UNIVERSITY SYSTEM NEWS
Www.AtlantaIntownPaper.com
AT&T Foundry innovation center opens in Midtown
http://www.atlantaintownpaper.com/2013/08/att-foundry-innovation-center-opens-in-midtown/
The new AT&T Foundry innovation center adjacent to Georgia Tech opened this week in Midtown. The center will speed up the company’s development of the latest technologies, applications and platforms. The opening marks Atlanta as one of only four global locations chosen for an AT&T Foundry.
Blog.Credit.com
The $7,000 Master’s Degree That’s Scaring Colleges
http://blog.credit.com/2013/08/the-7000-masters-degree-scaring-colleges/#ixzz2dSS1gZ2K
by Mitchell D. Weiss
The Georgia Institute of Technology rocked the higher education world when it announced plans to offer a fully online master’s degree in computer science for roughly one-seventh the price of its on-campus equivalent – less than $7,000. The project is powered by a joint venture with Udacity, an online higher-education course provider that stands to earn 40 percent of the tuition revenues. The AT&T Corporation, which is providing two-thirds of the estimated ramp-up costs, expects to funnel existing employees through the program and recruit new ones at the back-end of it. Reaction to the news has been mixed.
Www.redandblack.com
Out-of-state students: ‘absolutely frustrating’ that HOPE taken for granted
http://www.redandblack.com/ugalife/out-of-state-students-absolutely-frustrating-that-hope-taken-for/article_8b3935dc-1034-11e3-8d54-001a4bcf6878.html
By Chet Martin
In addition to providing tuition for Georgia’s students, the Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally Scholarship Program, commonly known as the HOPE Scholarship, seems to be the state’s top source of anxiety. But the anxiety can be hard for certain out-of-state students to understand. “It’s absolutely frustrating. But that’s what [in-state students] have gotten used to,” said Nikki Hero, a sophomore business major from Charlotte, N.C. “You expect that. I’d never expect that. We don’t even have that kind of opportunity in our own states.”
Www.GPB.org
Young Immigrants In Limbo
http://www.gpb.org/news/2013/08/29/young-immigrants-in-limbo
By Jeanne Bonner
Money keeps many people from getting an education. But it’s especially so for a group of Georgia students whose parents brought them to the U.S. illegally. The state bars them from the top five public colleges and requires them to pay out-of-state tuition at the others. Many put their education dreams on hold or take years to complete a degree. Here are the stories of two undocumented students who should be finishing college this year. Instead, one is just starting while the other is a sophomore at a community college. Life has changed a lot for Martin Lopez-Galicia in the past year. For starters, the 22-year-old undocumented Atlanta resident bought a car and began driving.
OPINIONS/EDITORIALS
Www.Forbes.com
Obama’s Education Agenda Isn’t Radical At All
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ccap/2013/08/29/your-grade-alison-griswold-incomplete-2/
By Daniel L. Bennett
As an instructor, I would have to give Alison Griswold an incomplete for her account of President Obama’s recently announced higher education agenda. Regarding the proposed government rankings scheme, Griswold states: “The proposal might sound like common sense — since college is an investment, why not rate schools according to their return on investment — but compared to how most rankings are done it’s just plain radical.” She is correct in her assessment of one ranking system, the US News & World Report’s, as a largely input-driven measure. She overlooks other popular rankings schemes that are based on different criteria, most notably the rankings published by the enterprise for which she is writing, Forbes.
EDUCATION NEWS
Www.WashingtonPost.com
The Tuition is Too Damn High, Part IV — How important are state higher ed cuts?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/29/the-tuition-is-too-damn-high-part-iv-how-important-are-state-higher-ed-cuts/
By Dylan Matthews
After voting to approve yet another tuition increase in 2011, University of California regent Bonnie Reiss lamented, “Faced with enormous financial cuts forced on us by political leaders, we only have a handful of options open to us, and all are horrible options.” Andrea Newman, a regent at the University of Michigan, agrees. Justifying her vote for higher tuition, Newman explained, “The budget cuts passed by the legislature are impossible to make up otherwise.”
