Joan doesn’t agree with today’s philosophy of reading—guest blogger Joan Turrentine (former teacher)

“Recent educational philosophy has been that it doesn't matter WHAT children read as long as they DO read. I am glad I grew up and went to school in a day when schools believed that it matters WHAT students read. My mind and memory are full of quality literature, classic poetry, thought-provoking stories and poems. I became familiar with and developed a useful and precise vocabulary and a familiarity with proper English language syntax. I observed in countless realistic situations (in reading assignments) how real people act and how people interact with other people and build happy and successful lives. I read the thoughts of some of the greatest thinkers of the past and learned how they organize their thoughts, thereby learning HOW to think and reason. Because of this background, I often read FB posts, have conversations, or read other media and recognize cultural references, recognize faulty/logical reasoning strategies, understand some of human nature.

I feel bad for many of today's elementary school kids who only read about teachers who are aliens, students who are wizards, and other such imaginary life situations. What preparation for real life does that provide? What thought processes does that develop? How does that help them discover their own values in life? And then in post-elementary school they read such dystopian literature as the Hunger Games series, the Unwind series, or numerous other books with unrealistic settings which provide no opportunity for observing how people might handle real life situations and what consequences might be expected to result from actions. There's nothing wrong with any of this literature if students want to read them on their own; but I believe the schools owe them better than that. These students won't be culturally literate as adults - recognizing references to the classic literature, philosophy, or history of the ages. They won't have had the opportunity to develop their own sense of how to live successfully in this world. What they have read will not have helped them develop values to help them live successfully and happily. I so strongly believe that it DOES matter WHAT children read.”

I  agree with Joan’s concern and philosophy, I just don't think I had all that much "quality" reading material--at least my mother used to complain it wasn't as good as what she had in the 1920's.  All I cared about as a child was horse and dog stories. I enjoyed reading from encyclopedias and preferred to write and illustrate my own stories. My grandmother gave us subscriptions to Jack and Jill, hardly sophisticated or difficult information.  We had a lot of magazines and the local newspapers (and maybe one from Chicago). Mom belonged to the “Book of the Month” club, which was definitely considered “low brow,” but I enjoyed looking through her fiction.  I learned the names of the classics, by playing the card game "Authors" , and by high school, the literature text books were just excerpts grouped by era or genre. In college I was a foreign language major, so I had NO American or British literature. I was definitely a forerunner for today's poorly educated students!  Today I belong to a book club, and I’m grateful for my well educated reading friends—but I’m still not educated in the type of literature Joan recommends. And of course, not having grandchildren (she has many), I haven’t even heard of the series she writes about.

He thinks the federal government is a college student’s friend—an e-mail exchange

Really?  Your source?  Did you know the government and its own predatory loans, grants, scholarships, etc. is the main reason the bubble of student loans is bigger than the housing bubble of 2007?  When I entered Manchester College (private) in 1957, a college education was about $1,000 a year with tuition, fees, housing, food and transportation. My sophomore year at the University of Illinois (public) was about the same. 

If you use a calculator for 1957-58 dollars and convert to 2018 dollars, 60 years later, you’ll see what throwing money at colleges does to the costs.  College costs have soared far higher and at a faster rate than medical costs, even though medicine has gone through far greater changes and technological and pharmaceutical improvements. Our lives have been extended by the medical improvements.  A college education has been cheapened; a BA or BS is today not worth a lot except to go on to graduate school and leave with $70,000 in debt.  Colleges have made few changes except to shift most of the faculty to the left of center, add programs in “area studies,” remove Shakespeare and American history, and deny conservatives their right to a bias-free education. The more money government provides to students, the more the universities and colleges raise their tuition and fees. Funny how the “market” works, isn’t it?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, prices in 2018 are 772.10% higher than prices in 1958. The dollar experienced an average inflation rate of 3.68% per year during this period.  In other words, $1,000 in 1958 is equivalent in purchasing power to $8,721.04 in 2018, a difference of $7,721.04 over 60 years.

Do you know any college/university where a student can attend for $8,721 a year? All costs, not just tuition and fees. Administrative costs have soared as more and more non-faculty are added, especially in the huge departments of equality, diversity, disability that may have 50 or so employees (at OSU) as well as those assigned to the individual departments, courses are watered down or expanded so it now takes 5-6 years to finish rather than 4, young men and women are encouraged to remain adolescents longer and remain in parents’ care until late 20s, very odd courses are required for students, staff and faculty like “hate speech” or “appropriate non-sexist dating behavior” which chew up many hours that could be  useful for studying and which make the old “in loco parentis” of my era look like wild freedom.

