Education and the classes

Annie Besant, a British socialist and women’s rights activist, worked in support of India’s struggle for independence from colonial rule, even getting elected president of the Indian National Congress, the primary body leading the campaign for democracy in the first half of the twentieth century. She was also a champion of education, setting up colleges in India.

But her views on the “submerged tenth” — the notion that in every society there must be a class of people who engage in the most menial and undesirable of tasks, who are ignorant and unclean, and who are despised by the very society they serve — lent support to the caste system, and in particular the presence of the class of “untouchables” (or Dalits), in Indian society.

Besant was sympathetic to the Dalits — she said “cruel wrongs … have been inflicted” on them. Nevertheless, she sought to implement the British model of a segregated education in India. Suggesting that Dalit children should not go to the same schools as other Indian children, she wrote (‘The Uplift of the Depressed Classes’, Indian Review, February 1909):

“In England, it has never been regarded as desirable to educate boys or girls of all classes side by side, and such grotesque equalising of the unequal would be scouted. Eton and Harrow are admittedly the schools for the higher classes ; Rubgy and Winchester are also schools for gentlemen’s sons, though somewhat less aristocratic.

Then come a number of schools, frequented chiefly by sons of the provincial middle class. Then the Board Schools, where the sons of artisans and the general manual labour classes are taught ; and below all these, for the waifs and strays, are the ‘ragged schools,’ the name of which indicates the type of their scholars, and the numerous charitable institutions.”

Still coming to America? International students in the U.S.

iie.org

In 2016-17, American universities enrolled 1.1 million international students. Almost a third (32.5%) were from China, followed by India (17.3%) and S. Korea (5.4%). The number of Saudi Arabian students fell 14.2% from the previous year–the fall in oil prices forced the Saudi government to cut back on very generous subsidies for their students studying in the U.S.

Rank	Place of Origin	2015/16	2016/17	% of Total	% Change
	World TOTAL	1,043,839	1,078,822	100.0	3.4
1	China	328,547	350,755	32.5	6.8
2	India	165,918	186,267	17.3	12.3
3	South Korea	61,007	58,663	5.4	-3.8
4	Saudi Arabia	61,287	52,611	4.9	-14.2
5	Canada	26,973	27,065	2.5	0.3
6	Vietnam	21,403	22,438	2.1	4.8
7	Taiwan	21,127	21,516	2.0	1.8
8	Japan	19,060	18,780	1.7	-1.5
9	Mexico	16,733	16,835	1.6	0.6
10	Brazil	19,370	13,089	1.2	-32.4

Source: IIE Open Doors

Iran came in at No. 11, but with the travel ban in effect, how many students will be arriving from Tehran in 2017-18? Or, for that matter, how many from Muslim-majority countries are likely to show up in JFK or Newark knowing that they could be put on the next plane back? Much less risky to go to Canada or the UK or Australia.

Safety is also an important issue. Recent developments in the US–mass shootings, an increasingly tendentious anti-immigrant sentiment, the emergence of newly-emboldened white supremacist groups, the planned cuts in H-1 visas (work permits)–serve to diminish the country’s allure for international students. American universities stand to lose big, perhaps even bigly.

Homer learns about accessibility

The life of a Dean is, quite possibly, replete with glamor, excitement and the unvarnished joy of working in a hallowed office in Alpha Hall. She might even—gasp!—have Windows 10 installed on her machine days before the hoi polloi in Hoover get their dirty hands on it.

But, surely, thought Homer, as he absently munched on a scone at the Blue Bean, even a Dean’s life, charmed though it may be, is not without a few challenging moments.

Read the rest at The Etownian …

Salaries for economists

The Occupational Outlook Handbook from BLS provides salary data and job prospects by occupation. Here’s their outlook for the practitioners of the dismal science:

Quick Facts: Economists
2014 Median Pay	$95,710 per year $46.02 per hour
Typical Entry-Level Education	Master’s degree
Work Experience in a Related Occupation	None
On-the-job Training	None
Number of Jobs, 2014	21,500
Job Outlook, 2014-24	6% (As fast as average)
Employment Change, 2014-24	1,200

You can see the good folks at BLS struggle to come up with decent captions for their stock photos. See, for example, the statement accompanying the above picture: “Economists typically work with computers.” Really?

How large is the student debt?

http://www.tuition.io

According to 2014 data from the New York Fed:

• 43 million borrowers
• Median balance is about $14,000
• Average balance per borrower is about $27,000
• Nearly 39 percent of borrowers owe less than $10,000
• At the high end, more than 4 percent of borrowers, about 1.8 million people, owe more than $100,000

The Fed article notes that loans to finance graduate study have become more readily available.

Dictating what to teach and research: Politicians meddle in N. Carolina

The Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill has voted to close the university’s Poverty Center. The governors claim that the center was pursuing advocacy. The director of the center argues that they are being punished for writing op-eds critical of the state government’s policies on poverty and inequality.

