Free Republic

NEARLY three-quarters of the graduates now leaving America’s colleges are saddled with debt. On average, they owe $35,051. By comparison, roughly half of all graduates carried debt in 1995 and it averaged less than a third as much, says Edvisors, which tracks student aid (see chart). As the cost of university has risen, so has the number of “sugar babies” who pay for it by selling companionship and sex to wealthy older men. Monthly pay for this is typically about $3,000, though some “sugar daddies” offer much more. According to SeekingArrangement, a firm based in Las Vegas, two-thirds of sugar-baby...

"......Attorney Michelle Lapointe with the Southern Poverty Law Center said Tuesday the regulations often make it impossible for talented, high-achieving citizens to afford college, as the out-of-state rate can be triple the cost of in-state tuition. Non-residents also cannot receive lottery-backed state scholarships, need-based grants or tuition assistance."

According to data from the College Board forecasted by NerdWallet, the average cost of tuition for kids born in 2015 who attend a private four-year college 18 years from now will be $261,793.For those kids attending a public four-year college, it will be $133,528.No wonder some parents start thinking about paying for college before their children are even born.In its latest report, How America Saves for College 2015, student lender Sallie Mae and market research company Ipsos surveyed nearly 2,000 American parents with at least one child under the age of 18 to find out how families are thinking about...

The federal government will erase much of the debt of students who attended the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges, officials announced Monday, as part of a new plan that could cost taxpayers as much as $3.6 billion. Corinthian Colleges was one of the largest for-profit schools when it nearly collapsed last year and became a symbol of fraud in the world of higher education and student loans....

There are some valid points raised in Lee Siegel's 1100 word rant against college loans (if not so much against college education). There are some bad ones. But two things are clear: the words "personal" and/or "responsibility" were used precisely zero times, and the op-ed writer, who described himself as "the author of five books who is writing a memoir about money", is hardly a glowing advertisement for an education attained (funded with either debt or equity) at one of the Ivy League's "best", Columbia University.That, or the return on money after spending nearly a decade in university and...

While Arizona State University has almost doubled its tuition over the past 10 years amid claims that it needs more state money, the school somehow had the funds to give half a million dollars to the Clinton Foundation. According to The Arizona Republic, the public university paid $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation to host the former president-Bill Clinton; former-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; and their daughter, Chelsea, during a Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) event in 2014. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Bill’s wife, is the current front-runner for the Democratic nomination for the 2016 presidential race. Mark...

Track star and Ivy-League freshman student Madison Holleran, age 19, had been a “happy go lucky,” though achievement-oriented, kid all her life, according to her father. She had no history of mental illness. At home for Christmas break last year, she broke down and told her parents that she had been having suicidal thoughts and was depressed. Her mother said that “I was shocked. She’s never been depressed before,” according to the Daily Mail. “I knew she needed a therapist, but I couldn’t get her an appointment because it was weekend.” Madison seemed to respond somewhat to the TLC she...

Six democrats are seeking to grant Pell Grants to inmates in prison. They claim that it will make them desirable applicants to companies when they get out of prison. Hey liberals, believe it or not companies aren’t clamoring for graduates of Stu’s University online even if they haven’t knocked off a bank or raped small children. So, why would these cons be employable? Of course, if they were to take computer classes they might stop mugging senior citizens and join the growing identity theft industry. It’s also important to know that there is not an endless pool of money in...

A brilliant young man has single-handedly solved the problem of college loan debt. It was a daringly simple maneuver! Tennessee high school senior Ronald Nelson, Jr., who is a National Merit Scholar, star athlete, sax player, SAT high scorer, and student body president, turned down acceptances from eight Ivy League colleges and will instead attend the University of Alabama this fall. Young Ronald seems to have absorbed at an early age a lesson that eludes many youths (and those who have long since left youth behind): avoid going head over heels in debt. This is not to denigrate an Ivy...

Even Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) most ardent supporters would probably concede, albeit grudgingly, that he faces very long odds in the 2016 presidential race. So why run? Because there’s value in having a national platform for bold, progressive ideas that might otherwise be ignored. Bloomberg Politics reported yesterday, for example, on Sanders’ new plan to make public college tuition-free in the United States. The plan will provide tuition-free higher education to students at four-year colleges, the statement said, and is modeled after the way many European nations handle the costs of college. “Countries like Germany, Denmark, Sweden and many more...

