Dozens of Colleges’ Upward Bound Applications Are Denied for Failing to Dot Every I
http://www.chronicle.com/article/Dozens-of-Colleges-Upward/239895?cid=wcontentgrid_hp_2
Bureaucrats strike again.
Drawing a line in the sand about spacing is ridiculous IMO.
I feel like there is a revolution happening with spacing and double spacing after periods is on the losing side.
Edit: I posted and then I realized it was likely referring to double spacing between lines.
Well, at least it makes a bit more sense in drawing the line! I can see it in a 65 page grant that there would be a big difference between single and double spacing.
Details matter.
The article has some excerpts from an application that was denied due to formatting. The single-spacing was in exhibits, not the main body of the text.
Perhaps an understaffed office with large numbers of applications looking for an easy way to reduce the workload of reading the applications?
Very mean-spirited.
This makes me ill. The programs that have been rejected do so much good.
Is it De Vos, or DeVos? Just like her, it’s irrelevant. Any excuse is a good reason to punish poor kids.
I used to work in a program that was in the same family of government programs as Upward Bound (the family is called TRiO programs–the college version I worked in is Student Support Services). When it was grant-renewal year, my Director agonized over getting the details right. As, I believe, most directors do–since in no grant cycle did we ever hear of mass denials like this.
I don’t believe that all of a sudden, programs stopped knowing how to file grant renewals en masse. So I have to believe there is something else going on here–either in the presentation of materials to the programs, the amount of feedback pre-submission from the department liaisons, or some level of nitpicking never seen before. Something within the Dept. of Education must be different.
This is not just a matter of sudden, random carelessness.
Did the budget for the grants themselves, or the reading of grant applications, get cut?
Obviously the current administration is trying to cut spending in areas that they deem less important than border walls and weapons, and denying grant proposals on technicalities is one way to do that…
^^I’m not aware of anything more about the actual situation in this case. But in general–it’s not budgets that are being assessed alone–it’s the program itself. The program has to apply for refunding every few years–if it’s turned down, it’s done.
To add, the grant renewal applications are many pages long, with meticulous research, statistics, and narratives expected. They are huge amounts of work, and not taken lightly.
Hmm. What could it be?
Just to add to the irony, this Department of Education is unable to issue a tweet without a major typo. Now all of a sudden they’re parsing fonts like the New Yorker. Right.
This sounds suspicious and sad. My D worked as an Upward Bound counselor for two summers at her college. She enjoyed it very much and really felt that it worked very well. She still keeps in touch with some of her students, all of whom are in college now. I hope that this can be resolved so that the students affected can get their mentoring.