No one can reverse this overbearing, interfering federal meddling in higher education except the Department of Education, and since even Republicans don’t like to give up power, I think not much will come of this except more money being thrown at the problem, and a bigger bureaucracy to make sure the tax payers get screwed again.

What are liberals doing to college students?

Some of us, usually Republicans or Conservatives, think it's a bad idea to have such a high percent of our college faculty  liberal/Democrat/progressive. They are turning out graduates with $70,000 debt much of it from the government, who leave with social science degrees and poor earning potential, who can't afford to get married, or to buy a home, or to have children. Then with envy in their hearts they listen to socialists and vote for Democrats. Is this the Democrats' secret plan to bring down the country?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8427-2005Mar28.html  (2005)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/11/the-dramatic-shift-among-college-professors-thats-hurting-students-education/?utm_term=.60388b5d2ab4  (2016)

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/02/27/research-confirms-professors-lean-left-questions-assumptions-about-what-means (2017) defensive

http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/05/07/nearly-40-percent-top-liberal-arts-colleges-have-no-republican-professors (2018)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/most-u-s-college-students-afraid-to-disagree-with-professors-1540588198 (2018, James Freeman)

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/college-students-love-socialism-dont-have-clue-what-it-means

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/10/students-more-liberal-but-its-not-because-their-professors-james-piereson-naomi-riley-column/1012622001/ (opposite viewpoint)

50 + Years of Upward Bound—Is it working?

Today I received an article about Upward Bound summer institute at Ohio State University, https://odi.osu.edu/upward-bound/ . Launched in 1965, Upward Bound (UB) is one of the flagship federal college access programs targeted to low-income or potential first-generation college students.  So it’s now 50+ years old. The article included several photographs, and I noticed there were no white students, even though whites outnumber blacks and Hispanics in the low-income and disadvantaged statistics, which the program is supposed to address.
Then I began the tedious search for outcomes—the program is part of the War On Poverty and is 50+ years old.  I found a lot of on-line help in applying for a grant if I were an educational institution (that’s where the money goes,over 4,450 per student).  I found an annual report for 2015-16 published in 2018, but that was all about the tutoring programs, counseling, help with applications—numbers of students—all looked like things I thought schools were already doing.
The FY 2017 budget from the federal government was $312,052,710, with 70,000 participants, at $4,458 per participant. https://www2.ed.gov/programs/trioupbound/funding.html 
Finally I found an assessment for the 2004-05 school year “POLICY AND PROGRAM STUDIES SERVICE, REPORT HIGHLIGHTS, The Impacts of Regular Upward Bound on Postsecondary Outcomes, 7-9 years after scheduled High School Graduation, final report. (2009)
Scanning that, I came to these depressing conclusions.
“For students offered the opportunity to participate in the Upward Bound program, the study found that:

• Upward Bound had no detectable effect on the rate of overall postsecondary enrollment, or the type or selectivity of postsecondary institution attended. About four-fifths of both treatment and control group members attended some type of postsecondary institution.
• Upward Bound had no detectable effect on the likelihood of apply for financial aid or receiving a Pell grant.
• Upward Bound increased the likelihood of earning a postsecondary certificate or license from a vocational school but had no detectable effect on the likelihood of earning a bachelor’s or associate’s degree. Estimated impacts on receiving any postsecondary credential and receiving a bachelor’s degree are 2 and 0 percentage points, respectively, and are not statistically significant.

Upward Bound increased postsecondary enrollment or completion rates for some subgroups of students. For the subgroup of students with lower educational expectations at baseline—that is, the students who did not expect to complete a bachelor’s degree—Upward Bound increased the rate of postsecondary enrollment by 6 percentage points and postsecondary completion by 12 percentage points. Because targeting on the basis of lower educational expectations could create an incentive for applicants to understate their expectations, further analyses were conducted to examine the effects of Upward

• Bound on subgroups that could be more readily targeted. These exploratory analyses suggest that UB increased enrollment for students who were in tenth grade or above at the time of application, students who took a mathematics course below algebra in ninth grade, and students with a ninth grade GPA above 2.5.
• Longer participation in Upward Bound was associated with higher rates of postsecondary enrollment and completion.”

