Tax reform that harms graduate students and university employees

The competing House and Senate tax reform bills are large, complex, and often difficult to understand.  The Senate bill, for example, is a 479-page document that was passed early in the morning last Saturday and that included last-minute, hand-written passages as shown to the right.  There are numerous parts of each bill that have a large impact on colleges and universities in the country, as well as their students.  One estimate calculated after the House bill was passed is that if enacted into law, it would cost students and their families $71 billion over the next ten years.  Now that both chambers have passed bills, a conference committee will try to hash out the differences and agree on one bill to be passed by both the House and Senate and sent on to President Trump to be signed into law. Continue reading “Tax reform that harms graduate students and university employees”

Higher education turmoil in Washington

It’s been almost seven weeks since President Trump was inaugurated, and it’s been quite tumultuous for those of us in colleges and universities around the country.  Regardless of one’s politics, I think that many of us were not sure what to expect with the new administration, largely because then-candidate Donald Trump said relatively little about higher education during the campaign.

Photo of President Trump taking the oath of office
Photo courtesy WhiteHouse.gov

I wrote about the little he had said about the topic, and wrote a similar piece about Hillary Clinton’s proposals, which were more fleshed out.  I also had written about the President-elect’s nomination of Betsy DeVos to the post of Secretary of Education.

Continue reading “Higher education turmoil in Washington”

Is the American higher education system out of date?

Washington Post web page

This week, the Washington Post is running a series titled, “Do we need to remodel our university system?”  The Post invited me to contribute an essay to the series in which I argue that one of the strengths of our system is the many forms of postsecondary educational institutions we have, and that it provides students with many options.  I invite you to read my essay as well as the others in the series.