Higher Education News
World & Nation
Bucking a national trend, Governor Robert
Ehrlich Jr. of Maryland has proposed shifting funds away from the state’s
merit-based scholarship program to one that awards aid based on student
financial need.
During the late 1990s, Maryland and
many other states created the merit-based Hope scholarship program
as an incentive for gifted high school students to stay in the state
for college. But with deep state budget deficits and college tuition
soaring, this program may no longer work.
Ehrlich’s proposal—which
may be tough to sell politically since merit-based scholarships are
popular among the middle-class voters whose children primarily benefit
from these scholarships—is supported by a study from the state’s
higher education commission that shows students in Maryland’s
need-based programs were nearly as likely as all other students to
earn a degree in five years.
New jobs
being created now pay lower wages than the disappearing jobs they
are intended to replace, according to a study by the Economic
Policy Institute.
The average pay for jobs in declining
industries, such as manufacturing, average 26 percent more than the
pay in expanding industries, such as leisure and hospitality.
The shift to lower-paying jobs could
significantly slow the growth of living standards for working families,
notes the institute's report. For more information, visit www.jobwatch.org.
Wal-Mart’s
low wages and inadequate benefits for its employees in a hypothetical
store with at least 200 employees would cost taxpayers an
estimated $420,750 annually in social services such as housing subsidies,
children’s health insurance, and reduced-cost or free lunches,
according to a report from the House Education and Workforce Committee.
You can read more from the report, Everyday
Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart at the House
Democrats’ Web page at http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/.
Faculty & Staff
The percentage of the nation’s
wage and salary workers that are union members has fallen once again, according
to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In 2003, 12.9 percent of workers were union members, down from 13.3
percent in 2002.
The union membership rate has
steadily fallen from a high of 20.1 percent in 1983—the first
year data were available. Other findings from the 2003 report include:
Men are more likely to be union members than women; Blacks were more
likely to be union members than were whites, Asians, Hispanics or
Latinos.
Nearly 40 percent of government
workers were union members, compared with less than 10 percent of
workers in the private sector. The union membership rate for private
sector workers has fallen by half since 1983, while government worker
rates have held steady. Education, training, and library occupations
had the highest unionization rate among occupational groups.
Professional News
A new plan that would exclude college
freshmen from competing in athletic events sponsored by the National Collegiate
Athletic Association (NCAA) is being considered by the Knight Foundation
Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.
Freshmen and transfer students
from community colleges would be required to take a year off from
competing in sports. The proposal aims to allow athletes to become
better acclimated to the academic demands of their institution, which
could lead to higher grades and graduation rates.
Oregon voters have rejected
a proposal known as Measure 30 that would have increased income taxes temporarily
in order to help finance higher education and other services.
Fifty-nine percent of voters
opposed the bill that would have raised $800 million for public education
and other services and increased personal income taxes by 7 percent
and corporate taxes by 30 percent over two years.
The
Nation's Workers Continue Trend of Working Ever-Longer Hours
Source: State of Working
America 2002-2003, Economic Policy Institute
