Is administrative bloat driving up college costs?
Several weeks ago, I wrote a story titled “Shut Out: How the Cost of Higher Education is Dividing Our Country” for Tomdispatch.com that the cost of higher education has increased more than five times faster than the median income in the past 30 years. In that story, I asked, “How did college, once seen as an increasingly democratic path to advancement, become so expensive?” I... Read More
American dream deferred: The educational crisis sweeping across the U.S.
Photo courtesy of flickr user acidcookie. I’ve got a new piece published at TomDispatch.com today about the crisis of college affordability sweeping throughout higher education, from community colleges to elite, four-year public and private colleges and universities. It’s a crisis that’s been long coming. The Pell Grant, created in 1972, was the last... Read More
The Anatomy of an Endowment
This week, myself and a colleague at The Michigan Daily, staff reporter Kyle Swanson, have been publishing an extensive series on the University of Michigan’s complex, influential, multi-billion-dollar endowment. As far as I know, this series is the only multi-part series on how a major university endowment actually functions, what it’s comprised of, who manages it... Read More
Joel Kovel, author of ‘Overcoming Zionism,’ loses teaching position at Bard College
Joel Kovel, an outspoken critic of the state of Israel and the author of Overcoming Zionism, has lost his job at Bard College, Inside Higher Ed reported today. An evaluation of Kovel released by a Bard spokesman “suggests that his ‘long and productive career’ at Bard has been problematic of late. The evaluation notes an increasing number of student complaints... Read More
Once again, education funding is left on the Washington, D.C. chopping block
Education, we’re told, is the best investment you can make. Courtesy of Flickr user dave_mcmt As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in the fall of 2007, ”Education—lifelong education for everyone—from toddlers to workers well advanced in their careers—is indeed an excellent investment for individuals and society as a whole.” If that’s the... Read More
Wall Street Journal interview with Yale endowment guru
I was on the phone earlier this week with Sandy Robertson, a founding partner of the international private equity firm Francisco Partners and a member of the University of Michigan’s investment advisory committee, for a profile I’m currently reporting on U-M’s endowment investment guru, Erik Lundberg. (More on this later in the week.) Yale University investment... Read More
