The University of California at Berkeley recently announced a financial restructuring due to mounting structural deficits, including a US$150 million shortfall in the current budget year. All areas of university’s operations – academic, administrative and athletic – will likely face spending cuts. Higher education experts have begun to ask if Berkeley can stay Berkeley. From […] … learn more→
Monthly Archives: February 2016

What Berkeley’s budget cuts tell us about America’s public universities

Five abiding academic fears
The latest book manuscript disappears. It’s almost done and it would be unbearable to lose it. I can’t even comprehend coming back from the loss, having to rewrite it all. But it won’t happen. It really won’t. No, really. I have multiple copies, the publishers have a first version, as do reviewers, it’s in the cloud, it’s […] … learn more→

Why UK universities are returning to the public debt markets
The University of Leeds has recently become the latest higher education institution to raise money by issuing a public bond. The bond is worth £250m, has a maturity date of 2050 and a fixed interest rate of 3.125%. The ability to raise low-cost funding through issuing a public bond – essentially a long-term loan at […] … learn more→

Academic freedom in conformist cimes
Joanna Williams’ new book is a welcome broadside against the barbarians in the academy. … learn more→

Campus criminality: 40% of debtors weren’t educated about loans
Time and again I’ve claimed that many of our institutions of higher education, whether state, non-profit, or for-profit, are basically scams that exist only to suck students in, fleece them of their student loan money, and spit them out. I’ve backed up my claims with extensive documentation, from community colleges run almost completely fraudulently (yes, […] … learn more→

Every trader needs to learn Forex trading
After developing an interest in online trading, it is important for every trader to learn Forex trading. There are some good, efficient ways to learn online and we can all agree that learning is a vital step for all the beginners. Let us begin with the understanding of why education is so important. Why it’s […] … learn more→

A big change to student aid you’ve never heard of
The Obama administration has a smart way to address one of the biggest flaws in a $20 billion college aid program, which would help millions of low-income undergraduates pay for school. The proposal hasn’t gotten any attention because it involves an obscure accounting switch and was buried in the president’s final budget — in a […] … learn more→

Asian cities tussle for top spot in new education ranking as London left behind
Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai have come top of a new ranking of how teenagers in cities and states around the world perform on global maths, reading and science tests. London, despite showing a marked improvement in domestic exam results in recent years, has not come out highly on the ranking. The Programme for International […] … learn more→

Apple versus FBI: All Writs Act’s age should not bar its use
A federal magistrate judge in California has issued a warrant ordering Apple to assist the FBI in accessing data on an iPhone used by a suspect in the December 2015 San Bernardino mass shooting. Apple’s public refusal to comply with the order – and its motion asking a judge to reverse the order – has […] … learn more→

How Universities squelch investigation
Many university campuses have huge, long-running, scandals involving fraud; I’ve highlighted quite a few of these in this blog, and the common line of “after more than 10 years of claims by whistleblowers…” that appears in these scandals really begs the question: why do these scandals take so long before becoming public knowledge? Once you […] … learn more→