analytics for The National Commission on Financing 21st Century Higher Education, the study suggests that state budgets will constrict spending on higher education because of the high cost of Medicaid.

Because money from the Affordable Care Act will start to slow by 2020, many states will have to allocate more funds for Medicaid, which in turn will cause a decrease in discretionary spending.

So, many states that are struggling with budget deficits or have deeply cut funding for higher education will likely face more financial issues.

The study portends that Medicaid will outrun state revenues. If that potential trend holds, then higher education truly is in trouble.

To further foreshadow the problem, higher education spending is only expected to grow by as little as four percent each year. Any growth may look good on the surface, but that type of spending will likely cause many colleges and universities to reshuffle their spending priorities.

Louisiana’s budget crisis led Governor Bobby Jindal to look at cutting a record $600 million from higher education. Because of the loss of funding, Louisiana State University (LSU) planned to file for academic bankruptcy. That will mean that LSU will be forced to raise tuition and student fees, likely pricing some students out of attending the university.

Likely more states that face this crisis of funding will attempt to raise revenues and cut higher ed funding. Unfortunately, education funding is usually the first to get cut when state funding gets tight. Because this issue isn’t supposed to shock state budgets for at least another five years, hopefully, states will take precautions now to prepare for the issues down the road.

Here’s who’s talking about solutions

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio spoke about his efforts in his home state of Florida, and perhaps on a federal level, to make college attendance a shared cost. Rubio is no stranger to college debt. When he arrived at the U.S. Senate, he still had $100,000 in outstanding student loans. Rubio has been upfront about his modest upbringing and also the power his education gave him but he has acknowledged that the cost is too high. The basics of his college plan would allow private investors to pay for the tuition of college students in exchange for a portion of their earnings later on. This would mean the students acquired no traditional debt and would not start out their careers in the hole – at least not in a typical way.

While I like the out-of-the-box thinking of this plan, it raises more questions than answers. At least when a student takes out a federally-backed loan or even a private one that meets federal regulations, there is some protection for the student. I worry that allowing too many private investors in on the college lending game could mean more financial pressure on the borrowers. And what happens if a student finds him or herself unemployed for a long period of time? Or unable to work due to injury? These are all issues that would certainly be addressed before legislation was drafted and approved but there are already some red flags that pop up in this hands-off government approach to college debt reform.

Another college payment idea that is arising across the country is a state-run repayment program that is similar to Rubio’s private investor one. Already in Oregon the Pay It Forward program has been approved (though not yet enacted) that will give students their public college education upfront, free of cost, in exchange for paying the state a portion of their earnings post-college. Supporters bill it as a “debt free” alternative to a college education, but like Rubio’s plan there is still money owed at the end of the college term that does impact actual earnings. It will be interesting to keep an eye on Oregon in the coming years to see how the program impacts the first groups of students who take advantage of it.

What if a public college education was completely free, though? That’s the approach Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam wants to take when it comes to the state’s community colleges. At his State of the State address, he called for free tuition at Tennessee’s community colleges to improve the state’s reputation as one of the least educated. Haslam proposed that the money to pay for it come from the state’s lottery earnings that would be placed in a $300 million endowment fund. While a short-term solution, I’m not sure that this is a sustainable payment plan. But if even one class of students in the state can take advantage of it, that may make a huge positive impact on Tennessee’s long-term economic outlook.

And of course, President Obama has some of his solutions as well. For example, during his 2015 State of the Union address, he laid out proposals to revamp the tax code by raising taxes and fees on the wealthiest Americans and largest financial institutes. The additional money from these taxes would be used to pay for free tuition for two years of community college.

Obama’s plan would give many people in America the opportunity to receive an education– something that many people in our country have always wanted, but could never afford.  The President points out that more people will have the ability to obtain a degree, and we will also see a more competitive nation with a stronger middle-class economy.

In his proposal for free tuition, Obama highlights that students would need to maintain a 2.5 GPA, attend at least half time and be on track to graduate on time. The proposal would not be exclusive to recent high school graduates.

The President estimates the cost of the free tuition program at $6 billion a year

I think community colleges are the key to an affordable education, especially when paired with 4-year college initiatives. If community college becomes more affordable, I think that some students may not have to work full-time as they take classes so that they could quicken the pace of their attendance.

Here are some other ways that the President has increased access to college education:

Enforcement of the DREAM Act. The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM, Act will an estimated 2.1 million young people in the U.S. with access to an education and amnesty from deportation. While Obama’s administration has stressed the ethical points of this act, rightfully so, it offers may economic benefits for America as well.

The Center for American Progress estimates that the DREAM Act will create 1.4 million new jobs by the year 2030 and that it will infuse some $329 billion into the U.S. economy.

Pell Grant Increases. The President has also pledged to double the amount of funding available in the form of Pell Grants over the next three years. Unlike student loans, Pell Grants do not need to be repaid. For the 2011–2012 school year, the maximum award amount was $5,550.
While a Pell Grant cannot cover all of the college costs, it goes a long way towards covering in-state tuition or community college courses. All students can apply for the program, too, and students receive aid awards based on financial need and cost of attendance.

