(I’m listening to Mike Myers’ book about Canada right now, which makes me all the more aware that “In Defense of Free Parking” may be the most American headline I’ve ever written.) My college has free parking, which is not common among public colleges. It’s facing some long-term budget issues, as I may have mentioned once or twice. Every so often, someone suggests charging for parking. Context matters. This is a non-residential campus -- no dorms -- so everyone has to get here and get back daily. It’s in a suburban location with plenty of land, and more parking spaces than get used. (At peak times, the only open spaces are farther out than some folks like, but they’re there.) It’s in an area with limited public transportation. It was built in the 1960’s, on the assumption that everyone would drive. One of the branch campuses isn’t accessible at all by public transportation. In other words, a parking charge wouldn’t be in the service of allocating ...
My erstwhile Massachusetts colleague Lane Glenn, president of Northern Essex Community College, posted a thought-provoking piece about public higher ed funding over the weekend. Some of it is state-specific, such as the reference to “9C” cuts (midyear cuts to appropriated allocations). But the conclusion strikes me as applicable, and challenging, across the country. Glenn writes: So, rather than spend more time haggling over how to allocate diminishing resources through a formula that will never work effectively; the best way forward for our campuses and our students lies in creating a new social compact for community colleges in the Commonwealth that relies on partnering with policymakers, employers, and supportive organizations like the Boston Foundation and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation to help us transition into our new role as public-private colleges with increased attention to fundraising, employer sponsorships, return on investment, entrepreneurial business model...
I was surprised to see the headline “Why Teaching Engineering Costs More than Teaching English,” but not because the content was surprising. I was surprised that it was news. The recent piece summarizes a report from the National Bureau of Economic Research. It makes the point that classes in some fields are more expensive to run than others, with the more STEM or vocational classes generally running more expensive (with the notable exception of math). Faithful readers may remember this paragraph from a post this summer entitled “Things That Seem Obvious:” “Hard” vocational programs are more expensive to run than “soft” academic ones. The least expensive classes to run are the ones that can run well with thirty students per section, and without any specialized equipment. That tends to describe the Intro to Psychs of the world. Hands-on classes in vocational areas require more equipment, more people to tend the equipment, and more instructors per student...
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