Monday, February 22, 2010

A Tuition Rate Only an Economist Could Love

A major story in last Tuesday’s Inside Higher Education was that Middlebury College “will plan its budgets each year by capping its ‘comprehensive fee’ – the equivalent of tuition, room and board at other private colleges—at an upward limit of 1 percentage point above the Consumer Price Index.”  Certainly this move makes good sense in terms of positive publicity for Middlebury and it also provides a valuable fiscal restraint framework to operate under.  But would I, as an economist, advocate this framework and does it make sense for higher education in general?

Monday, February 8, 2010

Assessing Assessment

I have just made my airline reservations to Fort Lauderdale for the middle of February. This is not a vacation; rather I am serving on an ABA reaccreditation team for Nova Southeastern Law School.  Over the years, I have served as a Middle States periodic reviewer (most recently as the first reviewer for Johns Hopkins and the second reviewer for American); ABA reviewer (most recently for Memphis Law School) and during my earlier life as a business school dean, I served not only on visiting teams but as a member of the Initial Accreditation Committee of AACSB.  I have also been on the receiving end of accreditation visits numerous times—just recently we had 14 reaccreditation visits at Hofstra in the last two years.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Furlough Fridays

I am fortunate to have a broad vantage point on education that spans kindergarten through graduate school.  In addition to my position at Hofstra I have served on two school boards, the first at a Quaker School my kids were attending at the time and currently I serve on my local school board where my kids now attend. I also serve on the board for ProjectGrad Long Island, which provides extra support for economically disadvantaged school districts.  And I have worked closely with Hofstra’s NOAH program, which was the template for New York State’s HEOP program, for over 25 years.