The college dreams of thousands of students who are illegal immigrants moved closer to fulfillment Wednesday after the state Senate approved a bill that for the first time would give them access to public financial aid.



Part of a two-bill package known as the California Dream Act, the measure would allow undocumented students who qualify for reduced in-state tuition to apply for Cal Grants, community college waivers and other public aid programs. To be eligible, they must be California high school graduates who attended schools in the state at least three years, and demonstrate financial need and academic merit.

Their long-awaited meeting is set for next week. But when Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee and mayor-apparent Vincent C. Gray do finally sit down, it is increasingly likely that the discussion will focus on the terms of her disengagement from the D.C. school system rather than how she might stay.

Rhee moved her departure closer to certainty Wednesday night with comments to an A-list audience at the Newseum after the red-carpet premiere of "Waiting for 'Superman,'" the documentary that casts her as a tart-tongued heroine of the national education reform movement. At a panel discussion that followed the film, Rhee portrayed Gray's Democratic primary victory over Mayor Adrian M. Fenty on Tuesday as a catastrophe.

"Yesterday's election results were devastating, devastating," Rhee said. "Not for me, because I'll be fine, and not even for Fenty, because he'll be fine, but devastating for the schoolchildren of Washington, D.C."

Gray campaign spokeswoman Traci Hughes said in a statement Thursday that it was "unfortunate that the children have been thrown into the middle of the political fray."

Otis Mathis was a D-student in high school, went to Wayne State University in a program for the academically unqualified, sued for his degree because he couldn't pass a basic English test, became a community organizer, and eventually was unanimously elected President of the School Board despite his being unqualified (just like our Community Organizer-In-Chief)including being functionally illiterate. On June 17, Mathis handed in his letter of resignation, undoubtedly written by someone else, after it was revealed that he had a habit of masturbating right in front of school Superintendent Teresa Gueyser. He tried unsuccessfully to rescind his resignation and, as Detroit News' Laura Berman said: "The Detroit Public Schools board wiped clean its website of disgraced President Otis Mathis."

CA's budget cutting has struck the state's "other" university system, the 23-campus Cal State Universities. The usual draconian cuts "on the backs of the students" are being debated and denounced: CSU To Join UC In Cutting Pay, Raising Tuition

Just as the University of California's Board of Regents was voting Thursday morning to cut $813 million from the UC budget, the chancellor of the California State University system announced he will ask trustees to approve a hefty 20 percent fee hike on students next week.

CSU Chancellor Charles Reed said he will also ask for layoffs, unpaid furloughs and a range of other measures Tuesday to save the university system $584 million.

"It's nothing short of a mega-meltdown financially," Reed said.

(snip)

California State University's Board of Trustees will decide Tuesday whether to approve Chancellor Charles Reed's plan to cut $584 million from the CSU budget. Here are the basics of his plan:

Higher student fees: A 20 percent fee hike, on top of the 10 percent increase approved in May, would bring the cost of attending a CSU school to $4,827.

Furloughs: All employees would take off two unpaid days per month.

Enrollment reduction: About 450,000 students attend CSU. Efforts would be made to reduce enrollment by 40,000 over two years.

Campus cuts of $190 million: Layoffs, course reductions, freezes on maintenance, construction, travel and more. Cut to be decided by officials at each campus.

Just to add to the sense of chaos and panic, the linked article fails to mention that tuition will cost $4,827 per year. At $2,413.50 per semester, CSU is still a bargain. I graduated from San Francisco State, and the education I got there was just as good as the one I got while attending Expensive Private U for one year. Most CSU students can actually work their way through school, a virtual impossibility at private schools and even most state schools. As such, most CSU students take these sorts of fee increases in stride:

Not all students are angry.

"I understand that they can't do anything about it," shrugged Aznaur Midov, an incoming senior at San Francisco State University who studies banking. "The university has to help itself to survive."

Lest anyone take Midov for an affluent gent, he works as a waiter and as a security guard, and he pays his tuition with - yes - a credit card.

The adults who work at CCU, on the other hand, are up in arms as their cloistered world is invaded by the barbarian hordes led by the implacable forces of Recession, Balance Sheets, and Macroeconomics:

Employees are worried.

"If my pay is cut, I could very well lose my house," said Jane Veeder, a professor of visual communication design at San Francisco State. "Is the CSU going to co-sign my loan?"

