Meet the Goodmans: Las Vegas’ Flamboyant Political Family, Governing
Did you know the Strip — with its high-rolling casinos and debauched dance clubs — isn’t actually within Las Vegas’s city limits? It’s technically on Clark County’s turf. The timeworn battle between city and county is playing out in the Nevada desert, as a husband-and-wife pair who’ve held the mayor’s office for a collective 17 years try to remake the city’s downtown, gambling their future on a performing arts center, a med school and a pro sports team.
High-Rise Greens, The New Yorker
In 2003, Ed Harwood, a 66-year-old inventor from Ithaca, N.Y., sketched out designs for a seemingly impossible idea: a compact vertical farm, where produce could grow without any soil, sunlight or more water than a fine mist. Today, his grow tower has been perfected and adopted by AeroFarms, a company in Newark, N.J., whose indoor agriculture aims to compete with California’s kale, bok choi and arugula farmers.
Did Free College Save This City? Christian Science Monitor
For every graduate of the Kalamazoo, Mich., school system — rich or poor — a group of anonymous donors has guaranteed scholarships to cover the cost of college tuition. The 11-year-old educational experiment, known as Kalamazoo Promise, has revived the district public schools and fostered a college-going culture in this frozen Rust Belt city that’s trying to transition to the digital economy.
Continue reading “Las Vegas’s First Family Gambles on Downtown, Indoor Agriculture Gets a Boost and More”
Tag: college tuition
Here’s How Starbucks is Fixing the American Education System
This news will probably justify the expense of your next Frappuccino.
In a surprising announcement, Starbucks is giving an amazing new perk to its workers across the country: A free college education.
The New York Times reports that the coffee powerhouse will pay tuition for any of its 135,000 employees to attend online college classes at Arizona State University as part of the Starbucks College Achievement Plan.
Incredibly, workers don’t even have to remain with Starbucks after receiving their degree — encouraging them to leave coffee-making for better jobs. Starbucks president and CEO Howard D. Schultz told the newspaper that he wants employee success to be “accreted to our brand, our reputation and our business,” and adds, “I believe it will lower attrition, it’ll increase performance, it’ll attract and retain better people.”
MORE: Get Schooled on How to Earn a Computer Science Education for Free
To qualify, an employee must work at least 20 hours a week at Starbucks and have the test scores necessary for admission into ASU. Employees who’ve already completed two years of college credits will have their tuition fully paid for. For those with less than two years of college, the company will pay partial tuition costs.
The company is also providing a dedicated enrollment coach, financial aid counselor, and academic advisor.
The fact is, the American education system is flawed; our $1.2 trillion student loan crisis proves it. These days, you need a college degree in order to land a competitive, well-paid job — but too many people have to go into a mountain of debt to obtain a degree. As Schultz says in the video below, “the last few years in America, we have certainly seen a fracturing of what I’d loosely describe as the American dream or the American promise.”
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He continues, “there’s no doubt the inequality within the country has created a situation where many, many Americans are being left behind. And the question I think for all of us is, ‘Should we accept that, or should we try to do something about it?'”
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According to the Times report, “70 percent of Starbucks workers do not have a degree but want to earn one; some have never gone to college, some have gone but dropped out, and others are in school, but have found it slow going.”
While employer-paid college tuition isn’t something new, it’s not very common. And programs like this are unheard of. Most companies want their workers to study subjects that will suit the company’s needs, while Starbucks allows employees to choose from 40 of ASU’s educational programs, from retail management to electrical engineering. (It’s also worth mentioning that the very successful global coffee company also offers health care for all employees — full- and part-time — and gives stock options, too).
As we previously reported, Shultz is the quintessential social innovator and philanthropist. This past March, he donated an extraordinary $30 million to help with the rehabilitation of our returning soldiers, putting the money towards research into brain trauma and PTSD — ailments that thousands of warriors suffer from.
Let’s go ahead and say it: Best boss ever.
DON’T MISS: Ask the Experts: How Can We Keep From Drowning in College Debt?
Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Scoff at a $10,000 Degree
Our nation’s crippling student loan debt, now at a trillion dollars, is holding our country back. And yet, college tuition is still increasing. But what if schools could be more like South Florida’s Broward College that offers $10,000 degrees?
Affordable degrees sometimes carry a stigma. But according to the National Journal, many students who graduate from “cheaper” colleges like Broward are making more than their counterparts at traditional four-year schools. The report, citing a state-mandated study, writes: “Graduates from the Florida College System’s workforce-oriented bachelor’s degree programs earn about $8,000 more the year after graduation than university graduates.”
MORE: Inside the Movement for Free Community College
Here’s why: At Broward, students learn skills that prepare them for the workplace. “As jobs have become more sophisticated, there’s a greater need for baccalaureate degrees that directly relate to the workforce,” says Linda Howdyshell, provost and senior vice president for academics and student success of Broward College told the publication.
We’re not saying that a large investment in college doesn’t pay off in the long run. It often does. But the reality is, too many graduates and their families are staring down a bottomless pit of loans. Not all of our graduates are getting jobs or are being paid too little in this still recovering economy. This low-cost Florida model shows that when it comes to getting jobs and paying back loans, there are many paths to consider.