It would be political suicide to ever cut this program even though there is no detectable effect on the billions spent.

Success of black immigrants in the U.S.

I've been reading some glowing reports about foreign born black immigrants--education level, income, extending to 2nd generation. But that's not what Pew Research reports, although foreign born blacks do much better than native born, especially in marriage rate and education they don't necessarily do better than other immigrant groups. The difference may be Pew figures  include blacks from all over the world including South American and Caribbean and the other reports may be just Africa. The fact remains, many American blacks, like our President, do not have slavery in their history. And many American blacks are descended from families that did own slaves.

 

 http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/04/09/chapter-1-statistical-portrait-of-the-u-s-black-immigrant-population/

 

 http://www.atlnightspots.com/african-immigrants-have-the-highest-academic-achievement-in-the-us

 

 http://atlantablackstar.com/2015/06/26/survey-shows-black-immigrants-educated-make-money-african-americans/

 

"First- and second-generation immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean, though only 13% of the nation’s blacks as a whole, represent 41% of all those of African descent at 28 selective universities and 23 % of the black population at all public universities." Their children excel at higher rates than any other American immigrant groups. This is reported in a number of publications, including Pew Research and the Census. But all the others sources mention that the marriage rate is much higher for immigrant blacks. Washington Post (this source) doesn't.
 

When you send junior off to college . . .

Sometimes we forget how far back the brainwashing goes. This guy attended college in the 1960s.

"So I went into the university, a modern university, where they taught me the three things that I think you get at a modern university: hate your family, hate your country, hate God (Who "doesn't exist," but hate Him anyway). That's what my head was filled with. So that when I graduated and went on to graduate school, my head was filled with absolute nonsense. I still knew nothing about religion, although I would talk about it at length, mainly to try to debunk it. As far as I was concerned, there was only nature. Nature was all we needed. Everything was material. There was really only one "Commandment", that was, "We should be nice to each other even though life has no meaning" - which is a very peculiar thought. 

When I began teaching, that's the sort of nonsense I was teaching. Absolute nonsense, because I knew nothing. I had no business being in front of a class teaching anything because I didn't know anything. But I was a modern teacher with a head full of feathers and sawdust that I spewed out around the room. Then one day, when I was teaching at Temple University in Philadelphia, I had a student in the back of the class, who raised his hand and challenged me. He began debating me in the classroom. In no time at all, I became aware of a situation that most teachers live in terror of: I had a student in my class who knew a hundred times more than what I knew. I was an absolute ignoramus and this student was really smart."
David White, professor of literature at the U.S. Naval Academy

Can Bernie and the Socialists offer free college?

I haven’t visited Manchester University (in Indiana) since the 1990s, and was amazed then at the buildings (not necessarily growth) especially in sports facilities and library, but now when I look at the web site it’s even more so. I was thinking this morning that the “new women’s dorm” where I didn’t live (I was in the old dorm--Oakwood), would now be about 60 years old if it hasn’t be razed, and looking back, that in 1958 when I was a student, a comparable building would have been late 1890s! 

Every college seems to have a bad case of Keeping up with the Jones’s to attract students with first class amenities. It's breathtaking when I walk across the campus at Ohio State--especially the sports and recreation facilities. Plus, there’s been huge growth in non-academic staff and departments to keep up with federal regulations on diversity/gender, health, testing, psychological development, etc. and to spend the ever growing federal aid to education. 

I know students personally who have graduated with no debt, and that’s quite possible in Ohio which has an incredible system of 2 year and technical colleges within driving distance of everyone. Now with online, that may not be such an issue. Living at home, working part time and being selective about important courses, a student can have a debt free education (undergrad) in Ohio thanks to the foresight of Governor Rhodes back in the 1960s-1970s. In European countries we’ve visited their  “free” colleges, but their testing system very early eliminates many children (usual, poorer working class) from the pool, so even if “free” it’s definitely not “fair.”

My college expenses in 1957-58 and 1958-59 were right around $1,000, although I did have occasional part time jobs at the schools. I had saved enough for my freshman year by working while in high school. I doubt anyone could do that today. My father would have considered it an insult if a child of his needed a government loan. Very different today. But he also considered a married daughter the responsibility of someone else, and for my senior year (I was married), I borrowed money from him for tuition. 