By 2017, the maximum amount awarded to students is expected to rise to $5,975. By 2021, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 820,000 more Pell Grant awards will also be available. The money will come, in part, from restructuring to the distribution of federal student loans. By implementing a direct student loan program, instead of a bank-subsidized one, $68 billion will also be saved by the year 2020.

Higher College Tax Credits. The Obama-Biden administration plans to triple the current tax credits available to students and parents of students paying college expenses, too. The American Opportunity Tax Credit gives a $2,500 tax credit maximum per student and students can claim it for four years.

According to the IRS, up to 40 percent of the credit is refundable, up to $1,000, to people that file even if no taxes are owed. In addition to courses and fees, the new tax credit also covers related costs like books, supplies, and required class materials.

Income-Based Loan Repayment. President Obama has often said that he believes that paying for college should not overwhelm graduates. As a reflection of this, he has pledged to expand income-based repayment options to keep the bills from college from becoming unmanageable. Around two-thirds of college students have a debt of over $23,000 upon graduation. This can be especially difficult for students that want to enter public service jobs and those who face unexpected financial hardships like unemployment or serious illness.

Beginning in 2014, students can limit payments to 10 percent of income – a reduction from 15 percent in the previous law – which means a reduction of $110 per month for unmarried borrowers that owe $20,000 and make $30,000 per year. An estimated 1 million borrowers will be positively impacted by this change in repayment options. Also, borrowers that make monthly payments will be allowed debt forgiveness after 20 years. Public service workers like nurses, teachers, and military employees will receive debt forgiveness after just ten years.

Many Americans wish they could pursue their dream of a college education, but they just do not have the means to follow through with their plans. I appreciate Obama’s focus on the future of America’s children, inclusion and equality, and college affordability.

But as much as the President has done to make college affordable, here’s another big idea to transform the state of college affordability today: a free college education.

Free college: the ultimate solution?

Yes, free college

This is something that presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders hopes to accomplish, in addition to easing the student loan burden that many college graduates carry now.

Currently, student loans are thought of as the cost of doing business. But costs are rising in an out of control manner, and each class that finishes college graduates deeper and deeper in the hole. According to the Boston Globe by way of commondreams.org, the class of 2015 will carry a student loan debt of $56 billion and is “the most indebted class in history.”

What if there was no cost to obtain a college education and it was viewed as a basic right, much like the K-12 public school system? It seems that the knee-jerk response is to claim that the nation can’t afford it. The trillion-dollar college education industry, coupled with the lending companies that “help” finance these endeavors, would feasibly go under if students did not have to find, earn or borrow the tens of thousands necessary to prove they care about their career.

Perhaps that’s true. But how would the economy as a whole look if college student debt disappeared? Instead of taking the first, low-paying job that came along to desperately find the cash to start repaying loans, maybe students would hold out for the perfect job where their talents and education could be best utilized. Instead of the nearly 22 million young adults living at home with their parents, maybe those kids would invest in their housing and start contributing to that industry faster. Parents who save every penny to pay for college would feasibly have more cash to put back into other aspects of the economy, strengthening whatever industries they touched.

When the facts are examined, it seems that the only ones truly benefitting from the current higher education model are the institutions themselves and the companies that support lending. In the second quarter of this year, private lender Sallie Mae reported $543 million in net income. In 2013 alone, Sallie Mae has spent over $1.2 million lobbying against legislation meant to relieve some of the college debt strain. Much like the skyrocketing healthcare industry costs over the past two decades, colleges and lenders have been left to their own devices with improper regulations.

The result is the “soaring college costs” we hear so much about today. According to the College Board in 1992 one year of college at a public four-year institution cost around $7,500 in today’s dollars. Now that cost is $10,000 higher. Private nonprofits cost around $17,000 in 1992; today the cost is nearly $24,000.  The cost of college is a runaway train at this point. College costs have risen faster than the inflation rate for decades.

While an economy hindrance, the high price tag of a college education has very little resistance when observing the nation’s population as a whole. Colleges and lending companies have, for the most part, gotten “a pass” because the pursuit of knowledge is deemed a worthy one where the price should never be considered an issue. Under the guise of a better-educated workforce, colleges and lenders have been able to get away with more than any other industry providing a basic, American service. What would the reaction be if utility costs rose that quickly, or the price of a gallon of milk?

For a college education to have the intended impact on the individual and society as a whole, it needs to be affordable – or completely free. It is a basic American right.

Will the Costs of College Cause an Economic Disaster?

Higher education is potentially one of the best tools for social mobility in America. However, as it is set up now, it may only help the rich get richer. Why? Well, college is a great way for lower-income people to improve their economic situation—but they need to be able to afford it first.

Is college worth it for students who already start out at a disadvantage?  Let’s look at what students, especially from low-income areas, are up against when they choose post-secondary education today.

Is the future of higher education doomed?

