Chronicling Higher Education’s Disarray

A look at the latest education news seems to show that academia’s left hand doesn’t know what its far left hand is doing.

From the Chronicle of Higher Education we learn that “As students confront rising college costs and a labyrinthine financial-aid process, some are turning to crowdfunding websites like Go-FundMe to cover their expenses.”

“While the approach is still novel and hardly widespread, financial-aid officials say, enthusiasm for online campaigns is very much a reflection of the times,” Libby Sander wrote in the Chronicle. “Students are frustrated with the aid process, eager to avoid student-loan debt, and worried over a weak job market.”

“They are also comfortable with social-media networks and willing to share personal information online. It’s hardly surprising, then, that some students seek help on such platforms. The technology may be new, but the idea—think tip jars for college—is not.”

Four pages later, in the Chronicle, we learn from Don Troop that a “Strong U. S. Stock Market Put College Endowments in the Black in 2013.” Well, if these colleges are that flush, why don’t they show these crowdsourcing kids some love and financially aid them?  Unfortunately, in the academic mindset, student aid must always come from taxpayers and parents, even if the school has more money than they do.

This attitude stretches to those who would purport to regulate universities but who rarely see any evil when they look at non-profit or state universities. Thus, the Chornicle informs us, “State Attorneys General Open Investigations Into For-Profit Colleges.” What about all the other, allegedly not-for-profit ones?