One Maryland College’s Bold Experiment in Capping Executive Pay
For the people at the top of the pay scale, the concept of salary caps is probably discomforting. But the idea of providing more equal wages for all employees is being debated throughout the U.S. and around the world. Last November, Swiss voters rejected an initiative that would have capped executive pay at 12 times that of the lowest-paid employees at their companies. In the U.S., tens of thousands of citizens have signed a petition demanding Congress to cap the salaries of corporate CEOs to 50 times the average worker (let’s not hold our breath on that one). And now, students and faculty members at St. Mary’s College in Maryland have proposed a plan that would limit the salary of their next president to 10 times that of the lowest-paid employees — the janitors, grounds crew workers, security officers and housekeepers, who make anywhere from $24,500 to $30,000 annually.
MORE: Inside the Movement for Free Community College
St. Mary’s last president — the school currently has an interim president, Ian Newbould, while they hunt for someone permanent — made around $325,000 per year, marking a 1:13 pay ratio, according to the St. Mary’s Wages, the St. Mary’s Way website. This, of course, represents a more balanced ratio than that of America’s largest businesses, where the average pay ratio is 1:354. But as colleges continue to raise tuition and fees, which have increased 1,120 percent since 1978, and the salaries of university presidents grow, even as the pay of the average worker remains stagnant, students can’t help but wonder what, exactly, they’re paying for. At St. Mary’s, the numbers speak for themselves. According to the campaigners’ research, the salaries of St. Mary’s president and vice presidents have risen approximately 91 percent since 2000. The salaries of the lowest-paid employees have increased only 56 percent over the same time period. The pay of associate and full professors has increased at even lower rates — 29 and 22 percent, respectively. Student tuition, meanwhile, is up 60 percent.
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Under St. Mary’s proposal, which would need approval from the board of trustees in order to be implemented, the president’s pay would be cut to about $300,000 annually. Obviously, that’s no small amount of money. The hope is that the pay cap will stop the rapid growth of executive pay and save the university money, which could in turn keep tuition costs down. Beyond that, the campaigners hope a pay cap will encourage the school’s top administrator to consider the workers at the bottom of the totem pole, who anonymously told campaigners that they often struggle to make ends meet. “I have to work overtime every week, had to let some of my bills go [unpaid] like my house phone, cable, and cut back on my heating, food, water, and my gas bill,” one worker wrote. “Sometimes I need to borrow money from friends, family, and by the time I get my pay check, I’m broke again.”
Critics of the salary cap say it will prevent the college from attracting talented higher education executives. They also say that providing lower-income workers with higher pay will raise costs, force job cuts and stifle in-house hiring. But the campaigners say that high pay is no guarantee for excellence, and maintain that the cap will attract candidates who are better fits for the university’s mission. “We’re deeply attached to our public identity,” Sandy Ganzell, math and computer professor at St. Mary’s and one of the campaigners, told The Huffington Post. “There’s no such thing as the best college president out there; there’s the best president for St. Mary’s … and that’s the person who believes in our mission.”
DON’T MISS: The Minerva Project: An Online College to Rival the Ivy League
Inside the Movement for Free Community College
With the rising costs of a college degree, our country’s total student loan debt has soared past a staggering $1 trillion. We’ve read the stories of crippling debt and the consequences it carries. So, in an effort to buck this worrying trend, lawmakers in three separate states have proposed big plans for higher education: free community college.
Tennessee
In his State of the State Address, Gov. Bill Haslam proposed that all of the state’s high school graduates could attend Tennessee’s community and technical colleges for free for two years. The plan, called the “Tennessee Promise,” would be funded by $300 million in state lottery money. “We are fighting the rising cost of higher education, and we are raising our expectations as a state,” Haslam said. “We are committed to making a clear statement to families that education beyond high school is a priority in the state of Tennessee.” If the plan passes, Haslam said that Tennessee would become the only state to offer this guarantee — unless these next two states don’t beat Tennessee to the punch.
Mississippi
Although it didn’t make a big splash in the news, Mississippi also has plans for free community college. Their state legislature passed a bill that would make all 15 of the state’s community colleges tuition-free for high school students who enroll within 12 months of graduation, Inside Higher Ed reports. The bill still needs approval from the Appropriations Committee and the full House, but if it passes, the program would cost less than $4.5 million per year for the 75,000-student system. The catch? Mississippi would only step in to cover a student’s tuition after they tap out federal and institutional financial aid.
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Oregon
Lastly, the Oregon senate unanimously approved a bill that would study the idea of free community college in the state. The study would help determine whether or not the state should take up this issue next year. Lawmakers suggested that two years of tuition for the state’s 32,000 high school graduates would cost between $100 and $200 million, so the study would help determine where funding would come from, Oregon Live reports. Granted, Oregon has taken a small first step, but it’s an important one to get things going. As Sen. Mark Hass said after the bill’s approval, “Next year when you see this concept hopefully on the floor, the homework will be done, the rules will be in place and the options will be clear.”