Rising Public College Tuition: The Slow Boil

At their September 2014 meeting, the Regents of the University of California voted to award pay increases by as much as 20% to administrators at Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Merced, and Riverside. In addition, they set the new UC Irvine chancellor’s salary at $485,000. A short few months later, the UC Regents announced a plan to increase tuition on students by 5% each year for the next 5 years due to insufficient funds.

Predictably, these contradictory moves did not sit well with students. In November 2014, at the UC Regents meeting where they would vote on the proposal, the Regents were met with protesters from across the UC system in the culmination of a week-long series of rallies. Despite opposition from state officials on the board, including Governor Brown, Lieutenant Governor Newsom, and Speaker Atkins, the proposal passed with flying colors. Tuition was set to increase for all UC students for each of the following five years.

This narrative is not unique – Even as the value of a bachelor’s degree decreases, the costs of getting one continue to increase. Tuition has been rising in public universities and institutions of higher education all around the country.

There’s an age-old anecdote that describes how a frog placed in boiling water will leap out, but a frog placed in water that is then slowly heated will gradually be boiled alive. Tuition increases have operated under a similar system, withincremental hikes occurring consistently but sparingly and in such a way that, by the time the next major tuition hike rolls around, the students who dealt with the previous one have either already graduated or are about to. These incremental tuition hikes can create the illusion of a “sustainability plan” in the short term, but when examining tuition increases in the long term and observing how student fees at many universities have literally tripled since 2000, it becomes clear that universities are effectively putting a lid on the proverbial boiling frog pot.

Even as tuition continues to rise, many student aid programs are being cut. The Pell Grant, the most coveted federal student aid grant, has fallen from covering around 77 percent of the average annual cost of college in 1980 to about 36 percent today. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress have pushed for budget plans that would eliminate guaranteed funding of the grants. The grants have not adjusted to inflation over the years and are subject to policies that further lower qualifying family income levels.

Adding tuition and subtracting aid creates a logical yet quintessentially disastrous solution: more students taking out loans to pay for college. Total student loan debt has passed a trillion dollars, leading many to name it the next major economic crisis. An entire generation of young achievers is drowning in the debt accumulated to get the degrees needed to qualify for even entry-level jobs, leaving them weighed down and with limited opportunities and capacities to fully engage in the market. The housing market has already felt the impacts of this as the young people generally most prone to buy new houses are often no longer able to. The inability of an entire age bracket to fully engage in the economy will have disastrous implications for the future of the country.

At each compounding level, the situation seems to be growing worse. The only source of reassurance would be if colleges and universities were rapidly adapting to the changing climate of student fees and growing more frugal, accordingly. This does not necessarily appear to be the case.

Across university systems, it is difficult to find truly groundbreaking efforts to cut costs, lift the burden of higher education off of students’ wallets, and bequeath it once more upon the state. Criticism of university spending often draws attention to administrative salaries. The average college president makes more than $400,000 these days, a number that is steadily increasing. Administrative salaries have come under special criticism as it becomes more apparent that the highest positions are often primarily political. Former Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Former Acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank, now the President of the UC System and the Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, respectively, could not more clearly demonstrate this.

Cutting salaries of the highest-ranking officials in universities alone will not solve the tuition crisis. However, it would be a brilliant first step, and it would look much better for these already political institutions than if they continue this parade of inflating administrative salaries while simultaneously claiming to not have sufficient funds to keep tuition affordable. In order to truly prevent college affordability from developing into the next major economic crisis, states must be more willing to fund public education and universities must spend more efficiently.

At the University of California, after months of student protests and lobbying visits to legislative offices, Governor Brown ultimately released a budget that kept tuition frozen for in-state students. However, the plan allows an 8% annual increase in fees for nonresident students and calls for tuition hikes for all students once again in two years. Students nationwide are fighting tuition increases, and many of them are succeeding, but in order to stop the water from boiling altogether, long-term solutions must be developed. From acquiring more state funds by fixing corporate property tax loopholes such as California’sProposition 13 to adopting Scandinavian or German systems of higher education funding, many viable options exist. Students can no longer work their way through college as current lawmakers once could. Higher education has evolved over the decades from being a public good to a private commodity for the wealthy, and unless that changes, an entire generation will be trapped, frogs in a pot.

