The New York Times reports on the painful cost-cutting measures that Harvard has undertaken in these terrible times:
Gone are the hot breakfasts in most dorms and the pastries at Widener Library. Varsity athletes are no longer guaranteed free sweat suits, and just this week came the jarring news that professors will go without cookies at [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'Harvard'
The Limits of Financial Aid Policies
The halftime festivities of many big-time college basketball games feature a contest in which one student gets the opportunity to sink a halfcourt shot or series of shots for a chance to win a car or some other large prize. Paying off a winning prize is expensive, but the organizer doesn’t really have to worry [...]
Casting Stones Etc.
I haven’t read This Republic of Suffering but everyone seems to think it’s very good and that Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust is an exceptional scholar. So perhaps she’s just out her element in the short essay form and that explains the incoherence of this piece in yesterday’s New York Times Book Review, where Faust [...]
The Oddly Selfless Use of University Endowments
Like many organizations, colleges and universities are feeling the effects of the battered economy–revenues are down or growing less quickly, forcing higher education leaders to confront the possibility of layoffs and other painful austerity measures. A relatively small number of institutions, however, have the good fortune to be sitting on gigantic piles of money in [...]
Go, Grassley, Go!
As college endowments rose dramatically over the last several years, higher education leaders explained low endowment payout rates as savings for hard times. The rates would inherently rise, they said, when the market turned sour. The market’s as curdled as it’s been in decades, but a survey released today ($) found less than four percent [...]
Harvard’s Endowment Falls to $29 Billion
Even after large stock market losses, if Harvard paid out five percent of its endowment–a requirement for all private foundations except those of colleges and universities–it would increase the school’s budget by $214 million.
They’ve suffered a large financial loss on paper, but so have the rest of us, and lawmakers shouldn’t let the economic downturn [...]
Candor
In a discussion about the use of standardized college admissions test, William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions at Harvard university, says:
“At Harvard we get terrific students, and we turn out terrific students later on. Is that due to Harvard or is that due to the students to begin with? Who knows?”
I appreciate honesty and candor [...]
How to Know Your "Merit" Financial Aid Is Out of Whack
Last night my wife and I were sipping adult beverages at a swanky Georgetown pizza and beer joint. This is Georgetown, not exactly your local Pizza Hut. I overheard the couple next to us talking about Harvard’s financial aid plan. He was describing how it works:
He: Students under $60,000 pay no tuition.
He [...]
Harvard and the Myth of Tightening College Admissions
The New York Times reports today that applications to Harvard are up an amazing 19% over last year, with other elite schools like the University of Chicago, Amherst, and Northwestern seeing double-digit increases. This allows newspapers to get a jump on the annual circulation-goosing college admissions panic story, which usually doesn’t run for another few [...]
Undeserved Publicity for Harvard
The Wall Street Journal is flashing the headline “Harvard Cuts Undergrad Prices” at the top of its Web site at the moment, along with an article that begins:
Harvard University sweetened its financial aid for middle class and upper middle-class families, responding to criticism that elite colleges have become unaffordable for ordinary Americans.
That’s almost right, except [...]
Investing in Harvard Graduates (for real)
Richard Vedder offers some fairly radical ideas about how higher education financial aid could be different, particularly at elite schools:
Rich schools like Harvard, Yale and Princeton should let students in for free in exchange for a share of student earnings beyond subsistence for X number of years after graduation. In other words, Harvard should buy [...]
Panic! At the Rich Suburban High School
Q: When does a tiny statistical change in a number that affects a miniscule number of people merit breathless coverage in the New York Times?
A: When the number has something–anything–to do with Harvard and the status anxieties the suburban upper-middle class.
In an uncharacteristic display of restraint, the Times ran it’s annual exercise in college admissions [...]
Davidson says goodbye to loans (well, mostly)
Davidson may have lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament, but it is winning headlines with today’s announcement that it will eliminate loans from its financial aid packages. Effective this fall, students will no longer need to borrow to afford a Davidson education (but “families may still choose to take out education [...]
Dropping Harvard
The Civil Rights Project is dropping Harvard to move across the country to its new home at UCLA, where it will focus its efforts on immigrant and Latino issues.
A win for California and UCLA, who picks up not only CRP co-founder Gary Orfield but also Orfield’s new wife, UC-Davis professor and associate director of the [...]
A New Twist on Summers
The Chronicle of Higher Education has published juicy sections of the conclusion to former Dean of Harvard College Harry R. Lewis’ forthcoming book Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education. Lewis, the Dean from 1995 until he was forced out by Larry Summers because of “organizational restructuring” in 2003 (though still a [...]
Lowering Student Loan Default Rates: What One Consortium of Historically Black Institutions Did to Succeed 
College and Career-Ready: Using Outcomes Data to Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success
03/19/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on college graduation rates and the NCAA Tournament in the Detroit Free Press.
03/19/10 | Linda Perlstein links to Education Sector's "College- and Career-Ready" event.
03/17/10 | Ben Miller's column on graduation rates and NCAA Tournament eligibility is mentioned on The Wall Street Journal's The Daily Fix.
03/17/10 | Kevin Carey's critique of Diane Ravitch's latest book is quoted in Doublethink's Conventional Folly blog.
03/15/10 | Ben Miller pens an op-ed for US News & World Report on using graduation rates to determine NCAA Tournament eligibility.