Higher Ed Watch

California is currently home to two of the most important things happening in higher education, one good, one bad. The good thing is the rapid advancement of cheap and free online courses offered by companies like Udacity and Coursera. The bad thing is the catastrophic failure of California lawmakers to provide enough money to support basic access to foundational courses at community colleges. Tomorrow, California Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg will announce a plan that essentially tries to use the one to fix the other. This groundbreaking initiative has broad implications for the nature, financing, and regulation of higher learning.

As of today nearly half a million students are on waiting lists for basic courses in California’s public higher education system, increasing the cost and duration of college and reducing the number of students who ultimately earn degrees. This is a human tragedy and a policy failure on a massive scale. Under the plan, waitlisted students would be able to take online classes that have been approved by California’s Open Education Resources Council, a faculty-led body that was created by recent Steinberg-sponsored legislation creating free open textbooks. ACE certification would be a point in course's favor. Students would have to take in-person proctored exams to pass the courses. Public colleges and universities in California would be required to accept those courses for credit.

Welcome to the Syllabus, a weekly guide that provides insight into what’s happening in higher education.

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Poor Scholars Hit by Money Squeeze From Wealthy Colleges, Janet Lorin
Bloomberg

It’s the classic game of bait and switch: Low-income student gets accepted to a selective, high-tuition/high-aid college, only to have institutional aid taken away once awarded an outside scholarship. This practice, known as displacement, reduces the grant aid awarded to students who win outside scholarships, giving aid to other students. Furthermore, many students find they can’t apply their scholarship funds to summer savings requirements. At Barnard, for example, students must save about $2,200 over the summer to help cover costs of their education that cannot be covered by scholarships. The National Scholarship Providers Association, a group whose 320 members include the Gates, Coca-Cola Scholars, and Michael & Susan Dell Foundations, argues that if a college rescinds funding because of outside scholarships, it “takes away a reward that the student earned through hard work and concentrated effort.”

Welcome to the Syllabus, a weekly guide that provides insight into what’s happening in higher education.

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Obama, Rubio Put Higher Education on Notice, David Wessel
The Wall Street Journal

Senator Marco Rubio and President Barack Obama may not agree on much these days, but they do agree that the way the federal government spends money on student aid needs to change. In this year’s State of the Union, President Obama called for incorporating measures of value and affordability into higher education’s accreditation system or establishing a path to alternative accreditation for nontraditional providers. Senator Rubio, in his response to the State of the Union, said, “We need student aid that does not discriminate against programs that nontraditional students rely on—like online courses or degree programs that give you credit for work experience.” While it is unclear how and when accreditation could be changed, something needs to update the archaic 19^th century practice and bring it to the 21^st century. “The focus by Mr. Obama and Mr. Rubio on accreditation suggests a worry that the old system could stifle innovation,” writes Wessel, “And prevent competition from new, perhaps more efficient forms of teaching.”

Starting in 2014, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandates that employers with more than 50 employees must provide health insurance to those working more than 30 hours per week. To prevent having to give their employees proper benefits, Papa John’s Pizza voiced intent to cut the hours of employees to fall just below the 30 hour threshold.  Customers expressed reprehension at the prospect of the pizza giant further limiting the earnings of its lowest income employees in the name of corporate revenue. The public backlash was so powerful that Papa John’s founder and CEO, John Schnatter walked back his loophole planning, but it remains to be seen whether universities—American cultural bastions of fairness and opportunity—will fare differently. The government has hedged on behalf of adjuncts, but the question of whether and to what degree universities will ultimately be allowed to implement similar plans to fudge compliance with the ACA remains unresolved.