This post was edited by LinkedIn Campus Editor Dahlia Peterson. 
Rigel Robinson is Vice President of Membership at Cal Berkeley Democrats. Follow him on Twitter: @rigelrobinson.

Starbucks Pays Your Tuition, Why Narcissists Get the Job & Other News You Can't Miss Today

TUITION ON ME – Soon it won't be just customers cramming for finals late at night in a Starbucks. After gun culture, gay rights or Washington gridlock, CEO Howard Schulz is taking on the issue of student debt and low college completion rates. Starbucks will pay tuition for its employees seeking to complete a Bachelor's degree from Arizona State University's online program, the company announced last night in a blog post. Starbucks says 70 percent of its workforce are students or aspiring students and notes that tuition has increased 80% in the past decade, "twice the inflation rate of gas, housing and healthcare." The company will pay full tuition for juniors and seniors and partial scholarships and financial aid for freshmen and sophomores who enroll in ASU's online programs across the US. All employees in company-operated stores working more than 20 hours a week are eligible and do not need to commit to staying on with Starbucks or study in fields aligned with the company needs.

The benefits to Starbucks' employer brand and employee retention rates, and even to its consumer brand, are obvious. As for ASU, it expects 15,000 to 20,000 new students and has added 50 teachers and counselors to receive them, the Wall Street Journal reports. A debate will surely ensue on the value of an online degree as opposed to in-class experience, but that stigma is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Let's not be cynical: this seems just pretty good news for 135,000 U.S. Starbucks employees. CEOs out there, pay attention.

GAS ON YOU – Ukraine says Russia has turned off its gas supply after a payment deadline passed and no deal was reached in overnight negotiations. Gas sold to Western Europe transits through Ukraine and that supply is not affected, Russian energy giant Gazprom says. There is no immediate danger to the continent's energy supply, but it could affect the buildup of gas stocks for the winter should the crisis last. Natural gas prices have gone up in Europe – they were particularly low until now thanks to a mild winter – over fears of a third "gas war" in 8 years between the two countries. Each have prompted cries over Europe's urgent need to secure its energy independence from Russia, as will a new summit next week – at current rates, the EU estimates 80% of its energy will be dependent on foreign supply by 2035.

MIRROR MIRROR – Forget everything Mom told you about being humble and succeeding with modesty: the job usually goes to the one who brags loudest, says a new study by the University of British Columbia. When faced with two applicants with equal experience and qualifications, the interviewer will usually pick the more narcissistic of the two, found UBC psychology professor Del Paulhus. The interview room is one place where usual social rules don't apply, he says: what is a turn-off in normal conversation becomes a sign of confidence and competence in a job interview. Paulhus found this had negative consequences for candidates from cultures where modesty is at a premium (East Asia), at least when they interview in North America. It doesn't seem far-fetched to extend that conclusion to women, who as little girls were often told "not to brag." Oh well, I'm still on team humility, as long as it isn't self-deprecation. As is Influencer Bernard Marr.

IF YOU READ JUST TWO STORIES – Lots of chatter about Tim Cook today witha New York Times profile of the elusive Apple CEO and an interesting blog post. Both depict Cook as the operations man who excels where Steve Jobs lacked and now seeks to outsource the creative spark to replace Jobs', which he simply can't mimic. In the New York Times, Matt Richtel and Brian X. Chen write:

Mr. Cook is amassing a creative brain trust, according to Bono, the lead singer of the band U2, who befriended Mr. Jobs and worked closely with him and Apple’s team on developing a U2-branded iPod, as well as on charitable work in Africa. Mr. Cook is not saying “I’m here to replace him,” said Bono, who is a managing director and co-founder of the venture capital firm Elevation Partners. “He’s saying, ‘I’ll try to replace him with five people.’ It explains the acquisition of Beats.” (Read the full profile.)

Daring Fireball's John Gruber echoes:

When Cook succeeded Jobs, the question we all asked was more or less binary: Would Apple decline without Steve Jobs? What seems to have gone largely unconsidered is whether Apple would thrive with Cook at the helm, achieving things the company wasn’t able to do under the leadership of the autocratic and mercurial Jobs.