At Cal State Long Beach, librarian Tiffini Travis said she was hoping to teach a community service seminar this fall in which freshmen would help feed the homeless at a local shelter.

"Now I'm afraid we're going to be the ones eating there," she said.

Would it be out of bounds if I guess that a "professor of visual communication design" is the sort of progressive who supports the unionization, high public pension costs, environmentally correct "no growth" laws, taxes on "the rich," and other initiatives that have raised the cost of housing (and everything else) in CA? Now, she's flummuxed that the state government has grown too big to be sustained over the long term? It was inevitable! By the way, having CSU "co-sign your mortgage" is the sort of thinking that lies at the root of the present crisis, demonstrating that some people still don't get it.

Tyler Cowan gives us his 10-point summary of a talk he gave to college administrators: My Talk To University Administrators. All are worth reading, but there are some I'd like to highlight:

3. Community colleges are in many cases turning out to be stronger competitors than are for-profits.

Commuity colleges are serving the perpetually underserved in the higher education world: people with ability, but who lack the $$ or the time to go to "regular" college. They should be encouraged, but instead are often first on the chopping block.

4. The higher education bubble has burst. The expiration of stimulus funds in 2011 will be a crushing event for many public sector universities.

Amen. Really the problem is not the bursting of the bubble, but the obvious diminishing returns that a college degree is delivering. Not sure why Cowan is focusing on public sector universities. The private ones are outrageously expensive and, with the exception of the Ivies, deliver undifferentiated results. At this point, I would pay for my kid to go to UC, and no more. No way I would pay $50,000 to send her to, say, Davidson.

7. The way to be fiscally responsible is to refuse luxury projects in good times. If bad times have come it is already too late.

That's advice that works anywhere, but not in the world of higher education, apparently. Baby steps.

I read this article a couple months ago, but I see that Cafe Hayek has linked to it which gives me an excuse to highlight it.

Charles Platt is a journalist who decided to pull a Barbara Ehrenbacher and get a job at Wal-Mart to see what life is like on the inside of the "notorious" discount retailer. What he found might surprise those of you who thought that Wal-Mart is a modern day Simon Legree. Platt found working at Wal-Mart was hardly oppressive and that, more surprisingly, Wal-Mart's employees had a lot of autonomy, including the ability to place large merchandising orders. Platt does allow that working at Wal-Mart is not a high-wage job, but that leads him to some conclusions that would appall the Progressive Set:

I found myself reaching an inescapable conclusion. Low wages are not a Wal-Mart problem. They are an industry-wide problem, afflicting all unskilled entry-level jobs, and the reason should be obvious.

In our free-enterprise system, employees are valued largely in terms of what they can do. This is why teenagers fresh out of high school often go to vocational training institutes to become auto mechanics or electricians. They understand a basic principle that seems to elude social commentators, politicians and union organizers. If you want better pay, you need to learn skills that are in demand.

The blunt tools of legislation or union power can force a corporation to pay higher wages, but if employees don't create an equal amount of additional value, there's no net gain. All other factors remaining equal, the store will have to charge higher prices for its merchandise, and its competitive position will suffer.

This is Economics 101, but no one wants to believe it, because it tells us that a legislative or unionized quick-fix is not going to work in the long term. If you want people to be wealthier, they have to create additional wealth.

When he says "no one," he means liberals and progressives in the intellectual, media, and political elite. Some of figured this out during our first after-school job.

Having dissed the unions, Platt then goes off on public schools and (by extension) our useless teachers:

To my mind, the real scandal is not that a large corporation doesn't pay people more. The scandal is that so many people have so little economic value. Despite (or because of) a free public school system, millions of teenagers enter the work force without marketable skills. So why would anyone expect them to be well paid?

Damn right. Think of all the time wasted in high school (and earlier) on learning about stuff like Earth Day, "A Color Purple," Kwanza, sex ed., etc. Think of the millions of average kids forced to spend hours yawning through the schoolday, learning nothing (or close to it), until they graduate and SURPRISE! they struggle to find post-high school work.

SF's long controversy over the School Board's attempt to end the Junior ROTC in the local high schools is over. Somewhat surprisingly, the military-industrial complex won this one. SF Board Votes to Reinstate the JROTC

A three-year battle over whether Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps belongs in San Francisco schools ended Tuesday night with a 4-3 vote by the school board to restore the military leadership program weeks before its scheduled expiration.

