By Andy Thomason. A small for-profit college in North Carolina is shutting down, citing the U.S. Education Department’s impending gainful-employment rule, The Charlotte Observer reports. Brookstone College of Business, which served roughly 200 students at two campuses, in Charlotte and Greensboro, will cease night classes immediately and afternoon classes next week. More...
17 mai 2015
Small For-Profit College Will Close, Citing Gainful-Employment Rule
Giant For-Profit Educator and Executives Are Charged With Lying to Investors
By Andy Thomason. ITT Educational Services Inc., its chief executive, and its chief financial officer have been charged with fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly hiding from investors “the poor performance and looming financial impact of two student-loan programs that ITT financially guaranteed,” according to a news release from the commission. More...
Commentary on College Costs Doesn’t Get to the Heart of the Matter
To the Editor:
James Doti is absolutely correct about the complexity of judging the cost of college and its rate of growth (“The Growth in College Costs Is Slowing, Particularly for Poorer Families,” The Chronicle, May 13.) But his “analysis” doesn’t get to the heart of the matter. College costs are not solely about tuition. More...
Criticisms of Pope Foundation Apply to Higher Education
To the Editor:
The criticisms that Eric Kelderman levels at the Pope Foundation (“Conservative Think Tank Puts Pressure on North College’s Colleges,” The Chronicle, May 8) apply, albeit in reverse, to higher education. Higher education’s claim that any student can benefit is a distortion that borders on fraud, for half of students at less-elite colleges are not college ready. More...
Weekly Exams Do Students No Favors
To the Editor:
I do not disagree with the findings of Henry L. Roediger regarding the importance of written notes or synopses to help students master information, and the necessity for students to read the material in their classes and work through it via weekly exercises that require them to use it (“How Exams Improve Students’ Access to Their Brains,” The Chronicle, May 6). More...
Don’t Criticize Guaranty Agencies for Following the Law
To the Editor:
In “How Ending the Two-Tiered Student-Loan System Would Help Struggling Borrowers” (The Chronicle, May 15), Ben Miller, formerly with the New America Foundation, criticizes guaranty agencies for following the law that collection costs are to be paid by the defaulted borrower rather than the taxpayer. While the article states that it is part of the paper’s “Proof” series, it ignores important facts. More...
Minority Ph.D.’s Find Career Success in STEM
By Francis M. Leslie. In response to a recent article in The Chronicle on the Council of Graduate Schools’ report on "The Doctoral Initiative on Minority Attrition and Completion," a number of readers commented that universities do minority students no favors by encouraging them to obtain doctorates in STEM fields — science, technology, engineering, and math — where they are unlikely to find employment. In fact, this apparently widespread view is wrong. More...
To Make the World a Better Place, Teach Arabic
By Brian T. Edwards. Seventy-four years ago, Henry Luce published "The American Century," an essay that argued that American culture would play a starring role in creating a global environment in which the United States could thrive. Chief among his examples was American language itself; not just English, but an American-inflected argot that would be carried around the world via music, movies, comics, and popular culture. This was for Luce the sign of an internationalism that Americans themselves hadn’t yet acknowledged.
Today few would doubt that the reach and power of American culture is global, nor that the country is an international power. Colleges take a significantly different approach to teaching about the world than they did in 1941, and American studies has sought to be more global in its outlook. More foreign languages are taught than in Luce’s time, and study abroad has become a rite of passage for many students.
Yet a creeping monolingualism is overtaking higher education, despite the efforts of so many in the trenches. The signs are everywhere: Major universities are closing German departments and cutting Russian and French programs; general foreign-language requirements are easing up. Over all, college language enrollments tumbled 6.7 percent between 2009 and 2013, according to the Modern Language Association. Despite the growth of study abroad, it is increasingly easy for college students to take their courses in English in such countries as Jordan, the Czech Republic, France, and Turkey. The widespread sense that English has become a global lingua franca contributes to an unfortunate sense that learning other languages doesn’t matter.
Arabic is one of the languages that suffers in this climate, both because of its difficulty and the resistance of many language programs to embrace its spoken colloquial forms. Although it has been the fastest-growing language of study since 2001, enrollments fell 7.5 percent between 2009 and 2013. Given the enormous military and political focus on the Middle East, it is urgent that Americans learn Arabic. If the United States is going to try to understand, rather than bomb, invade, and occupy part of the world that has been our government’s central obsession for almost a decade and a half, then more colleges need to teach Arabic and do so in a vibrant way. Higher education has never had a more crucial role to play in achieving peace.
Arabic is the fifth most common native language in the world, with at least 295 million native speakers. And it is spoken in 60 countries, a number second only to English. That means there are jobs out there for those fluent in Arabic, a multitude of opportunities in both the private and public sector, including prospects we have not imagined. But this is not the only reason — or even the primary one — to support the study of Arabic. More...
As Concern Over Student-Loan Servicers Grows, a Watchdog Steps Up Scrutiny
By Kelly Field. The nation’s top consumer watchdog is stepping up its oversight of student-loan servicers, the agency announced on Thursday.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has been monitoring the sector since last March, said it would seek information on practices that "create repayment challenges" or set up "hurdles for distressed borrowers." The agency is also interested in "economic incentives that may affect the quality of service" provided to borrowers, it said in a statement. More...
How Ending the Two-Tiered Student-Loan System Would Help Struggling Borrowers
By Ben Miller. Defaulting on a student loan is not pleasant. It wrecks a borrower’s credit, puts her into the unpleasant world of debt collection, and can even result in wages or Social Security benefits being garnished. There are increasing calls to keep down student debt and to create more flexible payment plans to avoid default. More...