Jobs was a great CEO for leading Apple to become big. But Cook is a great CEO for leading Apple now that it is big, to allow the company to take advantage of its size and success.Matt Drance said it, and so will I: What we saw last week at WWDC 2014 would not have happened under Steve Jobs.

This is not to say Apple is better off without Steve Jobs. But I do think it’s becoming clear that the company, today, might be better off with Tim Cook as CEO. If Jobs were still with us, his ideal role today might be that of an éminence grise, muse and partner to Jony Ive in the design of new products, and of course public presenter extraordinaire. Chairman of the board, with Cook as CEO, running the company much as he actually is today. (Read the full essay.)

Will you take advantage of Starbucks' tuition plan? Has your modesty hurt you in job interviews? If you have insider knowledge of these or other topics in the news today, write your own post explaining what's happening. Share the URL here in the comments mentioning me or tweet @LinkedInPulse. (Want to write, but don't yet have access?Leave your info here.)

Photo: Fran Simo/Flickr

Tuition Cuts?

There continues to be much talk about tuition cuts.

In a recent report on the state of legal education, Moody's, the credit rating service, noted in passing that tuition cuts are not necessarily an effective tactic for improving enrollment. The rationale is important for people to understand. (Although the Moody's report concerned law schools, most of what was said extends to other types of schools as well.)

Tuition cuts might not be all that they appear to be. The reason is virtually all institutions of higher education already discount tuition to a great extent. Almost all of them also are tuition dependent: Their operating budget comes from what students pay them.

That is the case for the highly-regarded and the not so reputable. Public institutions and those that value public service typically return a significant amount of their tuition revenue to their students in the form of need-based financial aid. Other schools that wish to recruit highly-credentialed students award scholarships on the basis of those metrics. Some of the moneys for these purposes may come from endowments, but much of it comes from what students themselves are putting into the coffers.

Whether it is meant to help many students by offering the opportunity for higher education or buy a few of them by rewarding earlier academic records, the budgetary consequence is the same. As with most other ventures, there is a difference between gross and net.

So a tuition cut may well leave many, perhaps most, individuals worse off as compared to the baseline. Here are the consequences of a cut to tuition.

Assume before it publicizes a cut, a school has a program oriented toward need-based grants. It may be giving as many as three-quarters of its students such packages. Only a quarter of them are paying the full sticker price. Three-quarters pay less; the one-quarter make that possible.

Now after a cut, that school has two choices. (We can put to the side the equivalent of money falling from the sky: alternate revenue sources. They exist, but they usually are an order of magnitude less than what would be needed to offset significant tuition decreases.)

The first option is a real cut. The school could reduce expenditures in a manner commensurate to its loss of total tuition coming in. To be pointed about what that means: Since human resources are the bulk of the budget, such a real cut means faculty, staff, or both, would have to be paid less or be laid off. Savings from the non-personnel share of the budget are not likely to be sufficient to make ends meet.

The second option is the illusion of a "cut." The school could reduce what insiders call the "discount rate" to exactly the amount that makes up for the tuition drop. Again to be pointed about what that means: Given that most students previously received generous grants, most of them end up actually paying more. The students who were not receiving grants prior are the only ones who in fact benefit.

To illustrate it with numbers, consider the simplest possible example. Suppose Acme Law School had two students (in this hypothetical, each of them stands in for hundreds who are treated identically); and a "rack rate" of $50,000 per year. Alpha, who is impoverished, receives a $10,000 grant; Bravo, who is well-to-do, receives no grant.

The real cost of attendance for a year (not including living expenses) is as follows. Alpha expends $40,000 ($50,000 tuition less a grant); Bravo, $50,000 (the stated tuition with no break).

Imagine then Acme Law School announces a tuition cut of 10 percent or $5,000. Its new, much-praised "flat rate" is $45,000.

But the leaders of Acme Law School do not wish to affect its programs. That frames their intentions in the most positive terms. They need to maintain the same overall revenue the school was receiving from Alpha and Bravo notwithstanding the cut, which is $90,000 (the $40,000 from the former plus the $50,000 from the latter).

