Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, is famous for predicting bubbles, first the Nasdaq crash in 2000 and next, the housing bubble in 2008. Now he argues that the next inflated market in the United States that’s about to burst is education. In an interview with TechCrunch he argues: “A true bubble is when something […]
Education in America
Posted inEducation in America
Reading and Education
For some time, Ta-Nehisi Coates has been blogging about reading and learning, and the strictures classrooms place on reading some authors, like Jane Austen. It’s odd, but there’s something particular about discovering great works and great writers that seems hampered by institutional education. Coates writes: . . .First, some of us are poor students, and […]
Posted inEducation in America
Gainful-Employment Rule Survives Funding Deal
So here’s an underreported bit of good news from the deal on funding the federal government: The Department of Education’s “gainful employment” rule, which would prevent federal loan assistance from being used to pay for education at colleges with high student-loan default rates or where students end up having to pay a huge portion of […]
Posted inEducation in America
Are We Really Schooling the World?
Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden trailer from lost people films on Vimeo. Over the weekend, I watched a film called Schooling the World, part of National Geographic’s “Half the Sky” series featuring female movie-makers. The movie, which was far too simplistic and relied on too many quotes from famous people scrolling down […]
Posted inEducation in America
The Education of Geraldine Ferraro
As the first female vice-presidential candidate for a major party, Ferraro — the daughter of working-class, Italian Catholic immigrants — quickly learned that it was her gender that counted most.
Posted inEducation in America
Why America Needs Better History Education
John Stossel has never been mistaken for an intelligent man, so it’s no surprise that he would say something like this: John Stossel on Fox: “Why is there a Bureau of Indian Affairs? … No group in America has been more helped by the government than the American Indians.” Obviously, this is only true if […]
Posted inEducation in America
Real-Life Welfare Queens
The Obama administration has proposed a very simple “gainful employment” rule for preventing rent-seeking in the for-profit college industry. The rule is, as Kay Steiger writes, that institutions would not be eligible for federal loans if “less than 35 percent of students start paying down the principle on their loans after graduation and students’ debt […]
Posted inEducation in America
Not Just a Puerto Rican Thing
The standoff in Puerto Rico over student fees highlights the nationwide fight over access to higher education — only there, it’s much worse.
Posted inEducation in America
A False Dichotomy Between Family Planning and Education
At The Root, Lenny McAllister writes that defunding Planned Parenthood, as the House did two weeks ago, is a good thing. Why? Because the organization is bad for black women (his argument is based on, he says, the historical racism of the nonprofit and the fact that black women get abortions at higher rates), and […]
Posted inEducation in America
Immigration and the GOP’s Demise
Will the GOP embrace immigration reform or continue to ostracize key voters?
