For many higher education institutions, like the University of California (UC), the fiscal losses are growing as the health emergency extends, precipitating the need for a tuition increase. As reported in a December 12 Los Angeles Times article: Systemwide, UC took a $2.7-billion financial hit between March and October — about 6.5% of its $41.6-billion…
Private universities discounted tuition in the form of merit scholarships and grants nearly 50% on average in the 2019-20 school year. Furthermore, tuition discounts for the 2020-21 school are forecasted to be 52.6% for full time, first year students, according to data from National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). And, in the…
The sentiments of a current second-year college student attending a public flagship university in California when reflecting on the perils of the academic meritocracy: Rewarding/punishing requires less effort [by faculty and students] though, making it the easier default [system for measuring academic performance]. Assigning expectations, whether positive or negative, is a low-effort path that leads…
The difficulties for those in the younger generations to generate wealth are consequences of a structural shift in the U.S. economy in the last forty years, well before today’s late Boomer and Gen X parents entered the labor market as twenty-somethings. As highlighted in a recent Federal Reserve Bank research paper, “Market Power, Inequality, and…
Confirmed COVID cases are rising at different rates amongst the different regions in the United States and globally just as many college students will be released from their campuses at the Thanksgiving Break. As they begin traveling home, students may have to quarantine once again, just as they did to start the school year, but…
March 13, 2020 is Gen Z’s “Day of Infamy”, when K-12 school campuses closed due to COVID-related health risks, sequestering an entire generation of youth in the midst of their coming of age. Amidst the sudden, and now ever-extending health emergency, precipitating continued distance learning and canceled extracurricular activities, the emotional toll on teens only…
Increasing emergency unemployment claims seems to indicate more people have lost their jobs, yet decreasing continuing jobless claims could mean those unemployed are now employed or failed to get a job, thus are or at risk of being permanently unemployed (or those no longer looking for work.) Translation: we either have at best a bifurcated…
For the first time in four weeks, less than 800,000 people filed new unemployment claims (those who have lost their jobs and now seek financial relief from either state or federal government) during the week ending October 17, 2020. Yet, the pre-COVID job market is slow to recover post the March 2020 financial tantrum, as…
University of California (UC) applicants are evaluated according to 14 different Comprehensive Review points, for which no one criteria is weighted more heavily than another. Thus, students’ talents and strengths can be more fairly identified when evaluating their admissions to the UC. Ten of the fourteen Comprehensive Review points concern academic performance, validating the importance…
In the 2009-2019 decade following The Great Financial Crisis, the top 5% experienced the greatest income increase of all Americans, further widening income disparities between the top and everyone else. Contributing to the wealth gap, during the same 2009-2019 decade, Millennials racked up nearly $893 billion in student loan debt to purchase college degrees as…
On September 1, 2020, a California Superior Court judge issued a preliminary injunction, to be finalized on September 29, 2020, barring the use of SAT and ACT scores in Fall 2021 University of California (UC) admissions evaluations. Essentially, the judge implemented a “test-blind” admissions policy, meaning SAT or ACT scores cannot be considered, even if…
Two-thirds of all US universities are expecting enrollment to decrease in Fall 2020, with obvious impacts to fiscal revenues. For universities already reporting growing fiscal deficits from the initial COVID-impact in the Spring 2020 academic term, the loss of revenues can further compound the sustainability of the modern American university. According to the latest statistics…
According to the US Department of Labor statistics, the August 2020 College Tuition CPI dropped 0.7% from the month prior, the largest monthly drop since 1978. College tuition CPI includes: …annual consumer expenditures for undergraduate and post-graduate studies at 2-year colleges, 4-year colleges, universities, and professional schools (law, dental, medical, etc.)…throughout the United States [minus…
As the stock market indexes continue rising, for those living on Wall Street, confidence only grows. However, as the Wall Street “Bunnies” continue gorging on pancakes, the bulging bubble only thins. While those kitties on Main Street, who aren’t getting to drink their milkshakes, build resentment, whose mother is fear. Public attitudes about the economy…
The costs of childcare and college have outpaced wage increases in the past 20 years. So, a growing percentage of a family’s budget is spent caring for children, including paying for educational opportunities, like extracurricular activities as well as college tuition, in hopes of propelling kids toward a sustainable economic prosperity. Yet, as more of…