In April 2014, education, corporate and philanthropic leaders from around the world who met in Essex, NY at a two-day Summit believed that many colleges will be unrecognizable in another decade and that unless millions more low-income students attain college degrees we face a global economic crisis.

Participating in the Summit were 60 individuals from China, Ireland, Great Britain, Canada, Germany, France and the United States representing a dozen colleges and universities, eight foundations, six corporations and 15 secondary schools, including executives from Google, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GE Foundation, Ernst & Young, University of Michigan, Harvard, Trinity College Dublin, Beijing Normal University, among others.

“Our outstanding participants included five lead speakers who framed the key issues surrounding college 2025. These speakers are futurists, experts in teaching and learning, recognized globally. We even had a 10-time Oscar winner,” said Rick Dalton, president and CEO of College For Every Student, the organization that sponsored the Summit with Trinity College Dublin.

Emerging Technology Trends

Dr. Nicholas Haan, a futurist from Singularity University in California, said, “We must leverage the exponential technology trends and the disruption that’s upon us to solve today’s inequalities and inefficiencies in education.”

Haan provided examples of the technology trends that will affect education in the near future, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics as well as Digital Manufacturing. He urged attendees to view challenges as problems that can be solved. “We need to throw out our old thinking and prepare ourselves for a world that is collaborative, ongoing and personalized.”

Lord David Puttnam of Queensgate, film producer, educationalist and Labour peer (UK), told summit participants, “Today’s students are embarking on a journey with no map. Today’s teachers are working in a scenario that has never been seen before – they are doing a job no one has ever been asked to do. They are becoming digital learners, interested in creating, sharing and delivering content with their students.”

Revolutionizing the Engine of Education

Paul Reville, former Massachusetts Secretary of Education and current professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, said the “engine of education” should be re-configured, “We need to tackle the problem of differentiation, extend the entitlement of education and create a braided system that addresses – and includes – the challenges of social, physical and mental health services. A solution that focuses on instruction alone, simply will not work.”

Cliona Hannon, Director of Trinity Access Programmes (TAP) at Trinity College Dublin, said, “We are talking about developing innovative opportunities for low-income students. We need the talent of all young people engaged in civic society.”

The Recruiting Revolution

Dr. William Fitzsimmons, Harvard College’s Dean of Admissions, discussing the range of strategies and programs Harvard is undertaking to recruit low-income students and to support them once they’re enrolled, emphasizing “this is a human rights issue – it’s an outrage to waste the talent of these young people.”

From Harvard’s continued work on strengthening their financial aid structure, to actively recruiting low-income students in cities across the country, to creating and implementing student support programs, Fitzsimmons concluded “we can’t just bring students in and hope it works – it’s imperative we provide substantial support throughout.”

Professor Les Ebdon, Director of the Office of Fair Access in the UK, shared insights on his country’s approach to making fair access and participation a reality through its development of comprehensive access agreements.

Solutions to the Challenges

Leaders of the Summit will produce a white paper that delivers strategies to increase access and support for low-income students for College 2025.

“We know the devastating price of inequality, and we gathered to do something about it. There’s a better world out there for our children. A college degree is still the best path to a world of opportunity,” said Dalton of CFES.

Is college only for the elite?

Ironically, those who need to enter this “world of opportunity” most are least able to.

According to a report via the Times Higher Education, affluent children have a nearly 60 percent chance of “entering a highly selective university, compared with 27 percent for the less privileged group. The prospects of not entering any university were 8 percent and 27 percent, respectively.”

While this news isn’t necessarily new or surprising, it does continue to reaffirm a theory that higher education in the United States is not the model of equality that it really should be.

Student loan debt is a hot button issue now because it recently passed credit card and auto loan debt as the second-largest type of debt that Americans hold. Couple that news regarding debt to this report that suggests how tough it may be for less affluent children to enter America’s top colleges and it reveals flaws in our higher education systems.

The report also shows that no matter how higher education is structured in America and other countries, “affluent families will do whatever it takes to seek out qualitative advantages within the system that they face.”

In essence, rich kids still have a leg up. While this is not surprising, it is disheartening in a country that claims to be a land of equal opportunities.

As I have written about on my site, reorganizing how higher education impacts children who come from lesser backgrounds is paramount. Tuition growth will have to be restricted, the government will have to completely restructure Pell Grants and student loans, and America’s economy will have to continue to improve for these kids to have a chance to succeed.

Why the poor might not have access to a college education

It’s well-known how expensive post-secondary education is today. What is not as well-known is why.

Part of this is a lack of state investment in colleges and universities in recent years.

Only two states in the country are spending as much per student on higher ed funding as they did pre-recession, according to a report released by Young Invincibles. The nonprofit millennial advocacy group is pushing for debt-free higher ed funding and increased state involvement in helping young people obtain college degrees.

Between 2008-2014, North Dakota and Alaska were the only states to increase higher education spending, by 38 percent and 6 percent respectively. During this period every other state cut higher education funding, on average by 21 percent per student.

Why hasn’t higher education funding bounced back?

