EMUtalk.org » Budgets

“Texas A&M System Will Rate Professors Based on Their Bottom-Line Value”

sitedad — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 12:33:34 +0000

Here’s an idea that makes the proposal the administration floated in contract negotiations about tying faculty raises to enrollments and state funding seem positively quaint: From The Chronicle, “Texas A&M System Will Rate Professors Based on Their Bottom-Line Value.” A quote:

Under the proposal, officials will add the money generated by each professor and [...]

“The Complete Guide to Saving Money on Textbooks”

sitedad — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:30:53 +0000

I’m not sure how many EMUTalk.org readers are students (I sense more faculty, staff, and administrators around here), nor am I vetting the accuracy of these ideas, but Lifehacker is one of my favorite blogs, and this advice in “The Complete Guide to Saving Money on Textbooks” seems useful to me.

“Why Does College Cost So Much?”

sitedad — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:34:16 +0000

I’ve come across a couple of interesting articles analyzing the reasons why higher education is so expensive, especially relative to other things that people value. This article in Forbes.com, “Why Does College Cost So much?” is a summary of a forthcoming book by Robert Archibald and David Feldman, and it rings true to me.

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Say, anybody go to the picnic?

sitedad — Mon, 24 May 2010 21:06:50 +0000

I’m back in town and (very VERY slowly) getting back into the swing of things, and I stumbled across this Echo story, “Free food, sun draw crowd to campus picnic.” The EMU home page is rotating some images in the masthead, but no pictures with this article.

I was struck by this sentence: “Unofficial [...]

Just how much is that 0/0/0 % campaign costing EMU?

sitedad — Sat, 01 May 2010 15:34:52 +0000

According to this AP article/blurb, about $320,000. Frankly, that strikes me as a pretty good deal.

“DIY U: Is There a Bubble in the Higher Education Market?”

sitedad — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:06:30 +0000

One of the mailing lists I follow posted this the other day, a blog entry from Michael Feldstein (who is a “Principal Product Manager for Academic Enterprise Solutions at Oracle”), “DIY U: Is There a Bubble in the Higher Education Market?” He’s making reference here to a book called DIY U, which is basically [...]

I wonder how long 0/0/0 has been in the works?

sitedad — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 18:06:53 +0000

Let me say again at the outset that I do support the decision to freeze tuition and fees at EMU for 2010 for all sorts of obvious reasons. I’m just a little worried about it for all sorts of other reasons, and I am now also wondering just how long this idea has been [...]

The rising cost of public higher education

sitedad — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:33:45 +0000

This informative chart from the usually funny PHD Comics offers a compelling explanation as to why the cost of higher education is rising so quickly:

I think it leaves two things out: first, since the 1980s, states have been trying to get out of the higher education “business,” which is why most universities– [...]

“Layoffs Without ‘Financial Exigency’”

sitedad — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:20:36 +0000

Not that I want to give the Board of Regents any ideas, but remember that whole bit about how tenured faculty can’t get fired unless the institution is about to go broke? Well, Inside Higher Ed’s “Layoffs Without ‘Financial Exigency’” suggests not so much. Here’s a long opening quote from the article:

One of [...]

” Public Agenda survey finds deep skepticism” (with college leaders, that is)

sitedad — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:54:44 +0000

This was forwarded to a mailing list I’m on in my field, but I thought it was really quite relevant here: “Public Agenda survey finds deep skepticism” is from the Washington Post blog “College Inc., ” which is an interesting blog about the business of higher education. The subtitle of the piece is “An [...]