At the South by Southwest education conference in Austin, Texas recently, on a panel entitled “What’s Next for Access and Affirmative Action?” administrators such as Anne-Marie Nunez from the University of Texas (UT) system revealed some of their thought processes. Nunez, an associate professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at UT, San Antonio, explained that one of her projects included an initiative designed for Latina immigrants in California. When “underrepresented minority students” were instructed “to think about sociopolitical issues,” they “began to build more of a sense of entitlement,” she said, adding that it is “a different kind of...

UC President Janet Napolitano and the President’s Advisory Council on Undocumented Students will host a national summit on undocumented students from May 7-8. The invitation-only conference, which aims to discuss the needs and challenges that undocumented students face in higher education, will bring together undocumented youth leaders, immigration advocates, researchers, government officials, artists and funders from across the country. This is the first time the university is hosting a summit on undocumented students, according to UC Office of the President spokesperson Shelly Moron. Moron added that the summit expands upon Napolitano’s previous work, such as her distribution of $5 million...

To borrow a quote from Game of Thrones, which recently had its season 5 premiere, “Winter is coming.” This is what can happen in Texas, our economy could start to freeze up, if we limit educational opportunities for undocumented students in Texas by passing Senate Bill 1819. It would end the dreams of thousands of Texas high school graduates, who have lived here since they were children, and rely on in-state tuition regardless of immigration status. The push to rescind 14 years of in-state tuition to these students, known as Dreamers, will greatly impact the Texas economy — a college...

Texas legislators are debating whether to repeal the Texas Dream Act. Signed by then-Governor Rick Perry in 2001, the law allows certain undocumented students to pay in-state tuition. A recent Texas Tribune analysis revealed that the majority of undocumented students who pay in-state tuition rates don't attend four-year universities – they’re in community colleges. And most are in school here in North Texas. Like many immigrants, Alejandra Miranda and her parents left their native El Salvador for a “better life.” That was 12 years ago. She’s 23 now and enrolled at North Lake College in Irving. As she sat in...

NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) - A bill that would offer in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants in Tennessee failed to pass the legislature on Wednesday. View from the Hill State lawmakers argued for more than two hours on the bill that has been four years in the making. The issue had bipartisan support, but many teetered on if this was an education issue or about immigration reform. Ultimately, the bill failed by a single vote. Several students dressed in graduation caps and gowns came to the state House to support the bill. They carried signs to represent the jobs they hope to...

I am on the phone with a humanities professor at a small, nationally revered liberal-arts college, and she is telling me about the seltzer situation in the faculty lounge. "You know, the dean said we need to get the beverages out of there." "And that's, like, a hygiene thing?" "No, it's because they're worried we're spending too much on Diet Coke and those aluminum cans of seltzer." "Oh." "And the president just replaced his hood ornament with a Fabergé egg. Our Manhattan consulting firm said it was the only way to upstage Dartmouth." OK, I made up the egg thing,...

University tuition continues to rise, but the tendency of some critics to blame the trend on overpaid professors might not be an accurate one. When university administrators in the UNC system and nationwide decide to increase tuition, they often cite the need for funds to retain faculty as a reason for the hike. Still, according to an annual report about myths of professor pay from the American Association of University Professors, faculty salaries are not the primary cause of higher student costs — cuts to state support and declining university endowments are to blame. But Jenna Robinson, president of the...

IOWA CITY, Iowa - Sen. Rand Paul called Friday for college tuition to be a tax writeoff in his first direct pitch to young voters of his presidential campaign. Paul used the power of the pocketbook, along with calls for electronic privacy and reforming the criminal justice system, to appeal to what he called the "Instagram generation," a constituency he sees as vital to his nascent presidential campaign. Paul blasted President Obama's plan for free community college, telling the crowd of a few hundred people, mostly students, that it won't work because someone has to pay for professors and facilities....

On Wednesday, National Public Radio had a spot about how some states are reviewing laws on their books that let them yank driver's or professional licenses from those who default on their student loans. To set the story up, the NPR reporter focused on the plight of Clementine Lindley, who recalls how after graduating she had to "decide whether to pay rent, buy food or make her student loan payments" because her debt was so massive. How did Lindley rack up so much debt? NPR doesn't say, but a little sleuthing shows that Lindley got her Bachelor's degree in "Liberal...

IÂ’ve written many times about the shortcomings of government schools at the K-12 level. We spend more on our kids than any other nation, yet our test scores are comparatively dismal. And one of my points, based on this very sobering chart from one of my Cato colleagues, is that AmericaÂ’s educational performance took a turn in the wrong direction when the federal government became more involved starting about 40-50 years ago. Well, the same unhappy story exists in the higher-education sector. Simply stated, thereÂ’s been an explosion of spending, much of it from Washington, yet the rate of return...