As the economy recovers, funding at the state level for colleges and universities has not bounced back. The reasons for these cutbacks vary based on state revenues, budget restrictions, and other factors. It seems that the decrease in investment is easier for policymakers to pass, as constituents are more likely to accept these types of cuts, versus more contentious moves like tax increases.

Though individuals may not overwhelmingly object to higher education budget cuts, they should. A direct impact can be seen in a family’s budget when these types of cuts are made. As states were decreasing their higher education funding, tuition and fees rose by 28 percent on average for two-year and four-year public universities, between 2008-2014. Tom Allison, Young Invincibles’ deputy director and author of the report tells MarketWatch, “The skyrocketing student debt we see is a symptom of a disease, and the disease we see is state disinvestment from higher education.”

The report clearly is not the first to draw a connection between states’ decreased investment in higher education and increasing tuition and growing student debt. However, Allison tells MarketWatch that arming residents with this type of information and how it directly affects their pocketbooks may encourage students, parents, and lawmakers to fight for better funding for higher education institutions.

Do students benefit from a “stable” higher education industry?

You might think that higher education is in trouble with everything that is going on within the industry. But surprisingly, the higher education industry is doing just fine.

According to Washingtonpost.com, Moody’s has officially upgraded the higher education industry to stable from negative.

“[T]he firm predicted that higher education will stabilize, for the first time post-recession, allowing more predictability in operating budgets. They upgraded the whole sector to “stable.””

The article lightly details why the rating was elevated and if it is sustainable.

Due to rising revenue because of growth in tuition and federal research funding, the industry has experienced stability, which is something higher education hasn’t been accustomed to since the start of Obama’s second term.

But that news isn’t necessarily grand for students. Tuition growth may be great for the industry as a whole because it decreases volatility, but rising college costs due to tuition increases have priced many students out of higher education.

Hopefully, the stability of the industry will lead to a reduction in how often colleges and universities are forced to raise tuition due to budget cuts and low funding from state legislatures.

But overall, this is good news. When higher education had a negative outlook, it was bad for all involved. An uptick in that outlook will surely help this arena in remaining stable and improving its standing in the coming years.

Answering the hard question: is college worth it anymore?

With all these factors that may benefit higher education, the government, the student loan industry, and everyone who is not a college student, it’s worth asking whether college is even worth going to anymore.

Many Americans definitely do not think so, and there is a lot of merit to that line of thought.

But the Obama Administration’s College Scorecard has a clearer, if counter-intuitive, insight.

The Obama Administration’s College Scorecard is kind of the gift that continues to give. It gives prospective students, and their parents, the ability to compare schools without having to fully visit too many colleges.

Another fantastic win from the scorecard is that we are provided with an idea of how well students do financially after they’ve graduated.

According to an article via Hamptonroads.com, the scorecard “tracks salaries ten years after the freshman year.” The good news? Student salaries used for the purpose of the article range from $34,000 to $56,000. The bad news? Salaries all depend on a student’s major.

But that’s not bad news as someone with a degree in finance is likely to make more than a student who chooses a career path in journalism.

The economy also plays a major role in determining one’s salary. Some companies constrict employment, increase employee production, and fail to produce salary increases because of how tight its bottom line becomes due to the state of the economy.

Even with those deciding factors, college graduates still make more than that of those with just high school diplomas. Most companies still prefer a college graduate compared to someone who just has a G.E.D. or high school diploma. A college degree won’t guarantee that you are wealthy, but it should help you live a more comfortable life than if you didn’t have it at all. That statistic isn’t likely to change anytime soon, and students should still strive for a college education to maximize their lifetime earning potential.

Now if we could just get the pursuit of those college degrees to be a little more affordable in the first place, we’d have something.

There are many ways to get there. Here are just a few suggestions.

Free college: a basic right or a privilege we can’t afford?

Earning a college education is something that is a double-edged sword for the nation’s youngest adults and some of their parents too. Society dictates that some form of secondary education is an absolute must for lifetime success but the cost associated with earning those credentials is debilitating. The Washington Post reports that the average college student will graduate with $25,000 in debt. With over $1 trillion in outstanding loans, student debt outweighs credit card debt and is exempt from bankruptcy protection.

Some may say this is just the cost of doing business and that a few years (or decades) of repaying student loans is worth the cost in the long run. If a person truly values his future, repaying loans and interest rates are just part of proving his dedication. To each his own, and other related monikers.

But what if that mentality were flipped? What if there was no cost to obtain a college education and it was viewed as a basic right, much like the K-12 public school system? With proponents such as 2016 Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, the conversation about free college is finally opening up in a major way.

It seems that the knee-jerk response is to claim that the nation can’t afford it. The trillion-dollar college education industry, coupled with the lending companies that “help” finance these endeavors, would feasibly go under if students did not have to find, earn or borrow the tens of thousands necessary to prove they care about their career.

