“Each academic becomes the trustee not of a branch of the sciences, but of limited knowledge that all too often is irrelevant for genuinely important problems. A colleague recently boasted to me that his best student was doing his dissertation on how the medieval theologian Duns Scotus used citations.” In the NYT, Mark Taylor, the chair of Columbia’s religion department, reads the writing on the wall and calls for a complete overhaul of graduate school education in America. “Graduate education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).” Ya, sounds about right.
Tag: Student Loans
A Farewell to “Sen. Oddball.”
“I always let the other fellow have my way.” Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-RI), 1918-2009. “[H]e was best known for his sponsorship of the 1972 program that has helped 54 million low-income and moderate-income students attend college. He also sponsored the legislation that founded the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities.”
Bizarro Dubya?
Some good news on the domestic policy front: Pushed forward by a veto-proof majority in Congress, Bush signs a Democratic Pell Grant increase into law. “The increase in financial aid is designed to come from cuts in subsidies that the government makes to banks, totaling roughly $20 billion…Bush at one point threatened to veto the bill on grounds that it included hidden costs and was an expensive expansion of federal programs.” In addition, an expansion of the State Child Health Insurance Program is now on Dubya’s desk after passing the Senate 69-30 and House 265-159, and also looks to become law despite the White House’s original opposition. “Bush and GOP leaders said the measure would push children already covered by private health insurance into publicly financed health care, while creating an ‘entitlement’ whose costs ultimately would outstrip the money raised by the bill’s 61-cent increase in the federal tobacco tax. But Republican opposition is increasingly isolated.“
And if passage of affordable college education and child health care bills by Dubya — however reluctantly — isn’t through the looking glass enough for ya, check this out: “The world must cut emissions or sacrifice the planet, Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State, told a meeting of governments on Thursday, in the most strongly worded statement on global warming yet made by the US administration….Her words reflected how far US rhetoric on climate change has moved in the past six months.”
Update: Ah, there’s the Dubya we know and…know. Despite its bipartisan backing, Bush vetoes the child health insurance bill, arguing that it was an attempt to “federalize” medicine. “‘I think that this is probably the most inexplicable veto in the history of the country. It is incomprehensible. It is intolerable. It’s unacceptable,’ said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, who pleaded with Republicans to help overturn the veto.”
A Taste of Their Own Medicine.
As they prepare to take back the House for the first time in twelve years, the Dems look to freeze out any GOP involvement in legislation, at least for the first few weeks. “House Democrats intend to pass a raft of popular measures as part of their well-publicized plan for the first 100 hours. They include tightening ethics rules for lawmakers, raising the minimum wage, allowing more research on stem cells and cutting interest rates on student loans.”
Dream a little Dream.
“‘The Republicans say the economy is great for everyone,’ Clinton said. ‘They’ve done nothing about these costs that are eating away at the paychecks of hard-working Americans. Democrats will work to get health-care costs down, to get college tuitions under control, to address the rising costs of gas prices, to cut middle-class taxes and reward companies that create jobs here at home.‘” With November in the not-too-distant future (and 2008 only a step beyond), Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton announces the American Dream Initiative, a.k.a. the DLC centrists’ stab at a Contract with America-type campaign agenda: “The centerpiece proposal would provide additional support for college costs, with the goal of increasing the number of college graduates by 1 million a year by 2015…Other ideas include requirements for employers to establish retirement accounts for all workers and a refundable tax credit for savers; ‘baby bonds’ that would create a government-funded savings account of $500 for every child born in the United States; a refundable tax credit to help provide the down payment on housing; universal health care for children; and benefits for small businesses to lower the cost of providing health insurance to workers.” This all sounds good, if a bit classically Clintonesque. OK, the name is goofy (as was Hillary’s “It’s the American Dream, stupid.“), and IMHO there needs to be more here regarding both campaign finance and lobbying reform. But, still, there’s very little of the usual protective camouflage-y cruft that usually accompanies anything put out by the DLC, so that’s a good start. Let’s see where it goes.
That’ll teach the poor.
Operation Offsetted: By the slimmest of margins (216-214), the House GOP pass the “deficit-cutting” (read: millionaire tax-giveaway off-setting) bill striking $40 billion from “Medicaid, welfare, child support and student lending.” (It previously passed the Senate on Cheney’s vote.) I’m reminded of a quote by Walter Lippmann on the Goldwater ’64 campaign: “We all know of demagogues and agitators who arouse the poor against the rich. But in Barry Goldwater we have a demagogue who dreams of arousing the rich against the poor.“
ANWR’s Nine Lives.
“The legislation would allow states to impose new fees on Medicaid recipients, cut federal child support enforcement funds, impose new work requirements on state welfare programs and squeeze student lenders.” Although a tie-breaking vote by Cheney got the deficit bill passed — meaning people on Medicaid, welfare recipients, and students with loans will soon be paying for Dubya’s millionaire tax breaks — the Dems do succeed in beating back ANWR drilling, much to the chagrin of Ted Stevens, who gambled that the Senate wouldn’t vote down a defense bill.
Ice Station Dubya.
Off again, on again: Along with a smattering of Operation Offset-type cuts (particularly with regard to student loans), “Bridge to Nowhere” Ted Stevens and the GOP attach ANWR drilling to a fiscal defense bill, in effect daring the Dems to vote against supporting the troops. Is this ANWR’s last stand? Update: Senate Dems ready for a fight.
Loan Relief.
The economy may be going sour and there’s fewer jobs to be had, but there is some good news on the horizon for Generation Y. College loan interest rates will hit record lows at the end of the month.