Www.WashingtonPost.com
The Tuition is Too Damn High, Part V — Is the economy forcing colleges to spend more?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/30/the-tuition-is-too-damn-high-part-v-is-the-economy-forcing-colleges-to-spend-more/
By Dylan Matthews
I grew up in a college town. My dad, like most of my friends’ parents, worked for Dartmouth College, by far the dominant employer in Hanover, N.H. Many of my friends were faculty brats, with one or both parents working as professors at Dartmouth. But my dad worked as a programmer.
Everything about programming today is better than it was in 1987. When Dartmouth hired him that year, most of his work involved writing software for machines like the Macintosh SE, which boasted a maximum of 4 megabytes of memory. Today, to run my dad’s software, you need Mac OS X 10.5, which requires 512 megabytes of memory. I run it on a machine with 6 gigabytes of memory – more than a thousand times as much as the Mac SE’s maximum. The machines he works with now are hundreds, often thousands, of times more capable than the ones he worked with in 1987. The field is getting more productive.
Www.WSJ.com (via Galileo Proquest)
Student Off-Campus Housing Is Back-to-School Bargain; Oversupply Is Prompting Some Landlords to Cut Rent
http://search.proquest.com/wallstreetjournal/docview/1428187847/1403654C024640FEB3E/1?accountid=12958
By Dawn
Wotapka
Some of the millions of students heading back to college–and their parents–are finding a pleasant surprise: Landlords nationwide are cutting rents because of an oversupply of student housing in college towns.
Since 2010, private-equity firms, real-estate investment trusts and private developers have been cranking up delivery of off-campus accommodations, often rich with amenities such as pools and movie theaters. That has raised fears of a glut in some markets, which has sparked a rout in the stocks of developers specializing in student housing.
Www.InsideHigherEd.com
If Men Do It …
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/30/political-scientists-debate-whether-women-field-should-mimic-or-change-men
By Scott Jaschik
If male professors do something that helps their careers, but is dubious from an ethical and scholarly perspective, should female professors embrace the practice? That question was raised in a discussion here Friday at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, where several sessions focused on the relatively small number of women rising to the senior ranks in the discipline, even as many more are earning Ph.D.s in the field. Discussions focused on overt and unconscious bias, the way the discipline seems to value some research topics over others, and whether some common male behaviors should be copied or reformed. And there was also debate over how “strategic” women should be about advancing their careers vs. changing the profession.
Www.NewYorkTimes.com
Chinese Students Bolster U.S. College Budgets
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Washington Monthly’s annual college issue usually has some fascinating material, and this year is no exception. One example is an article by Paul Stephens on the sharp rise in foreign students on American campuses (to more than 764,000, an increase of roughly 200,000 in less than six years, he says, citing data from the Institute of International Education and the State Department). Many are from wealthy overseas families paying full tuition — and helping to bolster college budgets. Where are the students coming from? By this reckoning, the bulk of the net increase — more than 160,000 of the 200,000 — has come from China.
Www.TheFiscalTimes.com
In Higher Education, a Low Tolerance for MOOCs
Massive Open Online Courses still don’t get much respect.
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/08/30/In-Higher-Education-a-Low-Tolerance-for-MOOCs.aspx#page1
By RACHELLE DELONG, Minding the Campus
Tepid. Even disapproving. That’s the state of many professors’ attitudes towards MOOCs, according to Inside Higher Ed’s 2013 Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology, released on the IHE website on Tuesday. That reaction isn’t surprising, given fears that MOOCs will wipe out hordes of academic jobs. Plus, I’d like to think, professors who’ve spent their careers teaching students have gleaned valuable experience indicating the importance of certain methods, such as class discussion, that are much more difficult online. Indeed, lack of interaction topped the list as the most popular professorial criticism of online education. The survey, which Gallup conducted for IHE by contacting 21,277 professors and technology administrators (2,251 of whom responded), tracked opinions on various educational uses of technology. Some questions were directed only to faculty.