The university’s funding has been threatened by politicians in the past:

When a bill in the General Assembly sought to curb the teaching of evolution, [the university president] Chase condemned it as an abridgment of freedom of speech… [only to be warned] that the university’s appropriations were still before the General Assembly…

UNC-Chapel Hill enjoys a robust academic reputation. The politicians of N. Carolina appear to be determined to undermine it.

Can Iranian students study engineering in the US?

On Feb. 6, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst said “that it will no longer admit Iranian nationals to a range of programs: chemical engineering, chemistry, electrical and computer engineering, mechanical and industrial engineering, microbiology, physics, and polymer science and engineering.” (Inside Higher Ed). The university claimed it was doing so to comply with an Iranian sanctions bill (Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 – emphasis added):

Sec. 501. Exclusion of citizens of Iran seeking education relating to the nuclear and energy sectors of Iran.

The Secretary of State shall deny a visa to, and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall exclude from the United States, any alien who is a citizen of Iran that the Secretary of State determines seeks to enter the United States to participate in coursework at an institution of higher education … to prepare the alien for a career in the energy sector of Iran or in nuclear science or nuclear engineering or a related field in Iran.

The law did not require UMass to take the steps it did–it is the state department that ultimately decides whether to grant visas to Iranian students or not.

And now a reversal. “The University of Massachusetts Amherst today announced that it will accept Iranian students into science and engineering programs, developing individualized study plans to meet the requirements of federal sanctions law and address the impact on students. The decision to revise the university’s approach follows consultation with the State Department and outside counsel.”

For-profit college exploiting low-income students

You are a for-profit publicly-traded college. You charge high tuition fees (as much as $44,000 for a 2-year associate degree program). You attract mostly low-income students (your average student earns $18,000 per year and has a credit score under 600 at the time of enrolment). So how does your business model work?

Simple.

You target low-income students precisely because they qualify for federal  student loans and Pell grants to pay for their tuition. In your advertising and other marketing materials, you imply that their education will help them land better jobs. You use misleading data to claim that your placement rates are high. You note that you are accredited by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (“ACICS”), a national accreditation organization that accredits many for-profit schools, but you neglect to point out that “national” accreditation, unlike the “regional” accreditation obtained by most universities and community colleges, does not permit you to transfer credits easily to regionally-accredited colleges.

But you have to take care of two issues. (1) You have to make sure that federal loans and grants do not exceed 90 percent of your revenues–at least 10 percent must come from other sources. (2)  The tuition that you charge is higher than the maximum federal aid that a student can obtain.

So how do you address these issues?

You contract with a third-party lender to provide private loans to your students to make up the difference between their tuition and federal aid. Make it easy for the students to sign up for such loans. Charge them interest rates as high as 16 percent.

This is an ingenious idea. You get paid the entire tuition amount. The loans count as income, which improves your financial statements. And you meet the federal requirement that a minimum of 10 percent of your revenues must come from other sources.

But there is a slight problem. You know that a majority of the low-income students, possibly as much as 60 percent, are unlikely to repay their private loans. And such loans can rarely be discharged, even in bankruptcy. You are saddling your students with a burden that will be with them for a long, long  time.

So now, you get sued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The federal government agency has pulled you up for your marketing practices and student debt burdens. They say that since July 21, 2011, as “a result of being pressured into doing so […], approximately 8,600 consumers entered into loans that they could not afford, did not want, did not understand, or did not even know they had.”

They are asking that, among other things, you pay civil penalties and restitution for the victims.

Who are you?

ITT.

Read the complaint at  CFPB vs ITT (pdf).

But you are not alone. Other for-profit colleges–Education Management Corp., Career Education Corp. and Corinthian Colleges–are also under investigation.

More testing, more learning

How often should students be tested? A recent study shows that daily testing–a test every day of class–can “improve performance in class and in other concurrent and subsequent courses.” The authors discuss why frequent testing may have been beneficial:

In addition to the effects in improving retention and retrieval, the quizzes simultaneously accomplished several goals likely to promote self-regulated learning.

The quizzes were constant, providing a structure that facilitated goal-setting behaviors and required students to develop planning and time management skills. In particular, students had to adopt reading, note-taking, and study habits that allowed them to keep up with the material.

In talking with students, many noted how they had learned to set aside specific times to prepare for each class–something that they did not initially feel they needed to do for other classes.

The repeated testing also broke the material into segments that required students to focus their attention on the relevant content and the immediate feedback after each quiz provided students with a constant and objective means with which to engage in productive self-evaluation. The daily quizzes also encouraged students to attend classes at higher rates.

Source: Pennebaker JW, Gosling SD, Ferrell JD (2013) Daily
Online Testing in Large Classes: Boosting College Performance while
Reducing Achievement Gaps. PLoS ONE 8(11): e79774.  doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0079774

Essay contest: Multilingualism in a globalized world

Are you a college student? Do you like to write? Win prizes? Well, take a look at this UN contest.

Essays are due by Feb 21, 2014.