education
America’s ever-deepening college debt problem is really a symptom of a worse malady: our societal addiction to college itself. Any sober assessment of the facts would indicate that too many Americans are going to college. As a result, college costs--and debt--have skyrocketed while the rewards for college have plunged.
President Trump just signed an Executive Order requiring colleges and universities to uphold free speech or risk losing federal research and education grants. “Universities that want taxpayer dollars should promote free speech, not silence free speech,” President Trump said at the White House on Thursday. “People who are confident in their beliefs should not censor others.”
When hackers struck one-third of North Dakota's schools with a vicious malware attack last February, it highlighted the growing cyber threat facing America's public-education sector-even in a state that's ahead of the cybersecurity curve.
Now it is finally occurring to some folks that A) college is not necessarily the best choice for all students and B) the world needs people who do what Mike Rowe always called the jobs "that make civilized life possible for the rest of us." Done well, new studies show, it can boost both academics and wages for students. It might even help solve the mystery of the missing non-college educated male workers. And so Career and Technical Education (CTE) is coming back into its own.
Well, it turns out that U.S. taxpayers spend about $40 billion--not million--a year on research at American colleges and universities. These dollars are spent by the Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation and a host of other agencies. These funds are not being used to underwrite tuition or teaching; Washington is engaging universities as subcontractors in order to conduct selected research.
A House GOP lawmaker on Tuesday introduced a bill that aims to clamp down on intellectual property theft at U.S. universities by limiting the involvement of certain foreign students in sensitive research projects. The legislation sponsored by Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, comes amid concern that China and other countries are seeking to steal technology and information tied to U.S. national security.
College funding, school safety and school choice are items addressed in the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed fiscal year 2020 budget, which department officials shared with media in a conference call Monday morning. The Trump administration’s proposal provides $131 billion in new post-secondary grants, loans and work-study and includes $64 billion in discretionary spending, a 10-percent reduction from the prior year. It includes recommended decreases, increases and unchanged or “level funding” throughout.
It is not just the practical application of our educations that has an impact on our day-to-day lives. The most commonly quoted statistic about the value of higher education is the increased earnings potential of $1 million with a bachelor’s degree over a high school diploma. That is because of the inextricable connection between education after high school and career opportunities.
Chinese hackers singled out over two dozen universities in the US and around the world in an apparent bid to gain access to maritime military research, according to a report by cybersecurity firm iDefense, which was obtained by The Wall Street Journal. The hackers sent universities spear phishing emails doctored to appear as if they came from partner universities, but they unleashed a malicious payload when opened. Universities are traditionally seen as easier targets than US military contractors, and they can still contain useful military research.
The U.S. is still out in front of global rivals when it comes to innovation, but American universities -- where new ideas often percolate -- have reason to look over their shoulder. That’s especially true for technologies like 5G phone networks and artificial intelligence. They’re exactly the fields where President Donald Trump recently insisted the U.S. has to lead -- and also the ones where Asia, especially China, has caught up.