'Making Stuff Smarter'? Not with slashed education spending.

While sweating along on my treadmill, I’ve taken a break from recorded Cooking Channel shows and am now watching the NOVA ‘Making Stuff’ series with the funny and engaging technology writer, David Pogue of the New York Times’ Pogue’s Pages. Today I viewed ‘Making Stuff Smarter’ - and my treadmill time flew by as I jogged along with jaw dropped and my imagination on fire with the possibilities posed by some of the newest advances scientists and engineers are making.

“Why, we could be talking about cures! Huge leaps forward in our national competitiveness! Jobs! New industries!” … uh, but not without highly trained and educated mathematicians, scientists, engineers, software developers and all the skilled support staff, research and development grants and government support that such complex undertakings would require.

Education. Like economics, everything comes home to that.

I can’t even believe that states are talking about making cuts to education. Not to mention the closely held desire on the part of many within the GOP to defund or outright do away with the U. S. Department of Education. Yup. We’ll home school the next generation of technology and science pioneers-on-the-prairie. Set up the next MIT on the kitchen table.

In this mornings Reno Gazette-Journal the headline said ‘Glick: Budget cuts place UNR at risk.’ The UNR President, Dr. Milton Glick, says that the “prospect of $59 million in cuts by July 2012 puts the University of Nevada, Reno’s role as an economic driver for the community and state at risk.” You have to wonder that it even needs to be said.

To have to remind everybody that a robust, thriving educational system from K-12 and beyond is the gasoline of your economic engine seem ludicrous. And yet, this is what Nevada’s political right would have. And, it makes for great political theatre, too. Along with this headline, were others raising dire warnings of Reno residents fearful of firefighter and police cuts, to the possible closing of the state program that preserves records for state and local governments.

This is an old political game, where legislators threaten cuts - deep, painful ones - that will directly affect the average citizen, who will then squawk loudly, insist that everything be put back the way it was - and somehow it will be apparent that taxes must go up. Somehow, in the background and under the radar, the real money pits for the state or federal budget go rolling merrily along untouched, and the corporate freeloaders ( mining, gaming, ‘redevelopment’ voodoo and taxpayer subsidized big business ) pitch in a dollar or two, and whistle on down the avenue.

In better times, we might be able to get away with this nonsense. The rest of the world has nearly caught up with us in education, innovation, and technological development. We simply cannot afford to slip further behind as a state or a nation. If we do, it will take generations to catch up, if at all.

Nevada is not alone in this. A quick look on a Google search of ‘defund education’ brings up a lot of ‘hits’. But while most arguments about education funding - or defunding - fall into screeds against one political party or the other, the salient point - that education spending saves America money and has a demonstrated Return on Investment  - seems to get lost in the ideological battles.

Of course a world-class education is expensive. But a mediocre education is far more expensive in the social and public consequences that follow. Look at the ballooning costs going to prisons in America as the funding for education has declined. You don’t need a doctorate to connect those dots.

Unfortunately, this isn’t by accident. In Arizona, of the $185 million dollars the state received in stimulus funds, Gov. Jan Brewer continued to push for education cuts, gave a paltry $6.6 million to education while extending $78 million to corrections. She knows where the profits are, and probably the campaign donors. Corrections are now very, very big business.

“According to the Tucson Citizen, in total, the three in-state universities now only receive $702 million while corrections receives $957 million (nearly a billion dollars), an interesting observation given the deep connections between the private prison industry, which seeks to incarcerate as many people as possible for profit, and Brewer and state Senate President Russell Pearce, R-Mesa.” Betrayal, by Athena Salman, January 31, 2011

Is this really where we want to send our limited resources? Is this the best we can do for our kids, our economic security, our future? Is this where you build tomorrow’s discoveries? In prisons?

In Nevada, meanwhile, we’ve taken a page out of Gov. Jan Brewer’s playbook, and spending on prisons grew 103% from 1996 to 2006, as prison populations grew by 58%. It is projected to grow 60% by 2016 according to the Nevada Prison profile data compiled by Pew Charitable Trusts, Public Safety Performance Project. Such has been the true cost of our state’s unprecedented growth in the last couple decades. It’s certainly something to be proud of, right?

Spending more of our limited resources on mostly non-violent offenders rather than educating them to be giving back via technological innovation may not destroy our country immediately, but it will be a slow death. A slow death for those with life-threatening illness who are waiting for a cure. A slow death for our national pride and competitiveness as the rest of the world catches up and passes us by. A slow death for our once thriving economy as we descend further into selling each other insurance, online gaming, tee-vee ‘reality’ shows and fast faux-food meals - AKA nothing of any real lasting value.

