The Impoverishment of the American College Student
The Impoverishment of the American College Student

Author: James V. Koch

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2019-07-09

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 0815732627

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Is the end in sight for college tuition hikes? Tuition and fees at public colleges and universities consistently have risen twice or even three times as fast as comparable increases in the Consumer Price Index in recent years. Since 2000 these costs have even grown 60 percent faster than health care costs. The results have been rapidly rising student debt (now $1.4 trillion nationally), rising delinquencies in debt repayment, and a dysfunctional stratification of public college student bodies on the basis of family incomes. This is a broken, unsustainable model for the majority of public colleges. Why has this occurred? The multiple causes include declining state support, the avaricious behavior of individual institutions, their reluctance to adopt productivity-increasing innovations, their cost-increasing competition for higher U.S. News ratings, and misdirected federal student financial aid policies. The key actors are the 50,000 members of the governing boards of public colleges, who too often forget that their primary responsibility is to citizens, taxpayers, and the 15 million students. Instead, board members are co-opted by clever administrators into approving tuition and fee increases well beyond what is needed to make up for declining state funding. Concerted, informed public pressure on governors, legislators, and board members is necessary to move institutions in more positive directions. Higher education funding and tuition and fee inflation are complicated matters that very few people understand well. The Impoverishment of the American College Student clarifies the central issues and provides plentiful data to support its key points. It is a must-read for anyone who believes that maintaining access to and the affordability of public colleges are vitally important to our society's future.

Citizen, Student, Soldier
Citizen, Student, Soldier

Author: Gina M. Pérez

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2015-11-27

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 147980780X

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Since the 1990s, Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) programs have experienced unprecedented expansion in American public schools. The program and its proliferation in poor, urban schools districts with large numbers of Latina/o and African American students is not without controversy. Public support is often based on the belief that the program provides much-needed discipline for "at risk" youth. Meanwhile, critics of JROTC argue that the program is a recruiting tool for the U.S. military and is yet another example of an increasingly punitive climate that disproportionately affect youth of color in American public schools. Citizen, Student, Soldier intervenes in these debates, providing critical ethnographic attention to understanding the motivations, aspirations, and experiences of students who participate in increasing numbers in JROTC programs. These students have complex reasons for their participation, reasons that challenge the reductive idea that they are either dangerous youths who need discipline or victims being exploited by a predatory program. Rather, their participation is informed by their marginal economic position in the local political economy, as well as their desire to be regarded as full citizens, both locally and nationally. Citizenship is one of the central concerns guiding the JROTC curriculum; this book explores ethnographically how students understand and enact different visions of citizenship and grounds these understandings in local and national political economic contexts. It also highlights the ideological, social and cultural conditions of Latina/o youth and their families who both participate in and are enmeshed in vigorous debates about citizenship, obligation, social opportunity, militarism and, ultimately, the American Dream.

MENTAL MATRICES
MENTAL MATRICES

Author: Veselin Bozhikov

Publisher: SPHERE Association

Published:

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 9549803503

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This book comes to explain the nature of the mental matrices and dogmas. It will help you to understand the development of mind and will reveal how to identify and overcome the dogmas that restrict you. You will discover a new informational paradigm of mind and reality.