Perhaps that’s true. But how would the economy as a whole look if college student debt disappeared? Instead of taking the first, low-paying job that came along to desperately find the cash to start repaying loans, maybe students would hold out for the perfect job where their talents and education could be best utilized. Instead of the nearly 22 million young adults living at home with their parents, maybe those kids would invest in their housing and start contributing to that industry faster. Parents who save every penny to pay for college would feasibly have more cash to put back into other aspects of the economy, strengthening whatever industries they touched.

When the facts are examined, it seems that the only ones truly benefitting from the current higher education model are the institutions themselves and the companies that support lending. In the second quarter of this year, private lender Sallie Mae reported $543 million in net income. In 2013 alone, Sallie Mae has spent over $1.2 million lobbying against legislation meant to relieve some of the college debt strain. Much like the skyrocketing healthcare industry costs over the past two decades, colleges and lenders have been left to their own devices with improper regulations.

The result is the “soaring college costs” we hear so much about today. According to the College Board in 1992 one year of college at a public four-year institution cost around $7,500 in today’s dollars. Now that cost is $10,000 higher. Private nonprofits cost around $17,000 in 1992; today the cost is nearly $24,000.  The cost of college is a runaway train at this point. College costs have risen faster than the inflation rate for decades.

While an economy hindrance, the high price tag of a college education has very little resistance when observing the nation’s population as a whole. Colleges and lending companies have, for the most part, gotten “a pass” because the pursuit of knowledge is deemed a worthy one where the price should never be considered an issue. Under the guise of a better-educated workforce, colleges and lenders have been able to get away with more than any other industry providing a basic, American service. What would the reaction be if utility costs rose that quickly, or the price of a gallon of milk?

For a college education to have the intended impact on the individual and society as a whole, it needs to be affordable – or completely free. It is a basic American right.

What if college can’t be free?

Perhaps a free college education is out of reach for America right now. However, an affordable one certainly shouldn’t be. At least, this is the hope of Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Last year, she announced a plan that will tackle issues related to higher education.

“New College Compact” aims to tame the cost associated with attaining a college degree. She’s also looking to put a leash on student loan debt.

According to Brookings.edu, Clinton’s plan would make community colleges free.

“It vows to make enrollment at community colleges free and affordable without loans at four-year public institutions if students contribute the equivalent of wages from a 10-hour per-week job and families make the contribution prescribed by the aid eligibility formulas.”

Clinton is facing stiff competition from Bernie Sanders and will likely have to hold off a strong charge from Martin O’Malley. So releasing a progressive higher education plan surely works in her favor until it doesn’t.

While the plan sounds good on the surface, Clinton will have to tighten a few corners. HBCUs have serious concern over how free community college will impact their enrollment and financial aid.

She wants to reduce interest rates on student loans, but a Brookings study found that many students who reside in higher tax brackets hold a lot of the debt associated with student loans.

“Our prior analysis indicates that higher-income households hold a disproportionate share of student loan debt. The richest 25 percent of families hold 40 percent of the student loans, and would, therefore, receive roughly 40 percent of the benefits of a proposal that allowed all loan debt to be refinanced at lower rates.”

Still–even with that nugget of information, many low-income students who face high repayments or garnishment due to default would likely benefit from the proposal.

What would happen if schools stopped charging tuition?

Political activist Ralph Nader decided to run for president on the premise of being a consumer advocate and one who fights against keeping America from turning into an exclusive meritocracy.

It’s also why he wants his former school to do away with tuition

Nader graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1958 with a bachelor of law and thinks that the school isn’t doing enough to keep costs for student low.

Along with other activists, Nader is calling for Harvard University to use its endowment to eradicate tuition fees.

Boasting the largest endowment in the nation, Harvard has a fund of $36 billion and raised over $1 billion in 2015.

Simply put, Harvard isn’t hurting for dollars

Tapping into that income will not harm Harvard’s ability to fund other projects, like new buildings and paying for other fees, but it may set a precedent that other schools will be forced to follow.

Because Harvard’s endowment is so big–again, largest in the nation–it has the privilege that other schools may not harness.

Some in Congress are at least exploring the idea of potentially forcing some schools to use money from endowments towards tuition fees. The issue this presents is that many who decide to give to a school’s endowment usually do so for a certain cause or matter.

Former Harvard Business School student John Paulson gave the Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Science a gift of $400 million in 2015. That money may be designated strictly for use at that school.

It’s also worth noting that these endowments are tax exempt and the policy may allow for schools like Harvard to run up the score.

Removing that exemption may not hurt Harvard, but it would damage other schools. For example, Grambling State University’s (GSU) endowment is only $4.5 million, and the school would be severely hurt if that money was taxed. GSU also has an alumni base that isn’t as financially strong as Harvard.

For the sake of rich and powerful schools, doing away with tuition fees would certainly help its students. But that rule should likely only apply to schools that can afford it, which means that no law or policy may be created to force schools to do so.

Are Income Share Agreements another option for college affordability?

What are Income Share Agreements (ISA)?

These will help students who take out loans to attain a degree that may be deemed worthless in the workplace. Often, they are saddled with massive amounts of debt that they are unable to pay back.