Say it ain’t so, Governor Sandoval.

-maven

P.S. for a further look at how education spending gives back far more than is spent read: The Costs and Benefits of An Excellent Education for All America’s Children Leeds Teachers College, Columbia University, January 2007

Looming debt crisis: How much is a college degree worth?

“As millions of American families struggle to cope with college costs that are rising at twice the rate of inflation, CNBC investigates a system that encourages widespread borrowing—often with little regard to a student’s ability to pay—leaving the average college graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in student-loan debt.

How long can the system be sustained? Are student loans the next subprime mortgages? And if the bubble bursts, who will pay the price? CNBC Senior Correspondent Scott Cohn speaks to borrowers, lenders and school administrators to measure the real “Price of Admission” to the nation’s higher-education system. ” CNBC

I recorded this show, and watched it today - and was truly alarmed. Here’s another ‘bubble’ about to burst, courtesy of the lassez-faire, anything goes Reagan/Bush theory of free markets. If you think the mortgage debt crisis was bad, just wait until you see the numbers of students that are already in default, or about to be in default, on crushing student loans.

If you’re of the TeaParty/Libertarian persuasion, you might be tempted to say that it won’t affect you, and furthermore, what were these people thinking - taking out more debt than they could handle. Once again, simplistic ‘answers’ for complex problems.

First of all, our society has been fed a constant diet of ‘you must have a college degree to get ahead’. This was fine back in the day of the GI Bill. It was even fine back when I was in college, in the 1970’s. With my scholarship on the University of Utah debate team, I ended up paying about $250 a semester - and that included books. You can’t even buy the books for that much now. This type of thinking was fine as we transitioned from a largely agricultural/rural workforce in the middle of the 20th century. But the fact is, not everybody needs a college degree to survive, raise a family, or to even get ahead- then or now.

One of the wealthiest men I knew in Salt Lake City, had a fourth grade education. He also owned a sizeable chunk of downtown Salt Lake. Today, people like Bill Gates pursue their dreams, having dropped out of college. Success is simply not dependant on a college degree. My sister-in-law, who is a retired president of a large mid-western community college, and has a doctorate in education, told me that perhaps a quarter of the workforce actually needs to have a four year degree or more.

Look around you. Do you really think the folks running the busy kitchens in your favorite restaurant need a college degree? How about that fantastic plumber? Probably not. We need skilled people to be sure. We need people with passion, drive and the confidence to make their way to success in a society that provides the tools to get there.

Who’s been selling this idea the hardest? The for-profit schools. They are ‘educating’ - and that’s a generous term - nearly 10% of the students in America, while sucking up nearly 25% of the available student loan funding. Hmmm? I’m sorry to tell you this, but places like the University of Phoenix, Kaplan University, Embry-Riddle University et al are very profitable diploma mills subsidized by the American taxpayer. I’ve yet to hear a professional educator tell me that these ‘diplomas’ are worth the paper they’re printed on.

The Project on Student Debt has this to say about for-profit colleges:

“The U.S. Department of Education released new data showing that the national “cohort default rate” on federal student loans is 7.0 percent. The default rate at for-profit colleges is highest at 11.6 percent – almost double the average rate for public colleges. Nearly half of all defaulters (43 percent) attended for-profit schools, even though these schools enrolled only about ten percent of all college students during the relevant time period.”

Take a look at this: Subprime Opportunity: The Unfulfilled Promise of For-Profit Colleges and Universities.

“As with the collapse of the subprime lending
industry, the showdown between for-profi t
colleges and the government shows how the
aspirations of the underserved, when combined
with lax regulation, make the rich, richer and the
poor, poorer. For-profi t colleges provide highcost
degree programs that have little chance
of leading to high-paying careers, and saddle
the most vulnerable students with heavy debt.
Instead of providing a solid pathway to the
middle class, they pave a path into the subbasement
of the American economy.”

I don’t know how much clearer that could be. These for-profit schools have been a hoax, and it’s about to blow up in everybody’s face just like the mortgage crisis.

According to the CNBC show, and other reputable internet sites I could find, the extent of the student loan debt crisis has been grossly under-estimated, since the government only takes a two year ‘snapshot’ of these loans. The huge crisis is happening out further in time, but it’s been in the interest (financially) for both non-profit and for-profit schools to look the other way, and keep reporting bogus numbers like defaults being in the range of 4 to 7  percent.

