Education

A current news article to open things up. Kitzhaber announced Friday a plan. It states, “The order creates a temporary board that could eventually run K-12 schools, community colleges and public universities.

http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2011/02/11/kitzhaber-plans-education-overhaul.html

Lecture and Nonprofit Nation: Education and Research

            The three major components of nonprofit education are elementary and secondary schools, college and universities, and research organizations. Reading through the chapter, it was interesting to read that 10 percent of America’s K- 12 students attend private schools. I wonder if that number is growing or decreasing as the economy is has been hurting. Or maybe there has been no change at all because most kids that attend private schools come from wealthier families. I did not realize that almost fifty percent of students who attend public postsecondary schools go to a two-year community or junior college. That is a surprising fact because of how many students’ public universities enroll. It may be because after the two years of community college, those students then go to the four-year schools to finish up. As I was reading this chapter I began to think about funding at the University of Oregon. Just today I read an article about this in the Daily Emerald. Though I was not surprised, the three most expensive buildings are athletic buildings. Now I know that the university would never want to turn down private donations, but we have seen that almost all of the money has gone to the athletic department. I am interested to see how far this will go. Will funding to the athletic department help to get money to academics? Or will it run academics dry? In the article there was a plea from a mathematics professor for more money to academics. He said that he just wanted money for scholarships and research funds. A very small amount compared to what is going into the sports here.

            Around the 1900’s, more and more public universities were started because of land grants. The universities were mainly agriculture, engineering and mechanical schools. After World War II higher education grew again because of the GI Bill. There has been a huge increase in higher education funding and enrolment in the last fifty years. A college degree has slowly become a standard stipulation for jobs, it is not becoming a masters degree to reach the next professional level….which is great for us because grad school is so cheap. Ha.

Other Readings:

Subprime Opportunity

            I like how this article/newsletter started out with a few bullet points titled ‘to the point’. That helped me stay engaged as I began to read this article.

            As I began to read this article I couldn’t help but remember a conversation I had yesterday with a gentleman that went to Harvard. We were talking about higher education and the real need for reform in this country. He stated that his education might not have been any higher quality than most schools in the country. One of the reasons that people attend certain programs within schools like Harvard or Yale is to become part of the ‘club’. Kids at a ripe age of 18 go into massive amounts of debt trying to get into this club when they may not be financially able. It was an interesting conversation that I was reminded of as I read this article.

            The article had a strong opening statement when it stated that because of lax regulation, the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. This is a sad but true part of our society, it is imperative that there is equal opportunity for all citizens.

Fed up at the University of Phoenix

            300,000 students. I don’t really know who would expect a quality education with numbers that big, and paying private school rates, its just crazy. Actually I just checked that number and the University of Phoenix enrolls almost 500,000 students, but 300,000 fulltime. I can see how it became a fad all over the country. It seems very east to get an education, but the problems are now coming out seeing that many corners were cut.

Final Articles

            The last two articles were very interesting. One of them discussed that for-profit education could be the next bubble to burst in 2011. We see how this could happen when education like the University of Phoenix is becoming more of an issue. The other article discussed the two types of for-profit schools: the first is a school that operates as a business and ‘attempts to make a profit’, the other is an educational management organization.

That’s it.

Cheers.