What does the future hold for the land-grant universities? They’re out of money, in short.
City Journal surveyed the problem:
American universities are in trouble. And no, I don’t mean the troubles in the Ivy League, though these schools are indeed a mess. America’s other—potentially more important—universities also face a crisis. What made the American higher education system great was not just its Ivy League schools but its land-grant state universities. Today, however, budget pressures at these institutions could alter the trajectory of education, the labor force, and our politics for years.
Read the whole, short thing here.
The link was curtesy of Tyler Cowen’s Marginal Revolutions blog.
Son D has been invited to go hawking with one of the other Envirothon graduates next weekend. The young man has been training a hawk since late last spring. Should be a fun time, and I just told Fang we're not getting him a hawk, so don't ask, no matter how much fun he has. It's not the hawk itself that costs an arm and a leg, but the "mews" to keep it in - has to be approved by the State Falconers' Association - and the food and all the other equipment.
I think we suffer from the pressure of too much information that comes at us in a constant flow -- a barrage, if you will. When I opened my laptop a moment ago, I was greeted with an opportunity to select a better method to make my decisions, based on up-to-the-minute local weather forecasts, complete with maps, etc. I declined, of course. I am among the lucky mass of people able to see outside and bring to bear my general knowledge of seasonal weather and, between those, I can easily know how to dress before stepping outside. I can even knowingly choose whether to pick up my snow shovel or take my bathing suit and towel.
I don't think this is just about weather forecasts. We are blasted, over and over, with "news" that is not even new but the reports are written with an urgency that can lead to a level of anxiety that is wholly unnecessary and serves no purpose other than to get us to follow the news in case some new story breaks. This is not healthy. Living in a world of constant "what you need to know" is not good for us, aside from the fact that it is a lie. XXX story, "what you need to know." No, I don't --- certainly not in any urgent way.