This is so typical of how we, as Americans, view every institution in our country anymore. Rather than insist on continuing to build the best free - or at least low cost - public educational system in the world - which doesn’t seem to put enough easy money in a few pockets fast - we ‘privatize’ it. It’s quick. It’s dirty. And it will wreck our economy. But the director of Sallie Mae, Al Lord, is on-board with reform. He reduced his salary to only $1 million annually. He kept the kept the 244-acre golf course.

Uh, if I had a school age kid right now, I’d be reading all this stuff very closely - and figuring out how to stay out of this trap. And if you think that as a parent, you can avoid this … think again. Thinking about co-signing on a student loan? Don’t be too quick. If something unforeseen should happen to the student - say, accident or death - Mom and Dad will still be on the hook for that loan amount. And these loans can not be wiped away by bankruptcy.

According to StudentLoanJustice.org:

“Congress removed bankruptcy protections, refinancing rights, statutes of limitations, truth in lending requirements, fair debt collection practice requirements (for state agencies) and even removed state usury laws from applicability to federally guaranteed student loans. Congress also gave unprecedented powers of collection to the industry, including wage, tax return, Social Security, and Disability income garnishment, suspension of state issued professional licenses, termination from public employment, and other unprecedented collection tools that are used against borrowers for the purpose of collecting defaulted student loan debt.”

This crisis affects us all - even Libertarians living in their compounds notwithstanding. In one case cited in the report, a student was doing just fine paying off his loan, until he became very ill. The crushing debt from the medical bills - since we don’t want that damned Socialist universal health care here in America! No sir! -  got this young man so far behind that he’ll never dig his way out of the medical bills or the student loan - which continues to accrue interest and penalties. Again, this cannot be wiped away by bankruptcy.

The bottomline here is two-fold.

First, the American taxpayer, already hit hard by the sub-prime mortgage mess, is about to get hit again. Secondly, the dream of a college education as the sure-fire entry ticket to prosperity has already become a distant dream.  This is about rationing opportunity - like you see in the other Third World countries.

If destroying our economy was a goal for those in the ‘damn the regulation’ department - like Rep. John Boehner, R-OH, and those who’d like to eliminate any federal involvement in education, then this ought to just about do it.

-maven

Resources and Links:

StudentLoanJustice.org

How you can fund college by paying cash for school.

Student Loans: Avoiding deceptive offers

Trends in college pricing

Student Loans.gov

Student Loan Borrower Assistance

FinAid-  a guide to student financial aid

Decoding the Financial Aid Letter into plain English

Student Loan Analytics

Friday Fish Wrap: July 23, 2010

We lost two really good men this week, and I’m sad about both.

Kenny Guinn, the two term Republican governor of Nevada fell off the roof of his home in Las Vegas, Nevada while attempting some repairs. Guinn was the last Republican that I voted for. Hear that? I do vote for Republicans when they’re as decent as Kenny Guinn was. They don’t make Republicans like that anymore.

Guinn was the only governor in recent memory that had guts enough to be realistic about the budgetary needs for Nevada. He put forth the largest tax increase in the states history. For that he left office with an astounding 66% approval rating. He also declined to support Jim ‘No taxes’ Gibbons, who later won. Jim is going out with an embarassing approval rating of a negative percent. I jest, although it isn’t really very funny.

Republican who taxed is beloved. Republican who is a stubborn anti-tax horses’ behind is hated. You’d think Nevada Republicans would get a clue here.

Daniel Schorr, that familiar and authoritative voice on NPR, doing news analysis, passed today at age 93. I hung on his every word, for common sense, historical perspective and the last vestige of the Edward R. Murrow style of journalistic excellence.

Daniel Schorr rose above the likes of Andrew Breibart with quiet grace, integrity and a wealth of real world experience that few could ever hope to match.

With Breibart, Americans get cheesy, manufactured stories like the one that nearly took down a woman of integrity - Shirley Sherrod. There’s a world of difference there, and we are the poorer for it as consumers of reliable information. Kudos to the Atlanta Constitution-Journal for taking a deep breath and swinging back to the rational side of the truth meter - finally calling Breibart out for his obvious fraud. Hell, even Ann Coulter - long the right’s reigning queen of ‘the truth is what I say it is’  - said the heavily edited video was a sham. But you can still find Patrick Buchannan tap dancing around the facts, as a Breibart apologist.

Click to read more ...

