Higher Education

Gov. Martin O'Malley, speaking at the first statewide forum on college completion, called on Maryland's higher education institutions Tuesday to devise new ways to use technology to bolster graduation rates. "We've done a much better job in getting people to college," O'Malley told educators assembled at Morgan State University for the forum. "We need to improve getting people through college. " O'Malley has called for 55 percent of Maryland adults to have a college degree or advanced certification by 2025.

The president of Baltimore City Community College was forced out this week, following a tumultuous two years and a recent dramatic drop in enrollment. President Carolane Williams said she was caught off guard when two trustees called her Monday to say she had been "separated" from the college. Williams, who has headed the college for six years, said she was "confused" by the board's abrupt decision, which was announced Tuesday. "It came as a surprise, because there had been no previous conversations about it or any leadership issues that they had been concerned about, either from the board chair or the board as a whole," Williams said.

Young people and their parents are rightly nervous these days about the economy. Many wonder whether their investment in a college education will pay off. Such worries are overblown. College graduates continue to do far better, even in this difficult economy, than those who never go to college. The new global economy, in fact, requires far more people to have much higher levels of education than ever before. Given the current economic angst, students and their parents tend to focus too narrowly on which college major will result in the best first-job chances for employment and decent wages.

In a post earlier today on the anniversary of the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species , I casually grouped creationsts among hysterics about the Obama re-election and other individuals who do not appear to be wired to code. I may not have done them justice. Also today, at the Chronicle of Higher Education , one can find a sober article by Adam Laats  that explores the difficulties that supporters of evolution in dealing with creationists. In short, he says, caricaturing creationists is not productive.  Take one, the Hon. Paul C. Broun Jr., whom the good people of Georgia have dispatched to the United States House of Representatives.

Based on estimates by the Federal Reserve, for the first time in U.S. history, student-loan debt ($867 billion) has surpassed credit card debt ($704 billion). These debt levels have real implications for productivity and lifetime earnings for this current generation of graduates. Much has been written about college students dealing with rising tuition, but there's been much less examination of how substantial student-loan debt, coupled with a slumping economy, affects new graduates. According to a June report by Drexel University's Center for Labor Markets and Policy, even as the overall job market has rebounded in the last two years, employment prospects for college graduates have declined.

If you believe in the American promise - that hard work leads to opportunity - then you should support the Maryland Dream Act. The American promise rewards us with a real opportunity to build a better future for ourselves and our children - a real shot at the American dream - no matter where we started out in life, provided we apply ourselves and pay our taxes. It is the promise our country makes to us when we make a promise to contribute to our country. Core to that promise is our public education system, which empowers children of all backgrounds to achieve at high levels and graduate ready to compete in the American workforce and give back to the country.

A lawsuit alleging that Maryland's historically black colleges and universities continue to suffer from policies that promote racial segregation is now in the hands of a federal judge, six years after it was first filed. U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake interrupted attorneys for both sides during the four hours of closing arguments Friday with questions and comments that gave hints at the issues she will weigh as she sorts through the six weeks of testimony and hundreds of pages of documents.

Ervin M. Milner, who founded Milner Productions in the basement of his Northwest Baltimore home and turned it into one of the nation's largest producers of educational audiovisuals for physicians and hospitals, died Aug. 17 of complications from diabetes and kidney failure at the Springhouse in Pikesville assisted-living facility. He was 94. Mr. Milner was born in Baltimore and raised on Braddish Avenue. He attended city public schools at night and later the Baltimore College of Commerce.

The other day I praised Gore Vidal's Lincoln , mentioning in particular the accuracy of its historical details.  Now I learn that the estimable Heidi Landecker, now of The Chronicle of Higher Education , was the fact checker for the book (which she did not much esteem) and a principal source of that historical accuracy.  Her account of working with Gore Vidal  is well worth a few minutes of your time.     

Along with many of the nation's million and a half professors, I saw the recent apparent discovery of the Higgs boson particle as a great moment not only for science but for American education as well. Somehow, lost in the discussion of the discovery and the cost of the facility at which it took place, we managed to miss the real action that unveiled the Higgs: persons nurtured, selected, and paid to think. By universities. As our nation continues to endure a prolonged economic struggle, the cost of higher education has become a focus for many because the price of attendance has outpaced inflation consistently and significantly.