A few years ago I checked and Manchester was about $30,000 a year (although with aid and scholarships it’s difficult to know true cost, just like health insurance). University of Illinois from which I got my B.A. and MLS was higher (was the same back in the 50s), but probably in $35,000 range. 

Whether talking education or poverty or environment, progressives/socialists/Democrats push government programs, then years later sound the alarm that they aren't working or are too expensive, blame the situation on the Republicans for not giving them more money to throw at failing programs, when in fact, they created the situation (although Republicans always go along and renew the funding).  So it is with soaring education costs.  They are reaping what they have sown, and found it bitter or poisonous. 

A note of history: "Mount Morris College in Mount Morris, Illinois [where I grew up and both my parents and grandparents met], merged with Manchester College in 1932. Founded as a Methodist seminary in 1839, Mount Morris had been purchased by representatives of the Church of the Brethren in 1879 and operated under the name of the Rock River Seminary and College Institute until 1884, when the name was changed to Mount Morris College. The merger of Mount Morris College and Manchester College came about when the Church of the Brethren decided its educational program would be strengthened by pooling its resources in a smaller number of colleges [and after MMC suffered a terrible fire on Easter Sunday 1931]" from Manchester's website.

Why is college freshman orientation two weeks?

This baffles me.  I’m sure I had freshman orientation when I was dropped off by my sister at Manchester College in the fall of 1957.  Was it a day, half a day, to learn the names of the campus buildings and admire the upper classmen and learn how to get our weekly quota of clean sheets in Oakwood Hall and learn the meal routine in the dining room (where I gained 20 lbs.)?  But that’s just not good enough for our delicate millennials.  They have to be brain washed—even if their families are liberals, it won’t be good enough.  The strings to normalcy must be cut and cauterized.  And for conservatives?  Wow.  Let’s hope their parents warned them.  This is from an excerpt on Facebook written by a dad attending parts of his son’s orientation.  He thought it couldn’t get worse, but it did . . .

They had a ceremony with speakers, singing by the glee club, etc. The kids received an inspirational coin, etc. I looked on the program. "Oh good. An invocation." Being the apparently naive person that I am, I was not prepared for what I heard. A "moment for prayer and meditation" turned into a cross between a confession and admonition about how selfish we are, how we've taken more from the earth than we give, and how we hope to heal the planet. it ended with "in your many names we pray." I opened my eyes, looked at my wife and rolled my eyes.

Afterward I reminded my son that he's in the midst of severe liberals. He smiled and agreed. It will be interesting to follow this over the next several years.

Asian students file law suits over affirmative action

Asians score higher than any other group, so colleges have to handicap them in order not to have a disproportionate minority group.

“In a tutoring center’s workshop on college admissions in the valley, Ann Lee tells Asian-American parents about a Princeton study on how race and ethnicity affect admissions. Being black is worth 230 SAT points, according to the study. Hispanics receive a “bonus” of 185 points. Asian applicants are penalized by 50 points, says Lee. “Do Asians need higher test scores? Is it harder for Asians to get into college? The answer is yes,” Lee says.” Joanne Jacobs

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/18/rejected-asian-students-sue-harvard-over-admissions-that-favor-other-minorities/

Music to study by

I know that my smart nieces like Lindsey,  Aliyah,  and Joanie take advantage of on line courses for college, but I think it's an age thing. I can't even get past registration for free sites, let alone stay awake to read that much on a screen. Hurts my eyes. But ladies, and anyone else studying hard, here's some piano music to study by. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVP3fUzQHcg

Korean American describes life for a Christian on college campus

Ellice Young Eun Park: "I went to a school in the Bay Area where the dominant belief was atheism, agnosticism, and Buddhist - and Hindu-informed culture. The hatred towards Christianity and Christians was pretty hot, I have no problem saying this to anyone. They're not radical militants, but they're cool, interesting, and academically super intelligent people. Some are very sweet, and funny. Hatred towards Christians comes wrapped in many faces.

My first week there! I was told, "This school knocks the Christian beliefs out of you. Most people here who start out Christian become atheists or agnostics by the time they graduate." I stared that person square in the eye and asked, "oh yeah? That isn't happening to me, not by anyone here." They looked at me and said, "I guess we will see, but my bet is it will get to you too." Sure enough, I sat in a biology class where the teachers main knock off joke was to mock Jesus, mock the existence of a Christian deity, and mock Christians. They didn't knock my faith out, but they fired me up after being in the comforts of the lca bubble. Maybe I should thank them, huh.