Accordingly, to achieve their goals, they direct that the financial aid program be zeroed out. Alpha and Bravo each pay $45,000. The school receives $90,000 as it always has. Transaction costs are lowered as a side benefit.

Look at what has happened to Alpha and Bravo. They have switched places. Alpha pays more than before, $45,000 instead of $40,000; Bravo pays less, $45,000 instead of $50,000. Alpha has a subsidy taken away; Bravo benefits.

Note too this is not ideological. If you object to Alpha receiving need-based financial aid to begin with, change the example to a credentials-based scholarship. So in this variation, Alpha, who has scored at the top of the range on standardized tests and been valedictorian from her undergraduate alma mater, would have been offered a $10,000 scholarship. That is eliminated with the tuition cut.

Thus, at a school that has announced a tuition cut, there must be, sooner or later, an announcement of the real cut that matches it. Absent that, the inference that can be made is that only the illusion of a cut has been presented. It is marketing, puffery, call it what you will.

The same can be said of flat-rate tuition programs more generally. It's no different than flat-rate taxation proposals. The resulting flat-rate may or may not be a better deal than varying rates, depending on a student's individual situation.

All of the above is exacerbated by the lower levels of enrollment at law schools. A school trying to balance its budget, as all of them need to do, can compensate for lower enrollment with higher tuition, or vice versa. But simultaneous downward trends on enrollment and tuition cannot be sustained without even greater real cuts to spending, financial aid, or both.

Whatever people think about the cost of higher education, it is important to understand the choices that decision makers face. Much of what looks like reform may be symbolic.

PS I agree with the comments. The high cost of higher education is its major problem. My point is some remedies are real; others are panaceas. A reduction in revenue (whether by cutting enrollment or tuition) must be matched by a reduction in expenditures (and most spending is payroll); otherwise, it isn't meaningful.

Photo: snvv / Shutterstock

Facebook has the answer: Why parents are turning to online tuition

Mobile learning and education has, in a relatively short amount of time, completely changed student-teacher and parent-teacher relationships. iPads are becoming ubiquitous in the classroom, while Skype is proving popular as a medium for parent-teacher conferences and meetings. Now, it’s being taken a step further – The Straits Times recently reported on parents who are now turning to online tuition through mobile apps and social media to help their children with their homework or Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) preparations.

Parents snap photos of worksheets, exam papers or assignments and post them in dedicated Facebook groups. Members of the group will then post photo comments with illustrated solutions and explanations using models, graphs or equations. This up-and-coming trend has seen at least five such Facebook pages emerging over the last three years, mostly for English, Mathematics and Science, with some seeing up to 20 questions posted up daily.

Similarly, EduSnap, a mobile app with an estimated 10,000 users in Singapore, allows parents to upload pictures of questions and receive answers for free, according to The Straits Times report. The solutions are from teachers and tutors from tuition centres and voluntary welfare organisations, and they answer up to 150 questions daily.

With more parents becoming tech- and social media-savvy nowadays – a 2014 Google study revealed that Singapore has the highest smartphone penetration in the world – this seems like a logical solution (no pun intended).

It makes sense: online tuition provides support at almost any hour of the day, particularly with some students doing homework late into the night. Chances are, there will be someone online at the time to help them out. Furthermore, they are able to seek the help of an active learning and sharing community made up of educators and like-minded parents, and will even receive advice on whether the questions are too challenging for their child’s age level, like the Maths Model Method - Singapore Facebook page claims to do.

While there is no running away from the “tuition culture” in Singapore that prepares our students for an undoubtedly demanding education system, perhaps the only concern is that the convenience, efficiency and ready availability of such online services will lead to students and parents being increasingly dependent on others doing the legwork for them, instead of trying to work out answers on their own (that is partly why EduSnap imposes a 3-question limit per day). Especially with the instant gratification one expects from social media – on Facebook, they are able to receive answers within the hour, as one parent told The Straits Times.

Nevertheless, these Facebook groups do provide a unifying platform for students, parents and educators to impart knowledge, share insights and more importantly, understand the challenges and pressures that many students across all levels are currently facing. After all – going beyond the fact that these groups were set up primarily to provide help with homework assignments – social media is meant to connect people across different backgrounds, ethnicities, social statuses and education levels. Our students need all the help they can get, and resources like these are most welcome indeed.

