Distribution of Newly Hired Full-Time Staff,
By Primary Occupation, 1977 and 1995

World & Nation

Faculty & Staff

Professional News

World & Nation

Most Americans don't believe college is affordable and don't know where to go for financial aid, according to a new study by the American Council on Education.

The study reveals that the public greatly over estimates the cost of a college education.

Americans, on average, estimate the cost of tuition at a four-year public college at $9,694. The actual cost: $2,848. The public estimates community college tuition at $4,026. Actual cost: $1,239.

To educate the public about college costs, the Council will be launching an information campaign to reassure parents who are worried about paying for college.

The effort also aims to persuade politicians and journalists to think twice before they blast colleges for the fees they charge.

Copies of Too Little Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing: What the Public Thinks and Knows About Paying for College are available for $20 from the A.C.E. Fulfillment Service, Department 191, Washington 20055-0191.

Public unease about tuition costs may not be as simple to address as the American Council on Education believes.

The rate of tuition hikes before 1978 ran 1 percent below inflation, notes the Association of Graduate and Professional Students. Since 1978 the rate has been more than twice inflation.

The Association projects that more than 50 percent of today's college students will graduate in debt.

The National Center for Educational Statistics, meanwhile, reports that the cost of a college education rose more than 70 percent for private colleges between the years 1977-1993 and more than 50 percent for public colleges.

The student loan default rate in 1977 was 11 percent. In 1992: 22 percent.

Faculty & Staff

Academic student employees at the University of California have voted by an 87 percent margin to authorize a system-wide strike next fall.

Graduate assistants and other student workers voted to take the action if the administration doesn't recognize their unions and agree to begin collective bargaining.

Some 4,221 members of academic student employee unions affiliated with the United Auto Workers took part in the vote.

Faculty at Salt Lake Community College have voted to affiliate their local association with the AFT.

Members of the association voted 130 to 64 in favor of the union, which needed a two-thirds majority.

The faculty members' major concerns are pay, workload, job security, and the growing use of part-time professors.

Professional News

Scholars are calling the dismissal of a defamation lawsuit filed against a Cornell University labor researcher a victory for academic freedom.

Academics were concerned because the nursing home corporation suing Kate Bronfenbrenner for slander asked, during the discovery process, that she be ordered to turn over her research, which included confidential information about union organizing strategies.

More than 700 academics and scholars signed an E-mail petition protesting the lawsuit as an attack on academic freedom.

Bronfenbrenner, who has written widely on union organizing, last spring gave a presentation on the anti-union tactics of Beverly Nursing Homes, a large chain that has been cited for labor law violations, at a "town hall meeting" in Pennsylvania attended by members of Congress.

Distribution of Newly Hired Full-Time Staff,
By Primary Occupation, 1977 and 1995