This causes many to default on their loans and fall down an income hole that detaches them from the ability to obtain credit to purchase a home, vehicle, etc…

Because it’s tough to section these students off–those who may be in danger of gaining a degree that’s economically barren–some may be eligible to take out an ISA loan.

These loans allow the student to pay back the cost of their degree regarding its value. So if one student has a degree that has little to no worth, he or she will have a small amount, if any, to repay.

Inversely, if a student’s degree turns out to be of much value, then that student will pay back more.

Ostensibly this seems like a good deal for students. It’s affordable, colleges and universities seem open to it, and Congress is exploring ways to create a regulatory environment for ISAs.

Hopefully, once properly researched and vetted, the application of these loans are a win for students as the cost of tuition and school fees continue to rise.

How to prevent an economic crisis by making college affordable again

Let’s be clear—there are many ways to peel a banana. Since there are many reasons higher education costs have skyrocketed over the past few decades, there are many solutions we can engage to manage these costs and lessen the burden on students.  We can make college totally free, or we can look for various ways to make college less expensive.

One thing seems to clear, though: students who are lower-income need to be able to find their way up…and it is becoming more and more difficult to do so. These days, a college degree is more necessary than ever. We need to make college cheaper and more accessible to lower-income students if we want a vibrant future for our economy.

How For-Profit Colleges Lost Their Groove

Due to leaving their graduates with high debt loads, for-profit colleges are becoming the target of scrutiny from the federal government. But is this scrutiny justified?

Like many proponents of non-traditional pathways to college, Marco Rubio, a Republican presidential candidate for 2016, wants to expand the role that for-profit schools have in higher education.

According to USA Today, Rubio wrote an editorial for the National Review where he details why he believes the nation is better off if the education department changes the rules of accreditation for for-profit schools.

“These innovative providers cannot compete with the cartel of existing brick-and-mortar colleges and universities that dominate the accreditation process and shields our higher-education system from reform, competition, and accountability.”

Rubio is referring to how tough it is for for-profit colleges to attain accreditation. In changing the process, Rubio believes that it would allow for more for-profit schools to offer vocational training.

In doing so, far more Americans will be ready to attain gainful employment. In essence, Rubio wants “more welders and fewer philosophers.”

There’s a slight problem with Rubio’s argument. He’s receiving donations from the for-profit education industry. It’s not much as Rubio has taken in about $24,000 since 2014 according to opensecrets.org.

While the totals aren’t high, it supports the idea that Rubio only has this idea to appease a portion of his donation base.

But in addition to that, allowing more for-profit schools into the world of education without dealing with the problems that many have caused is not the best idea.

After all, the United States Education Department has been busy putting out their fires.

Rubio is right that students may need greater access to vocational institutions, but for-profit colleges may not be the best way to go. Here’s why.

For-Profit Colleges: Centers of Financial Ruin?

Unfortunately for those students looking for an affordable alternative to brick-and-mortar schools, online higher education options aren’t necessarily cheaper than the traditional brick-and-mortar schools, according to U.S. News and World Report,

The report attempts to “debunk” the myths surrounding the theory that online education may be a cheaper option for some students.

According to usnews.com, tuition costs for online courses, or degrees in some cases, are more expensive due to technology and faculty costs.

“Even if tuition for an online program looks appealingly low, students should be sure to look into whether they will be paying any additional fees, says Vickie Cook, director of the Center for Online Learning, Research, and Service at the University of Illinois—Springfield.”

Depending on the type of school the student chooses, the cost of attending varies. Selecting a private higher education institution that offers online programs will certainly trend higher than a public university with controlled costs.

Most importantly, many for-profit schools offer online programs. The costs associated with these programs and schools will sometimes rival that of some of the country’s best schools.

In fact, according to a new report by the Brookings Institute, a good chunk of student loan debt is held by students who attend for-profit institutions.

“The so-called student loan crisis in the U.S. is largely concentrated among non-traditional borrowers attending for-profit schools and other non-selective institutions, who have relatively weak educational outcomes and difficulty finding jobs after starting to repay their loans.”

Students who attend non-profit private schools or public universities do not face the same debt issue because their job prospects are much higher upon graduation.

Borrowers at for-profit institutions have a harder time finding gainful employment, and when they do, their average earnings barely creep over $20,000.

“[T]he median borrower from a for-profit institution who left school in 2011 and found a job in 2013 earned about $20,900—but over one in five (21 percent) were not employed; comparable community college borrowers earned $23,900, and almost one in six (17 percent) were not employed.”

The report also finds that students who attend the University of Phoenix hold the most debt. In 2014, students there held over $35 billion dollars in student loan debt.

College students work hard to make a better life for themselves and their families — but student loans can have the opposite effect, at least in the immediate. Tuition at these private schools is astronomical, and if students cannot find jobs to pay their loans back, attaining a degree from these schools is pointless.

Introducing the Corinthian 100

Some former graduates of these colleges are beginning to realize this.

Take Corinthian Colleges, for example. As reported by NPR, 107 of its students refused to pay back their student loans as a form of protest.