Impacting behavior and user tracking by randomizing device MAC addresses

Every network device typically has at least one  MAC (Media Access Control) address.  These addresses are unique and assigned by the vendor when the device is created.  When you connect to a wireless or wired network, the MAC address is used to route information locally (or what the network folks would call Layer 2).  Most people are familiar with an IP address, which is a address that allows you to communicate on the Internet.  Your IP address can change and often does.  Let's take your mobile phone for example.  When you connect to a network it will using it's MAC address as an identifier, request an IP address.  When you take your mobile phone and head to your local coffee shop, it will do the same connect to the network and identifying itself using a MAC address and request a IP address which most likely will be different than the IP address you had previously. (for the technical folks, yes I have simplified the description for the purposes of this post). 

One can see that using an IP address to track a particular device is challenging because it changes.  Your MAC address however stays the same.  Many companies have business models based on determining your MAC address and using it to keep track of you and your behaviour. In my example above, if you are using your mobile device to access a particular shopping site while at home and a marketing company records your MAC address and where you were.  When you move to your local coffee shop, I know what you did before and with a large degree of certainty who you are.  What was not common place historically was to change your MAC address.  Many security practitioners will change their MAC address for certain security tests to fool systems upset the tracking ability of a particular target.  It is very easy to change:

Here is the built in MAC address of my wireless:With a simple command we change it:What I am happy to see is that it appears to becoming a standard.  I was installing an upgraded version of a server I have this past weekend.  During the installation, it asked me if I wanted to enable randomization of the MAC addresses.  I said no for the purposes of this server, but what I liked is that they have built in the ability automatically with minimal technical knowledge required.  Apple has also released MAC randomization on their iPhones as of iOS 8 (it has a few bugs), but they will work it out.  

There are of course many other ways to identify a device uniquely.  DHCP requests, HTTPS and other types of behaviour can be used (commonly called fingerprinting today).  But these are more sophisticated methods, requiring not only effort, but advanced analytic and behavioural analysis.  By removing the easy way, we force the industry to invest in research, product development and ultimately advance.  We raise the bar for privacy and we force businesses, law enforcement, market research, and other monitoring type companies to do the same.

From Apple:

MAC Has Real People; Real Opportunities

For decades and counting, recruiters have been impersonal, quick-talking middlemen for clients without the resources to find the people they’re looking for. This paints the picture of greedy ‘flesh-peddlers’, sitting back at their desks, feet up, counting the cash as they smooth-talk their way onto a client’s or candidate’s “good side,” only to turn a profit.

MAC Executive Recruiters works differently. We don’t tote licenses around job posting boards like grimey used-car salesmen puffing cigars and chomping sugar-free gum trying to sell our clients unemployed, underqualified candidates. We have real people, and real opportunities.

Humble Beginnings:

We began in our CEO’s house. We built up to 17 desks jammed into a living room, bedrooms, and a home theater. It wasn’t only a humble beginning, but it was the training-ground for our team, where our experienced owners laid the foundation of teamwork, network, and the excellent hospitality that we provide to every one of our clients and candidates.

Face to Face:

Earlier this year, we launched a new approach that left the middleman feel behind. Our CEO, President, and VPs all began offering Skype calls, interview prep, and even free dress shirts to men and women that we want to see succeed. This wasn’t for our benefit, but for the benefit of the people that we love. We love our clients and candidates because we are a company about giving, not just about getting.

Butts in Seats:

At MAC, we make it happen. And we make it happen fast. We’ve filled positions within a week! We work around the clock, with many of our partners logging hours and making calls outside the office to fit our clients’ and candidates’ schedules. We recognize that this world is big, and we bust ours to make it feel small. Our office is a room of constant chatter, working together to make yours the same: full, hard-working, and happy.

Contact:

If you call, you hear our voices. If you send a message, we get a hold of you. We are working in real time to be a constant contact and resource to any and everyone because at MAC, we want to be a partner, not just a transaction pretending to be a friend.

Join our family and you’ll see why we believe it is great to work with you and for you.

Visit our Company Page HERE.

Feel free to connect with me about business inquiries.