A lot of people outside SF saw this as "typical San Francisco" anti-military showmanship, and there was some of that. But, this also resulted from a circumstance that is more common than folks realize: the capture of local boards by committed activists who are willing to put in the time and effort to pass their preferred policies in the relative obscurity of sparsely attended open hearings. The right has its creationists, and the left has its environmentalists and anti-war goofs. As long as they can avoid bad publicity, they can get good results (meaning bad for us) simply by showing up and making noise.

Luckily, this case pitted clean-cut high school kids against scruffy Greens and "peace" movement types. It's really no contest, as long as the contest is joined.

Douglas and other JROTC cadets told the board the program offers them motivation and direction during what can often be tumultuous adolescent years.

But Michael Wong, a member of Veterans for Peace, said JROTC offers "classic military leadership intended for war."

Yeah, maaaan, it's like all connected! The Empire must have its foot soldiers!

The only disappointment is that the JROTC's continued existence is dependent on the sort of procedural dodges that progressives love to inflict on people. In this case, there's some sort of complaint abouit whether this should qualify fo phys-ed credit.

While the program will continue to be offered in city high schools, it was unclear whether JROTC courses will qualify for physical education credit next year. The board will likely address that issue at some point during the summer.

"We can make this program work if we want this program to work," (board member Rachel) Norton said.

That is absolutely right. Too bad it's taken so long to reach that conclusion.

They'll be fighting in the streets. Today's college graduates from the famed "helicopter generation" are entering the worst job market in 25 years, and soon the worst since the Big One ended. The Class of 2009 Curse

The bad news for this spring's college graduates is that they're entering the toughest labor market in at least 25 years.

The worse news: Even those who land jobs will likely suffer lower wages for a decade or more compared to those lucky enough to graduate in better times, studies show.

The W$J doesn't mention this, but many of these grads, and/or their parents, are also facing a heavy load of student debt that they need to start paying off immediately. And studies show that entering the post-college job market in Bad Times will affect not just your lifetime earnings , but also the arc of your career.

Economic research shows that the consequences of graduating in a downturn are long-lasting. They include lower earnings, a slower climb up the occupational ladder and a widening gap between the least- and most-successful grads.

In short, luck matters. The damage can linger up to 15 years, says Lisa Kahn, a Yale School of Management economist. She used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a government data base, to track wages of white men who graduated before, during and after the deep 1980s recession.

Ms. Kahn found that for each percentage-point increase in the unemployment rate, those with the misfortune to graduate during the recession earned 7% to 8% less in their first year out than comparable workers who graduated in better times. The effect persisted over many years, with recession-era grads earning 4% to 5% less by their 12th year out of college, and 2% less by their 18th year out.

The real curse is that, even in the best of times, the promise of college, doesn't always pay off because there are often more college grads out there than there are jobs requiring a college degree. No Stimulous Necessary for College Education

The three occupations expected to have the largest increases in the number of workers employed are all jobs that people can do with only on-the-job training (OJT) — jobs like home health care aides. If you add up all the occupations that call for only OJT, it’s nearly 52 percent of the expected job growth. If you add in those jobs mentioned above that call for some vocational training, it’s over 58 percent.

Therefore, while Obama wants us to think that we’re falling well short educationally and need more people to complete college, in fact the BLS numbers show nothing of the sort. The majority of the job growth, according to the BLS, will be in work that demands nothing more than simple trainability, not advanced academic study.

The political class always thinks more education is the answer. It's a lot easier for them to open up schools and tell people, hey, maybe you're not smart enough to make it in today's economy, rather than actually create an environment in which desirable jobs are being created in time for them to stand around and take credit.

Moreover, the demand for "more education" creates insurmountable barriers for ambitious minorities, immigrants, and working class whites who can't realistically afford to go to a 4-year college. The linked article mentions that many companies use a college degree as a crude cut-off in hiring. Enterprise Rent-a-Car, for example, requires all of their reservation agents - those people you talk to on the phone or at the airport - to have college degrees. Why some chubby frat-boy who majored in beer should have such an advantage over the hard-working son of a Wal-Mart clerk is beyond me.