In addition to a large amount of debt that the students carried, they also claimed that the degrees they received from Corinthian are not recognized by most employers.

The Associated Press reported that Corinthian shut its doors at the end of April 2014 due to federal regulations. The college had more than 100 U.S. campuses with more than 70,000 students. But when enrollment started to slump and reports showed that nearly 100% of students at for-profit schools take out student loans to pay for their education, the United States Department of Education stepped in.

According to NPR, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau met with representatives from the “Corinthian 100” to discuss “ways to address the burden of their student loans.” While this was likely a step in the right direction for those students, it didn’t fully address the student loan debt crisis that’s beginning to engulf higher education.

The Institute for College Access and Success by way of Pew Trusts shows that five states have an average debt for graduating students of more than $30,000. Consider that student loan debt now outpaces debt tied to mortgages and credit cards, and that more than 7 million U.S. borrowers are in default on their loans. Higher education just may be in crisis.

The Government Cracks Down

A couple of years ago, the U.S. Department of Education bumped up its regulation of for-profit career colleges, introducing rules meant to halt federal funding to institutions that leave students saddled with enormous debts that they are unable to repay.

The efforts by Obama’s administrations showed that federal and state authorities were ramping up their examination of the for-profit college industry, which included colleges such as the University of Phoenix and Everest College and ITT Technical Institute.

Opponents believe that many for-profit colleges charge a hefty price, yet target low-income consumers, resulting in students who have massive loans to repay and few job prospects.

U.S. Secretary Arne Duncan said, “Today too many of these programs fail to provide the training (students) need while burying them in debt they cannot repay.”

The for-profit college industry boomed during the Great Recession as colleges targeted the increasing number of unemployed Americans.

The Education Department’s new rules would penalize schools that cost their students too much debt compared to their earnings post-graduation. To be eligible for federal student loans and grants, schools must meet debt-to-income requirements for two out of three consecutive years.

The department estimated about 1,400 programs out of 5,500 covered by the regulations would fail the debt-to-income test.

Students at for-profit schools default on federal loans at a higher rate than students at traditional public colleges: over 19% after three years, compared with less than 13% at public institutions.

The government has continued with tightening regulations for colleges and universities. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Education released a list of 556 colleges and universities that were on a federal financial “watch list.” The Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Education would have “increased financial oversight” into what these institutions of higher education do with the money they received from federal student aid.

On the list was a mixture of for-profit, public and Bible schools that were flagged because of accreditation, liabilities, and late financial statements. Nearly half of the institutions listed were for-profit schools such as the Art Institutes, Everest University, and Le Cordon Bleu. Many of the schools were already placed on this oversight list, but those names were previously not publicly released.

The Obama administration did more than put names of schools on lists, though.

Over the past year, they have forced schools to pay them for mishandling their funds

For example, in 2015, in what is perhaps the largest monetary settlement in higher education, Education Management Corporation (EMC) agreed to a $95.5 million settlement with the United States Justice Department. You probably know EDMC better by its school names: the Art Institutes, Argosy University, and Brown-Mackie College.

The lawsuit alleged, “that the company defrauded taxpayers out of billions of dollars.” The company is accused of admitting unqualified students and then encouraging them to receive federal and private loans to fund their educations.

Education Management Corporation continued to maintain its innocence and released a statement regarding the settlement.

In part that statement says:

“We are also pleased to have resolved the civil claims raised by the Department of Justice and state attorneys general. Though we continue to believe the allegations in the cases were without merit, putting these matters behind us returns our focus to educating students.”

A payout to the government of nearly $100 million, however, certainly sounds as if there was merit involved.

Education Management Corporation will continue to do business and enroll students. Because the company admitted no guilt, students who attended schools under the EDMC banner will likely be ineligible for debt relief.

Part of the settlement also includes over $100 in loan forgiveness for students who left EDMC after just 45 days of enrollment. All other students are still liable for any debt incurred while attending an EDMC institution.

While EDMC is still in business despite being accused of predatory practices, the Corinthian Colleges, mentioned earlier, shut down after being fined by the federal government.

According to Corinthian’s financial records, the institution received nearly 80% of its revenue from the federal government. Meaning the vast majority of its profit came from student loans.

The government began to investigate Corinthian because students claimed that the degrees they received weren’t being recognized by employers and they couldn’t find jobs. They also found that Corinthian was telling students to lie on their financial aid applications.

Soon after, Corinthian was fined $30 million by the federal government for “misrepresenting job placement rates,” effectively shutting the company down.

But does the government care about students?

The Corinthian 100 saga continues

Students who formerly attended Corinthian Colleges accused the United States Department of Education (USDOE) of using them as a publicity stunt.

Representatives from the “Corinthian 100” were set to meet with officials from the USDOE about their student loan debts. However, they opted to cancel the meeting because they felt they were being used.

According to the New Republic, a representative from the Debt Collective, the organization aiding the students in their quest against the USDOE, did not believe the government wanted to help.

“They’re using us so they can pretend to care about students.”