The American Student
The American Student

Author: Samuel Berkman

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2006-05

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 0595361048

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The next morning I arrived at the Lycee in the pre-dawn cold. I carried seven books, a sweat suit with sneakers and wore my new brown French shoes, which had a zipper on the top. After we bought the books the previous day, my father took me to a store "Chausettes Michel" and bought me the shoes. "They'll make you fit in better," he said. "It'll take more than shoes," I snapped, angry that the shoes were the most comfortable I'd ever worn. The students formed a circle around me in the courtyard. They didn't ask questions; they just stared. They looked different from the kids back home. It went beyond their berets, scarves and pointed shoes and had more to do with the expressions on their faces as well as some of their features but I was too disoriented to notice what they were. I should have enjoyed the attention since at home my classmates ignored the foreign exchange students. My friends were mainly interested in fast cars, clothes, beer and sex. I felt bad for those students because they were far from home and must have been lonely not realizing that one day I'd be one of them. But here I faced the opposite problem. BOOK REVIEW A boy's coming-of-age story runs through this debut novel filled with Cold War history (including a cameo by Willy Brandt) about a scary struggle with a villainous family. In 1960s France, Roy Harrison's lawyer father, Steve, is serving a stint with the Air Force Reserve in Alsace-Lorraine. They've had a difficult relationship since Roy's mother died a few years ago, and Roy didn't want to go, but his father insisted. A man of discipline and few words, Steve is trying his best to be a good father, though intimacy doesn't come easily to him. He enrolls Roy in a lycée, pitching him headfirst into French culture--not a welcoming atmosphere for an American kid. Barely speaking French is the least of Roy's difficulties. One of his classmates, Robert LePerrier, goes out of his way to bully and abuse him for no discernible reason. Readers will be well into the tale before the back story emerges, detailing the LePerrier family's sordid activities during WWII and their toxic attitudes that have infected their son. Their story (father Jean-Claude's specifically) brings in two real-life figures from the past: the notorious Klaus Barbie, "Butcher of Lyon," and Jean Moulin, hero of the Resistance. Steve confronts the LePerrier patriarch, exposing his dark past and bringing him to trial. Meanwhile, Roy has become fluent in French and has--much to his surprise but not the reader's--come to love his place in France and his French friends. He has grown up; his father is proud of him--and says so. At times, reactions from characters can be a bit over the top, not matching the provocations. Nevertheless, the narrative is nicely bookended by passages set in Paris in 1999, when Roy runs into Robert, his old nemesis. They will never be close, but they understand each other. In the epilogue--later that weekend--Dr. Harrison flies home to the States and to his wife and his kids and his good life. An impressive debut novel; hopefully, there's more. Kirkus Indie, Kirkus Media LLC, 6411 Burleson Rd., Austin, TX 78744 [email protected]

The Coddling of the American Mind
The Coddling of the American Mind

Author: Greg Lukianoff

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2019-08-20

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0735224919

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New York Times Bestseller • Finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction • A New York Times Notable Book • Bloomberg Best Book of 2018 “Their distinctive contribution to the higher-education debate is to meet safetyism on its own, psychological turf . . . Lukianoff and Haidt tell us that safetyism undermines the freedom of inquiry and speech that are indispensable to universities.” —Jonathan Marks, Commentary “The remedies the book outlines should be considered on college campuses, among parents of current and future students, and by anyone longing for a more sane society.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising—on campus as well as nationally. How did this happen? First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being and ancient wisdom from many cultures. Embracing these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—interferes with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. It makes it harder for them to become autonomous adults who are able to navigate the bumpy road of life. Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that have intersected to promote the spread of these untruths. They explore changes in childhood such as the rise of fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised, child-directed play, and the new world of social media that has engulfed teenagers in the last decade. They examine changes on campus, including the corporatization of universities and the emergence of new ideas about identity and justice. They situate the conflicts on campus within the context of America’s rapidly rising political polarization and dysfunction. This is a book for anyone who is confused by what is happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live, work, and cooperate across party lines.

America Calling
America Calling

Author: Rajika Bhandari

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-09-14

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 1647421845

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Growing up in middle-class India, Rajika Bhandari has seen generations of her family look westward, where an American education means status and success. But she resists the lure of America because those who left never return—they all become flies trapped in honey in a land of opportunity. As a young woman, however, she finds herself heading to a US university to study, following her heart and a relationship. When that relationship ends and she fails in her attempt to move back to India as a foreign-educated woman, she returns to the US and finds herself in a job where the personal is political and professional: she is immersed in the lives of international students who come to America from over 200 countries, the universities that attract them, and the tangled web of immigration that a student must navigate. An unflinching and insightful narrative that explores the global appeal of a Made in America education that is a bridge to America’s successful past and to its future, America Calling is both a deeply personal story of Bhandari’s search for her place and voice, and an incisive analysis of America’s relationship with the rest of the world through the most powerful tool of diplomacy: education. At a time of growing nationalism, a turning inward, and fear of the “other,” America Calling is ultimately a call to action to keep America’s borders—and minds—open.