Friday Fish Wrap: June 25, 2010

Scanning the news in preparation for writing this post, one subject kept coming to the surface - rather like an oily slick down in the Gulf. The BP oil blowout isn’t anywhere near contained. Not only does BP not really know for sure all that might be wrong with the well, but they haven’t a clue how to fix it. They are in uncharted territory.

Last night, I wrote a post about hydraulic ‘fracking’ - a nasty technique used by BP and other oil and gas producers. My post was about the use of ‘fracking’ in the pursuit of natural gas and the truly nasty toxic effects resulting from that technique. One of my regular readers commented that she’d heard something to the effect that ‘fracking’ might have been used in the Gulf Deepwater Horizon well, and that methane gas and oil might be leaking from uncounted fissures in the seabed around the well.

This said, an idiot judge - Martin L. C. Feldman of the United States District Court in New Orleans -  has decided that a moratorium on more new drilling is a bad idea. You might think this is hard to believe, but the judge has personal financial interests in the oil industry.

Do you remember back in the day of the Challenger explosion?

Click to read more ...

Need to fix Nevada's long broken tax structure and education

Damn straight! In today’s Reno Gazette-Journal, Pamela Galloway had a most excellent letter to the editor about the need to reform the tax structure here in Nevada. I’ll reprint it below, since it should have a wider distribution, but not before I make a couple comments.

Our star boarder, the African princess, Natacha, is looking for cheaper/better places to continue working toward her nursing degree. And, we’re getting an interesting picture of the costs of a secondary education here and elsewhere … and what you get for the money.

Not only is getting an education much more expensive here in Nevada, but the academic advisors at Truckee Meadows Community College, and at UNR have given her so much bad advice that it’s cost her dearly both in time and money spent on courses she didn’t even need. This doesn’t even address the whole issue of how much she pays as a foreign student here on a Student Visa. That is billed at the Out of State/Non-Resident rate. Ouch. It’s about twice what your kid is paying.

Click to read more ...

We can bail out Wall St., but not education? WTF?

Mr. Maven and I went to lunch last week with a co-worker. He’s a software engineer from India. Smart guy, who set us straight on a couple things.

Like Pakistan.

Like China.

Like education.

He essentially said what Robert Reich says in this column, that we can’t afford not to bail out our schools. My co-worker thinks that we’re crazy to keep cutting education spending, saying that no other sensible country would do that, and he can’t understand why we are.

I told him: America elected George W. Bush, therefore it’s clear that they don’t value education. Governor Jim Gibbons,( R-NV )  is proof of that on the state level. He’s got his.

Read what Reich has to say:

Bail Out Our Schools

Click to read more ...

Hey, Jim! How's the "no new tax" thingy gonna work for us?

“He wants to share his ideology with the citizens. He will make all of his proposals known in the days ahead,” said Governor Jim Gibbons press secretary, Dan Burns.

No, no Dan. Thanks, gaaack, but I don’t need any more of Jim’s, urp, Tea Party ideology.

A dose of reality and critical thinking might be better as we slide down the rat hole to bankruptcy. Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons did another amazing impersonation of this man:

Delusional and deranged.

First things first:

Click to read more ...

Friday Fish Wrap: February 5, 2010

On this eveings KOLO-TV evening news, Tad Dunbar was doing a lead-in for his Dunbar Report show, d offering the following:

Nevada First Lady, Dawn Gibbons - First Lady until the divorce is final, that is - will be hosting her last official function at the Governor’s Mansion in Carson City, Nevada.

She will be hosting a benefit for former prostitutes. The effort is designed to help the’ ladies’ find both  self respect and a path to a better life.

I sat there thinking “Wait for it.”

Tad paused artfully, and went to say what had just raced through my brain,

“Only in Nevada.”

LOL

###

I have a question.

Click to read more ...

Killing the messenger: Jim Rogers

The very public brawl between Chancellor Jim Rogers and Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons has finally boiled over, and it does appear that the two cannot possibly continue to work together in any meaningful or constructive manner. The entire festering boil was brought to a head the other day when Chancellor Rogers gave voice to his frustrations on the Op-Ed pages of the Nevada Appeal.

Click to read more ...

What this country needs...

We had a wonderful little dinner party here this evening, at my sister-in-law, Joan’s home in Ft. Meyers, Florida. The guest for tonight is a local friend from the French Sector of Berlin, Germany, Klaus. Of course the dinner conversation made the rounds of all the normal topics of discussion, from Obama’s chances of straightening out the fine mess we’re in to the current state of the state in the DDR ( … that’s Germany ).

Capitalism or Socialism? Isn’t there a middle ground? Do we have to keep thinking in extremis?

Click to read more ...