Links for 9/04/09

Jim Hamilton on some UC professors plans to walkout on classes as a protest of furloughs:

I strongly believe that cancellation of classes is a very bad idea…

Students are taking a very serious hit in the form of higher tuition and fees. Faculty members have also taken a significant reduction in income, and that should be the basic message that we send to the world. Personally I would have preferred to see it called "salary cut" rather than "furlough" for precisely this reason…

There are any number of things that happen in life that may not be as I would have wished. But one of my core principles is never to take that out on the students I am asked to teach.

If some of my colleagues perceive that they now have better opportunities than teaching at the University of California, I'd encourage them to resign so that they can take advantage of those opportunities.

If not, they need to stop whining and do their jobs.

And perhaps even be thankful that, unlike many other Americans, they still have one.

USA Today asks “is college worth it?”

SLA on Prepaid Tuition Plans

what is wrong with the design of these programs?

In one sentence: As tuition rates have skyrocketed, equity markets have cratered leaving a significant gap between the assets and future liabilities of these programs. It reminds me of that time-worn cliche: If a deal (locking in tomorrow's tuition rates today) sounds too good to be true....oh you know the rest. No amount of financial alchemy could overcome this combination of tuition levels rising at rates consistently above inflation and fickle financial markets which don't grow at a stair step 8% annual rate.

David E. Shi had a good piece in IHE with this funny take on the state of higher ed:

recall the Buddhist story about a man on horseback galloping past a monk. “Where are you going?” yells the monk. The man replies, “I don’t know -- ask my horse.” In recent months we too have often felt that we’re riding on a runaway horse.