The Corinthian 100 continued to fight to get the government to forgive their student loan debt. Students that formerly attended schools under the now defunct Corinthian Colleges banner tried to exercise a clause listed in the contracts they signed for student loans.

That portion of the contract allowed for students to make a “defense of repayment” if they felt that they were deceived.

Once they found out that the federal government fined Corinthian $30 million, in part, for felonious ways of collecting debt, the 100 wanted their debt forgiven.

Students fight back—but is it enough?

According to chronicle.com, the Corinthian 100 had their debt forgiven.

“The department said…that it would discharge the debt of all students who attended one of Corinthian’s shuttered campuses after June 20, 2014, the day when the company essentially wrote its death sentence by agreeing to transfer ownership of the properties. Other Corinthian students will be eligible for loan forgiveness but to receive it, they must demonstrate that Corinthian violated state law.”

While some students likely felt some sense of relief, many students were left in the dust. After all, only some students would receive forgiveness. Others who feel that they’d been defrauded by Corinthian, as stated in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s article, would have to prove that the former institution of higher education violated state law.

The Department of Education would make the process of proving fraud by colleges and universities easier.

Still–this likely will not be enough to save every student defrauded by for-profit colleges. While it is great that many received the mercy of the United States Department of Education, the other students who borrowed in good faith with the belief that there would be a good education, a degree, and solid job opportunities on the back end are left hanging.

Giving blanket relief may not be in the department’s best intentions as it would open other doors that should remain closed. But giving special attention to the rest of Corinthian’s former students and giving them extra breathing room to either pay off the debt or taking on the vast majority of the debt is at least one way to help them in the long run.

For-Profit Schools Fight Back

Unsurprisingly, for-profit schools refused to take the new regulations and fines sitting down

In fact, the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, a group that represents for-profit colleges, sued the U.S. Department of Education and Secretary Arne Duncan on behalf of for-profit colleges. For-profit colleges disagreed with the rules penalizing career training programs for charging high tuition that saddles students with massive debt while offering low-paying job prospects.

For-profit schools filed a lawsuit and asked a judge to reject the new regulation, claiming the Department of Education does not have the right to set debt-to-earning standards. The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities called the rule “unlawful, arbitrary, and irrational” and feels it will “needlessly harm millions of students who attend private sector colleges and universities.” They strong believe that the job a student lands and their earnings after graduation “depend heavily on factors beyond the schools’ control.”

The Education Department announced its “gainful employment” rules, which base a program’s ability to receive federal loans on whether the estimated annual loan payment of a typical graduate doesn’t exceed 8% of total earnings or 20% of the student’s discretionary income.

For-profit colleges were given time to make changes, but ultimately, if they failed to meet the standards, they would become ineligible for federal student aid. This made up nearly 90% of the revenue at for-profit schools.

And even more strangely, these institutions saw a steep rise in stock worth and revenue through 2014, when a lot of the regulatory changes began to take place. According to a CNN Money report, Strayer Education was perhaps the biggest success of the bunch. Strayer provides a variety of accreditation, bachelor degree, and master’s degree options through programs that are set up at 100 other colleges and universities across the country.  DeVry Education Group and Capella also saw rising stocks.

This was likely because more and more people are seeking out alternative forms of higher education, and that non-traditional students are more commonplace as a result. But what’s interesting about these numbers is that the schools are seeing financial strength despite heightened regulations from the government and the failures of Corinthian Colleges and other alternative schools.

Should For-Profit Schools Be Put to Death?

For-profit schools are singing a different tune these days

According to a survey by the Education Advisory Board, nearly 100% of executives at online higher education programs and schools want to shift their focus to “track career outcomes” for students once they leave school.

Before this change, many online higher ed schools were focused solely on gathering funding for new programs.

This news comes on the heels of the federal government tightening its grip on for-profit institutions and the funding they receive.

The EAB survey found that executives have concern over how employers view graduates and would like to “improve messaging to prospective students.”

Messaging and how online schools are viewed have taken a beating lately. With the Corinthian 100 refusing to repay their student loans because they were defrauded by Corinthian Colleges,  for-profit colleges have developed a sour reputation.

Potential students and graduates worry that their degrees are useless. While all online colleges aren’t seen in the same light, many are grouped together because the accreditation may differ from traditional colleges and universities. Standards for online schools, especially for-profit institutions with online programs, also vary and give many employers pause before hiring a graduate from an online university, specifically that from a for-profit.

The survey also found that some online higher ed institutions will add “digital badges” and “customization certificates.”

Conclusion

Focusing on the quality of education the students receive—rather than focus on securing funding for the government for questionable programs—will have a better long-term impact for students and these schools.

Truthfully, while I have come down pretty hard on for-profit schools, I do not think that they are inherently bad. I think that they can be part of an array of alternative options for students who choose not to go the traditional route.

However, historically, many for-profit institutions have engaged in predatory practices. Regulating them, as the federal government has been doing over the past few years, is the right way to go so that they can become great building blocks rather than destructive forces for a future career.