Of course, the United States is filled with non-college educational institutions that can train someone for a good career. Maybe they won't learn Shakespeare, but I think Western Civilization will be able to cope: Should You Go To College

Jenna Ashley Robinson writes: "If you decide that college isn’t the best alternative for you, there are many other opportunities:

• Pursue a trade: From the traditional contractor’s license to high-tech certificate programs sponsored by Microsoft and Cisco, there are ways to pursue a profession that do not require college. You can get a contractor’s license in plumbing, HVAC, electrical, or general contracting by passing the state test. You could become a Licensed Practical Nurse with just one year of study. Other fields where licensure is an alternative to many years of formal education are massage therapy, cosmetology, physical therapy, automobile repair, and dental hygiene. Licensure and education requirements vary from state to state, but in most cases fewer than two years of education are required before you can get a license or certificate in these fields.
  
  A new study of low-income students and how they fare shows that they are better off financially when they get certificates in practical skills instead of academic degrees. That is because many who go to college drop out of school without getting any degree or professional training at all. Regardless of your income level, the lesson is the same: if you’re likely to lose interest in a four-year school, then entering a trade is an attractive alternative.
  
• Learn as an apprentice: Apprenticeships used to be much more common than they are today, but in many fields the practice continues informally. For example, many professional chefs started out as line-cooks with no formal training, then worked their way up to executive chef. Some even own their own restaurants or catering businesses.
  
• Join the military: The United States military consists of five active duty branches and seven reserve components. The minimum age for enlistment is 17, but a high school diploma is required. The vast majority of enlistees, over 90 percent, are recent high school graduates. Joining the military will provide you with specialized training in any number of fields, depending upon the branch you are considering. However, it’s not for everyone; once you have enlisted, you are under contract with the U.S. government, and getting out is extremely difficult.
  
• Get a vocational associate degree: Community colleges have options other than preparation for a four-year school. An Associate Degree in Occupational Studies, for example, qualifies students for entering the workforce immediately upon graduation. Degrees are available in many fields, such as computer programming, medical specialties, hospitality and restaurant management, wireless technology, or secure networking, just to name a few. There are generally very few or no liberal arts requirements for this degree.

You NEVER hear people in public life suggest any of this. In fact, it's common for prominent liberals to deride the military as a career path. It's tough to find a high school in a typical American suburb (not to mention inner-city) that offers any sort of vocational training. Obtaining a license (well, maybe not a real estate license ...) is also a good idea, although doing so requires doing things like using your brain and obtaining a specific skill set (horrors!).

The real problem with education in the United States is the sheep-like way many parents and kids go about obtaining one. College is always the goal, whether or not the kid can do the work, or even wants to be there in the first place. A parent can spend thousands of dollars a semester to send their C+ student to a middling private college so he can get a job he most likely could have gotten after a few years in the work force after high school. It's a tremendous waste of time and resources for everyone involved. But the peculiar demands of modern political discourse leaves us stuck rhetorically on "everyone goes to college" as the only socially approved choice.

Here's an interesting short essay by Bill Costello, an American education advocate who visited a Japanese school and came away impressed: Rising Sons

I didn't realize that Tom Tancredo was still capable of drawing a crowd of chanting "protesters," but that's just what he did at UNC the other day. Now the apologies are flying: UNC leaders apologize for speech fiasco:

On Wednesday, UNC-CH Chancellor Holden Thorp and UNC System President Erskine Bowles both telephoned former Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado to apologize after student protesters shouted Tancredo down as he tried to give a speech. Students smashed a window a few feet from where he stood and blocked his face with a banner that said, "No One Is Illegal."

Tancredo is known as one of the nation's most strident voices against immigration, both legal and illegal. But on Tuesday he never got to make his argument against in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants. The broken glass, and the subsequent use of pepper spray by police, shut down the event while Tancredo was merely describing recent legislation aimed at providing such benefits.

* that a single country - Mexico - is dominating recent immigration for no better reason than its shares our southern border

* that illegal immigrants are often an exploited class whose low wages also have the effect of lowering the wages of low-income American workers;

* that illegal immigrants are drawing on America's generous welfare system and public services, for which Americans are paying increasing taxes with the trade-off of decreased services

* that H1-B visas often shut Americans out of high wage tech jobs for the sake of temporary workers who may or may not stay in the United States.

* that there is a significant incidence of identity theft, especially of social security numbers, which enables illegal immigration

* that the chaotic nighttime border crossings along the southern border are dangerous for the illegals, and make a mockery of our sovereignty.

* that the proposed "guest worker" program would facilitate the importation of temporary workers, rather than the hiring of Americans.