By John Kroger. Every week or two, we hear about a liberal arts college closing its doors or cutting faculty and programs. Everyone agrees that for the remaining schools, competitive pressure is only going to increase, with declining enrollments and increased discount rates ahead. Many scholars have predicted that between 10 percent and 50 percent of these small colleges will be forced to close over the next two decades. More...
Financial Support of University Presses
By John Kroger. If you go to the website of the University Press of New England, you will see this bleak notice:
UPNE and UPNE Book Partners
are ceasing operations at the end of 2018
Is the closing of UPNE a harbinger of the future or an isolated event? I’m not sure. What I do know is that university presses play an incredibly vital role in our intellectual and political lives, and they need to be sustained. More...
Reforming Pell Grants
By John Kroger. A call for larger grants -- and ending eligibility for some institutions. More...
The New Endowment Tax
By John Kroger. Last year, a revolution took place in higher education and virtually no one noticed. Since the Tariff Act of 1894, colleges and universities have been tax-exempt institutions. Now, with the passage of a new tax on the endowments of private institutions, higher education has moved from the tax-exempt to the taxable column. More...
Yesterday’s Election and Higher Education
By John Kroger. Yesterday, exit polls indicated that 59 percent of voters with college educations voted for Democrats, while only 39 percent voted for Republicans. Once upon a time, higher education received bipartisan support. More...
Move Deliberately and Repair Things
By Barbara Fister. It’s kind of amazing to think about how much change we’ve seen in our daily lives in our lifetimes. I sent my first email sometime in the late 80s or early 90s, a reply to a professor who had to call me on the phone to tell me I had mail. More...
Innocence and Experience
By Barbara Fister. Maybe some chickens are coming home to roost. Tech stocks have become less irrationally exuberant. People seem annoyed about Amazon’s stunt extort bribes from cities in return for making housing more unaffordable and transit more crowded, just to attract some high-paying jobs to cities that already have a big wealth gap. More...
Three Random Thoughts
By Barbara Fister. . . after another incredibly stressful election. More...
Les contrats uniques d’insertion et les emplois d’avenir - une forte baisse des recrutements en 2017
L’ensemble des recrutements est en baisse de 36 % par rapport à 2016 : -65 % dans le secteur marchand et -29 % dans le secteur non marchand. Au total, fin 2017, les effectifs de contrats aidés ont diminué de 35 %, et atteignent 260 900 personnes.
En 2017, 88 % des recrutements ont concerné des demandeurs d’emploi de longue durée, des personnes de 50 ans ou plus, des bénéficiaires de minima sociaux ou des jeunes peu qualifiés. Cette part augmente en 2017 après un repli en 2015 et 2016 (86 %).
Les jeunes représentent 25 % des recrutements, en recul de 5,2 points par rapport à 2016. La part des recrutements dans les quartiers prioritaires de la ville augmente légèrement en 2017, à 14 %.
A Syllabus Is Not a Contract
By John Warner. At least, it doesn't have to be, if you don't want it to be. More...