Interfaith dialogue is a joke if the main aim is to mock and try to shame someone out of their beliefs, or scare it out of them, or rule it against them. What, so are the Muslims going to fight for America for Americas protection and interests, and be patriotic to the USA after kicking the Christians out of the military--making it a hostile environment for Christian soldiers?

Pray for the Christian friends and family you have. Write a letter, use your voice, stand for your beliefs because nobody else will do it for you. I think we buy into this idea that Christianity is a dominant religion and sit back to see what others do. But the reality is that popular culture loves bashing on Christians, academics celebrate slashing at Christians, millennials are mostly uninterested in Christian belief, and devout Christians are a real minority. Jesus did say that many would call him Lord And did so much for him, but that he would not recognize them. Let's at least stand for those we love! even if we won't stand for ourselves.

The least recommended college majors

Here are the top 12 majors not recommended by people in the field:

8-12 (Tie): Liberal Arts

• 25% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $36,600

8-12 (Tie): Political Science

• 25% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $41,700

8-12 (Tie): Art History

• 25% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $36,900

8-12 (Tie): Sociology

• 25% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $37,400

8-12 (Tie): Psychology

• 25% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $36,300

6-7 (Tie): Art

• 26% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $36,100

6-7 (Tie): English Language

• 26% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $38,700

5. Journalism

• 27% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $38,100

4. Social Science

• 28% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $37,300

3. Visual Communications

• 29% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $37,300

2. History

• 33% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $39,700

1. Anthropology

• 35% wouldn’t recommend this major
• Starting pay: $36,200

I don’t see anything remarkable; except for journalism, I assumed the same about these majors when I was in college. But obviously, if only 25-35% are unhappy in the job, they are finding other satisfaction besides salary.

Survey was by PayScale and reported in Higher Ed Morning.

I wonder if this was used with gender if it would explain some gender gap in wages.

“In both 1978 and 2005, engineering, physics and mathematics lagged behind many of the humanities departments in attracting women, who tend to flock to fields ranging from art history to English, as well as the “softer” sciences, such as biology and environmental studies.” (2006, The gender gap in majors at Yale)

Then the Harvard Crimson did an article on the differences of majors by genders.  And yes, anthropology was the most female of all the majors, but most of these were listed.

Georgetown University did a study in 2011 of differences in gender and race in selecting a major. The study found that white men are concentrated in the highest-earning majors, including engineering and pharmaceutical sciences, while women gravitate toward the lowest-earning majors like education, art and social work. https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/omooxnult5yvuctf0ftl

The cost of education

Mark Perry of the University of Michigan has calculated, tuition for all universities, public and private, increased from 1978 to 2011 at an annual rate of 7.45%. By comparison, health-care costs increased by only 5.8%, and housing, notwithstanding the bubble, increased at 4.3%. Family incomes, on the other hand, barely kept up with the consumer-price index, which grew at an annual rate of 3.8%.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303870704579298302637802002

“Most of the growth in higher education costs, according to a 2010 study by the Goldwater Institute, a libertarian think tank, comes from administrative bloat, with administrative staff growing at more than twice the rate of instructional staff. At the University of Michigan, for example, there are 53% more administrators than faculty, and similar ratios can be found at other institutions.”

Carthage College commencement address

This tech CEO gives new graduates good advice about life. I don’t know anything about Reddit, but found this guy charming and honest about curiosity, failure and success.

College rate for Hispanics higher than whites or blacks

Black Americans who support Obama's amnesty and immigration policies might want to take a second look. Hispanic students graduating from high school now have a higher college enrollment than white students, and definitely higher than black... students. Graduation rates are still lagging, but I think that will improve too. And no one can catch the Asian Americans. College graduation rate for whites was 85% and 93% for Asian/Pacific Islander students; 76% for Hispanics and just 68% for black students. The term Hispanic is a made up word and covers Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Chileans, Jamaicans, etc. http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/amid-affirmative-action-ruling-some-data-on-race-and-college-enrollment-1328/

