<p>Starting this thursday, Obama will be on a bus tour promoting his financial aid reforms. The link is below. </p>
<p>Thoughts anyone ? </p>
<p>This</a> is why it's time to make college more affordable | The White House</p>
<p>^He is going to speak at Buffalo tomorrow.</p>
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Is the assumption that more college degrees will increase earnings and employment? Not buying it here.</p>
<p>Sometimes I wonder whether different parts of the executive branch talk to each other…
[Table</a> 9. Employment and total job openings by education, work experience, and on-the-job training category, 2010 and projected 2020](<a href=“http://bls.gov/news.release/ecopro.t09.htm]Table”>http://bls.gov/news.release/ecopro.t09.htm)</p>
<p>How has the President “doubled Pell grants”? Do they mean twice as many students qualify for Pell?</p>
<p>“Under the Presidents leadership, the number of Pell Grant recipients has expanded by 50 percent over that same time”</p>
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<p>The above is from the White House Higher Education web page. Ummm … that’s not doubling. (P.S. More Pell recipients could possibly be a result of a bad economy in which more people qualified for Pell …)</p>
<p>The part of the proposal that I thought was interesting was that financial aid would be restricted at institutions that “did not do their fair share” of keeping costs low. </p>
<p>So…if your school doesnt produce the numbers, their students wouldnt get aid (or somehow it would be reduced).</p>
<p>^ It remains to be seen whether Congress will buck the higher ed lobby and put teeth in that proposal. The rating plan seems good to me, but I didn’t hear any substantive ideas for university cost control. And we are still operating in the realm of fantasy with respect to future job requirements.</p>
<p>I would be concerned that driving costs down will mean that full-time faculty positions will be even rarer in the future than they are now. I just see “my kid was taught by nothing but part-time adjuncts” written all over this proposal.</p>
<p>Also, when they offer Pell Grants to unemployed adults who are unemployed and go back to community or a four year college, those adults are no longer “unemployed.” This makes the unemployment numbers lower. I know of some adults who are in their 40s who went back to school and received these Pell Grants. One is studying Women’s Studies not to get a job but to get the extra cash to help pay for her apartment. It doesn’t seem right that people are using college ed money as a welfare payment/unemployment check.</p>