Succeeding as an International Student in the United States and Canada
Succeeding as an International Student in the United States and Canada

Author: Charles Lipson

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-02-15

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 0226484815

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Each year, 700,000 students from around the world come to the United States and Canada to study. For many, the experience is as challenging as it is exciting. Far from home, they must adapt to a new culture, new university system, and in many cases, a new language. The process can be overwhelming, but as Charles Lipson’s Succeeding as an International Student in the United States and Canada assures us, it doesn’t have to be. Succeeding is designed to help students navigate the myriad issues they will encounter—from picking a program to landing a campus job. Based on Lipson’s work with international students as well as extensive interviews with faculty and advisers, Succeeding includes practical suggestions for learning English, participating in class, and meeting with instructors. In addition it explains the rules of academic honesty as they are understood in U.S. and Canadian universities. Life beyond the classroom is also covered, with handy sections on living on or off campus, obtaining a driver’s license, setting up a bank account, and more. The comprehensive glossary addresses both academic terms and phrases heard while shopping or visiting a doctor. There is even a chapter on the academic calendar and holidays in the United States and Canada. Coming to a new country to study should be an exciting venture, not a baffling ordeal. Now, with this trustworthy resource, international students have all the practical information they need to succeed, in and out of the classroom.

Redesigning America’s Community Colleges
Redesigning America’s Community Colleges

Author: Thomas R. Bailey

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2015-04-09

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0674368282

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In the United States, 1,200 community colleges enroll over ten million students each year—nearly half of the nation’s undergraduates. Yet fewer than 40 percent of entrants complete an undergraduate degree within six years. This fact has put pressure on community colleges to improve academic outcomes for their students. Redesigning America’s Community Colleges is a concise, evidence-based guide for educational leaders whose institutions typically receive short shrift in academic and policy discussions. It makes a compelling case that two-year colleges can substantially increase their rates of student success, if they are willing to rethink the ways in which they organize programs of study, support services, and instruction. Community colleges were originally designed to expand college enrollments at low cost, not to maximize completion of high-quality programs of study. The result was a cafeteria-style model in which students pick courses from a bewildering array of choices, with little guidance. The authors urge administrators and faculty to reject this traditional model in favor of “guided pathways”—clearer, more educationally coherent programs of study that simplify students’ choices without limiting their options and that enable them to complete credentials and advance to further education and the labor market more quickly and at less cost. Distilling a wealth of data amassed from the Community College Research Center (Teachers College, Columbia University), Redesigning America’s Community Colleges offers a fundamental redesign of the way two-year colleges operate, stressing the integration of services and instruction into more clearly structured programs of study that support every student’s goals.

Closing of the American Mind
Closing of the American Mind

Author: Allan Bloom

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2008-06-30

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 1439126267

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The brilliant, controversial, bestselling critique of American culture that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times)—now featuring a new afterword by Andrew Ferguson in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition. In 1987, eminent political philosopher Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind, an appraisal of contemporary America that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times) and has not only been vindicated, but has also become more urgent today. In clear, spirited prose, Bloom argues that the social and political crises of contemporary America are part of a larger intellectual crisis: the result of a dangerous narrowing of curiosity and exploration by the university elites. Now, in this twenty-fifth anniversary edition, acclaimed author and journalist Andrew Ferguson contributes a new essay that describes why Bloom’s argument caused such a furor at publication and why our culture so deeply resists its truths today.