Why we have an income gap in the U.S.--marriage

The Census figures income by "household." The top 2% of households has an income of $250,000+.  But those households are racially different.  The wealthiest households in the U.S. are Asian (they also have the largest households). 4.2% of Asian households are in the $250,000+ group; 2.1% of white households; .9% of Hispanics; and .6% of blacks. What else isn't equal?  Married couple households. Asian households are 63.2% married; whites 58.1%; Hispanics 55.1%; and 34.8% blacks. It's probably basic math, but two workers make more than one. 64% of college graduates are married, compared to 48% of high school graduates; in 1960 the difference was 76% and 72%. But it’s also apparent that there are some very wealthy, unmarried, single households not sharing their wealth with anyone.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0693.pdf

Also, whites have the lowest college enrollment of all ethnic groups in the U.S. The number of female Americans enrolled in college was significantly higher than the number of males (11.3 million versus 8.6 million). That was not only due to higher population figures for females: 7.4% of the 3+ female population was enrolled in college, compared to 5.9% of the 3+ male population.

Black Americans demonstrated higher-than-average college enrollment rates, at 8% of the 3+ population – equaling just over 3 million enrolled. Female black Americans had a substantially higher enrollment rate (9.2% of the 3+ population) than their male counterparts (6.5%).

Non-Hispanic whites had the lowest enrollment rates. 6.2% of the 3+ group was enrolled in college last year, with females outpacing males (6.8% vs. 5.5%). A total of 11.65 million were enrolled in college.

http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/traditional/us-college-student-demographics-in-2012-36555/

The new student loan bail out

Today I was watching a program on college student debt, graduates living with their parents, and Obama to step in with yet another government solution. This is so counter productive. 1) Grow the economy and get them employed; 2) stop funneling money for loans so colleges won't continue to raise tuition and fees at the feed trough. Also, I don't know a single recent graduate (who chose a smart degree field) that isn't employed and whittling down his debt without my help.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/08/pf/college/obama-student-loans/

I don't expect the government to "create" the jobs that would help the college students pay down their debt, move out of mom's basement, get married, buy a home, etc. But I do expect the federal government to stop making it so difficult for investors to help the entrepreneurs, to stop adding burdens with new EPA regulations and health care taxes that discourage expansion, and stop making it easier for the underemployed to stay that way through transfer payments.

The cost of college today compared to “my-day”

2013-14 Tuition, Fees, and Housing Costs for Manchester University (college) where I attended in 1957-58 for about $1,000.  

Tuition: $27,000; Fees: $920; Room: $5,500; Board: $3,750 (Full meal plan);  Total Direct Costs: $37,170 (about $39,000 if a different dorm and food plan is selected); add books, travel, personal items.

So why is college over 4x (adjusted for inflation) more than when I went?

• there were no government loans and few scholarships in 1957
• there were minimal amenities in 1957--no natatorium, no rec center, no plush dormitories--our entire dorm shared one phone
• there are many more regulations and mandates from the government in 2013 to add to costs
•   there are more costly scientific and technology equipment affecting everything from library to ordering food to tracking admissions in 2013
• there were stiffer entrance requirements in 1957 and many students in 2013 shouldn’t be in college.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324549004579068992834736138

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2013/10/why-does-college-cost-so-much-posner.html

“The curved glass wall of Haist Commons, a dining room and gathering space, is the most prominent addition to the building. Large open areas, balcony overlooks, and extensive use of exterior and interior glass walls help create bright, inviting spaces, connecting activity areas visually and providing views of the campus. The renovation brought the campus bookstore back into the union, allowing for combined staffing with the mailroom. The bookstore also shares a double sided fireplace with The Oaks Lounge.”

This student union was built in 1963; there wasn’t one in 1957. Even small church schools have to be competitive with amenities.

Some colleges also dropping student health coverage

Obamacare's new regulations would force the cost of the insurance at Bowie State in Maryland to rise from $50 to $900 a semester. Officials at one one of the nation's oldest and most elite historically black colleges are citing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as the reason they have cancelled a school-wide affordable health care plan they had offered students. International students will also lose their insurance, and they are not eligible for the exchanges.

http://www.bowiestate.edu/campus-life/henry-wise-wellness-center/student-health-insurance-plan-/

Studying achievement, rather than failure

"Black men are overrepresented on revenue generating intercollegiate sports teams. In 2009, they were only 3.6% of undergraduate students, but 55.3% of football and basketball players at public NCAA Division I institutions (Harper, 2012)."

It would probably be called a racist comment if a sports announcer said this, but it appears in The Black Male College Achievement Study.

http://www.gse.upenn.edu/equity/sites/gse.upenn.edu.equity/files/publications/bmss.pdf