Aram Zucker-Scharff

“Fifty percent of the class of 2011 was unemployed or dramatically underemployed. In another survey, only 16 percent of employers reported that new hires from four-year colleges were “very qualified” for the workforce. Academically, one study showed that only 45 percent of students showed any meaningful cognitive gains after three semesters. Regardless of what one considers the purpose of college to be, it is clear that costly dysfunction is plaguing the system.”

– “Colleges Need To Eliminate Inefficiencies To Survive“ 

[TW: Rape] Yale Fined for Underreporting Campus Rape:

sinidentidades:

The Department of Education is fining Yale $165,000 for underreporting sexual assault on campus. The fine is the result of a seven-year federal investigation prompted by a Yale alumni magazine article. It found the school failed to report four “forcible sex offenses” to the DOE in 2001 and 2002, as the 1990 Clery Act requires colleges to do. Having corrected its record and revised its reporting policy, Yale now says it will appeal the fine. 

A University spokesperson told Businessweek the school believes the fine is too large, considering “the particular situations that resulted in findings of violations.” With Yale tuition and housing now at $58,600, the fine amounts to less than it costs one person to attend the school and is .0085 percent of its $19.3 billion endowment. We can probably expect to see more of this kind of story as student activists file Clery Act complaints at schools like Occidental, Swarthmore, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Yale joins the ever growing number of universities fined for under-reporting campus rape. The true numbers likely larger still.

“The issue is being exacerbated by an explosion in the $150 billion private market for student debt with interest rates for some existing loans surpassing 12 percent.” – Combined private and federal student debt doubled since 2007 to $1.1 trillion.

“It’s all smoke and mirrors in some ways, the issue of tuition and fees […] It seems to be one area of the academic world where no one is looking and no one wants to look too closely.” – Course Load: The Growing Burden of College Fees – at Pr…