Higher Education

In a move that has caught some Maryland college officials by surprise, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has chosen former Coppin State College President Calvin W. Burnett as his new secretary of higher education. Ehrlich spokesman Shareese DeLeaver said yesterday that the governor would likely make his formal announcement on Burnett next week. As higher- education secretary, Burnett would lead the Maryland Higher Education Commission, an agency with a paid staff of 60 and unpaid board of 12 that is charged with coordinating policy among the state's private and public colleges.

The economic and political tumult in Europe has continued this week with anti-incumbent votes in France and Greece as well as signs of disaffection in Italy, Great Britain and Germany. The electorate is angry, and the election results have raised renewed concerns about whether Europe's most debt-burdened countries will stick with their quest toward fiscal discipline. On this side of the Atlantic, it's tempting to view the uproar in purely parochial terms - out of concern that the U.S. economy will continue to be encumbered by the eurozone crisis.

Young people face a cruel irony. Most can't land a decent job without a college education, yet many graduates are locked into poorly paying positions that don't permit repayment of student loans. For two generations, college price tags have risen much faster than inflation and families' ability to pay. More importantly, costs have leaped faster than what graduates can earn over working lifetimes, and many diplomas do not offer a positive return on investment, as measured by graduates' ability to service their debt.

Young people face a cruel irony. Most can't land a decent job without a college education, yet many graduates are locked into poorly paying positions that don't permit repayment of student loans. For two generations, college price tags have risen much faster than inflation and families' ability to pay. More importantly, costs have leaped faster than what graduates can earn over working lifetimes, and many diplomas do not offer a positive return on investment, as measured by graduates' ability to service their debt.

It's amazing how often bad ideas about black people, and the institutions that serve them, get recycled. A case in point is the recent proposal by the state's higher-education secretary, Shaila Aery, to ''merge'' Morgan State University and Coppin State College.Ms. Aery, a widely respected administrator, came to Maryland expressing high hopes for boosting the state's institutions to the front rank in academia. Grand plans were launched to restructure higher education, merging all public four-year institutions into a state university system akin to California's and New York's, with strengths drawn from the lessons learned in Missouri, where she came from.

The legacy of Raymond Haysbert goes beyond business and politics ("Business and policy leader Raymond V. Haysbert Sr. 1920-2010," May 25). He was also a visionary in higher education and played an important role in an innovative program developed at Johns Hopkins in the 1990s. The Leadership Development Program for Minority Managers (LDP) was designed to attract a cohort of mid-level black professionals who sought a challenging and supportive academic business environment that combined the rich resources of the university and the Baltimore business community.

In your article "Universities are slowly tiptoeing into taming costs with efficiency" (Dec. 19), the argument is made that universities, by increasing class size, reducing professors and lectures, adding teaching by teaching assistants and increasing computer grading, can maintain educational standards while saving money in these tough economic times. This thesis is so oversimplified as to be simply false, or, at best, true only in a few limited cases. I cannot speak authoritatively to whether this higher education solution is ever possible in chemistry courses and some other natural sciences, but in the humanities and social sciences it is always educationally destructive.

This summer, the U.S. Department of Education introduced a proposal to regulate for-profit universities. Referred to in education circles as the "gainful employment" regulations, the proposal seeks to protect students with the highest financial need who enroll at these institutions, to ensure the likelihood that they will be able to find employment and repay their loans after completing their certificate or degree programs. The Department of Education is proposing a new sanction, namely that if the for-profit programs are not producing "gainful employment" opportunities for these students, those institutions will lose their student aid eligibility — a major source of income for these education companies.

University System of Maryland Chancellor William E. "Brit" Kirwan, who is in the midst of gathering input on the question of whether the University of Maryland-College Park and the University of Maryland-Baltimore should be merged, says it would be a shame if politics took primacy over the interests of higher education. Too late for that. The issue came up in the most political way possible - with Senate President and top College Park booster Thomas V. Mike Miller waltzing into the Budget and Taxation Committee this spring and inserting language that appeared to require the merger.

MARYLAND'S BUDGETARY woes have created a climate of potential disaster in higher education and among its students. Universities and their faculties and staffs are concerned about cuts in work force, programs and support budgets. Students fear the impact of substantial tuition and fee increases. Mere defense of the current budget does not lead to the necessary policy discussion. The situation presents an unwelcome opportunity to rethink state higher education policy. Past polices have improved Maryland higher education.

It is difficult to fault the "doomsday" budget and support yearly budget increases for higher education when we hear stories about overpaid professors who only teach a couple of hours a day and take paid sabbaticals every three years. We also can't forget the million-dollar coaching salaries and all the sports revenues that have nothing to do with education. Revenues from higher taxes are not trickling down to benefit the students. The solution is to curb spending. Dan Griffin, Perry Hall

We write as members and leaders of Maryland's faith community. We are glad that a special session of the Maryland General Assembly to resolve the state's budget impasse now seems likely. We cannot stress strongly enough how vital it is to fashion a full fix to the doomsday budgetary scenario We each witness in our own congregations and communities the harm the Great Recession has wrought. Now is decidedly not the time to slash more from a state budget that already has left families and communities reeling.

We all know that the cost of higher education continues to increase at an exponential rate. The problem is real and, not to sound apocalyptic, getting worse. Recently, as has already been reported, the state legislature failed to approve its proposed budget and ended up with a "doomsday" budget that shortchanges the University of Maryland College Park and many other institutions and government programs. Specifically, the doomsday measure includes a potential 10 percent (or greater) tuition increase.

Freeman A. Hrabowski III, the longtime president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County whose trailblazing work in educating minority students in the sciences has catapulted the university onto the national stage, has been recognized as one of the most influential leaders in the world. Hrabowski will join a renowned crowd of dignitaries, foreign heads of state, celebrities, activists and other reformers on Time magazine's 2012 Top 100 Most Influential People, due to be released Wednesday.

The arrangement wherein Towson University will be allowed to construct a $25 million satellite campus of sorts at Harford Community College accomplishes two worthy goals while keeping in check, at least to some degree, the trend of colleges and universities expanding for the sake of expansion. Strangely, there has been something of a trend among what were once called junior colleges, now community colleges, but generally speaking two-year colleges, to make the jump to four-year colleges.

Thomas E. Florestano, a long-serving president of Anne Arundel Community College, died March 31 of Parkinson's disease complications at Ginger Cove Health Center. He was 79 and had lived in Annapolis. "Tom did a great deal to bring our community college into national prominence," said former Anne Arundel County Executive Robert Neall. "He was local. He knew the county and he knew our needs. He was a mentor and a friend. " Born in Annapolis and raised on Monticello Avenue, he was the son of Ernest Florestano and Lena Lorea.

I am a proud product of the Baltimore City public school system. My high school years at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute prepared me exceptionally well for the rigorous academic studies that led to a career in medicine, health policy and economics, and now higher education. Unfortunately, my education in Baltimore during the 1970s contrasts sharply with the experience of many urban students across America who are mired in underperforming K-12 school systems that poorly prepare them for higher education and the world of opportunities beyond.

Towson University will be allowed to construct and operate a new branch on the campus of Harford Community College, under a decision released Friday afternoon by the state's interim secretary of higher education. The $25 million project will proceed despite previously expressed reservations from Morgan State University leaders, who questioned the fairness of allowing Towson to stake a foothold in Harford County, a growing suburb with a rich base of military jobs and no four-year universities.