His presence on Monday at the annual meeting for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities here indicated that broad fears about the economy—even about aspects only tangentially related to higher education—are a top concern of college administrators.
While generous compensation packages for college presidents have come under increasing public scrutiny, other university employees often earn far more.
Presidents of a number of colleges vowed in November to take a pay cut or otherwise give back part of their earnings as a way to help buffer their schools against the struggling economy.
The Delhi Declaration also acknowledges the role of private initiatives in meeting the rapidly growing need for higher education, particularly technical and professional courses. However, the participating nations were of the view that private institutions should be inclusive in their approach to access.
Even as the Commission on Higher Education is not mandated by law to set tuition fee ceilings, Speaker Prospero Nograles said private schools have the social and moral responsibility not to treat profits as their reason for existence.
U.S. Sen. Charles E. Grassley voiced dismay today over the findings of a report by The Chronicle about compensation for private-college employees other than presidents. The Iowa Republican has been urging private colleges, as nonprofit entities, to rein in pay for their top executives, and he cited the report’s findings that the highest-compensated employees in academe made more than $4-million in 2006-7.
Waldorf College, a financially struggling private institution in Iowa, is discussing a potential sale of its assets to a for-profit, online education company, The Des Moines Register reported.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has published a preliminary state-by-state list of maximum in-state tuition and fees, a tally that serves as an early indicator of how much the new GI Bill may cost the federal government. The numbers contain some surprises and bode well for both veterans and the private colleges they may wish to attend.
David M. Walker, the outspoken former U.S. comptroller general, is probably one of the few people who can make a talk about national debt sound like a hellfire-and-brimstone sermon.