AKA Review - 09.22.2023

From The New York Times
Americans Are Losing Faith in the Value of College. Whose Fault is That?
By Paul Tough

The college wage premium measures the gap between incomes of college graduates and high-school grads. In every racial group and generation, college grads earn more. Yet this benefit evaporates when one looks instead at the wealth premium—how much net wealth college graduates accumulate over their lifetimes. The culprit is debt accumulated for college—a burden that falls most heavily on students who borrow for college but don’t graduate—some 40% by some estimates and more likely to be Black or Latino students. Read this article.

From The Chronicle of Higher Education

Has A Ticking Time Bomb for Academic Freedom Finally Exploded?

By Len Gutkin

To protect academic freedom, a 2006 Supreme Court decision limiting 1st Amendment protections for public employees speaking as part of their job duties created an exception for public-college faculty speech, naming research and teaching specifically. But what about intramural speech, "not involving disciplinary expertise but instead about the action, policy, or personnel of a faculty member’s home institution"? A recent Federal court decision, described in this article, imperils the 2006 exception. Read this article.

From Education Next
What It Would Mean to Abolish the U.S. Department of Education
By Frederick Hess
How seriously we should take today’s G.O.P. calls to abolish Department of Education given that in the four decades since the founding of DOE, Republicans have yet to follow through and Federal education spending has increased under both parties’ control? Not much. Given widespread public support for spending more on education, even among Republicans, talk of eliminating the DOE is little more than hollow chatter and symbolic gestures. Read this article.

From McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
Introducing Our University's New Executive Vice President of Saving Money

By Talia Argondezzi

"As many of you know, the university is facing unprecedented budget shortfalls. These shortfalls aren’t directly your fault, but to be honest, it is you who will absorb the consequences of our lack of funds. That said, please know we think you’re doing a fantastic job." Perhaps we should all let our Chronicle subscriptions lapse and read McSweeney’s instead Read this article.