So yesterday I commented that a graduate student is automatically defined as an “independent” student and hence eligible for financial aid based solely on their own (presumably paltry) income and savings. This was not what I had remembered from the last time I looked at these regulations — and there were a couple other surprises as well. Once upon a time — and this is going from memory — there was a true dependency test: if, for two years or... Read more
So this came from Inside Higher Ed, as linked to by Legal Insurrection: the dean of the Berkeley School of Journalism has proposed raising tuition for its two-year master’s program by $10,000 per year. The program, which has 100 students, is running a budget shortfall of $500,000 per year, expected to grow by 60% over the next 5 years based on current revenue and spending projections, and the increase falls within standard practice at the university of graduate programs charging... Read more
Every now and again, I feel the need to remind you all that I care deeply about foreign policy — from beheadings to what-is-the-military-doing-fighting-ebola to Ukraine and so on — but I just don’t have much to say about it that I think anyone would want to read. It’s all a big mess. Periodically I think about writing a bigger-picture post on the question of what principles should determine where we intervene and where not, but I’d want to do... Read more
No, of course not. Next question. But that’s what Senator Dick Durbin, and the Chicago Tribune, who parroted his press release as news, want you to think. The issue is this: The United States stands alone in the civilized world in taxing profits of its corporations not just in the United States, but wherever in the world they are earned — but if those profits are reinvested locally, the tax is not applied unless and until the money is “repatriated,”... Read more
(Bear with me: today’s post is a bit long and rambly.) Last Friday, Megan McArdle wrote about climate change and her skepticism of a report that claimed that we could “fix” climate change “free” – that is, with even short-term non-climate-change-related benefits that exceed the costs of reducing or eliminating or use of fossil fuels to produce energy. Earlier in the week she wrote a piece titled, “Are Tree Huggers Hypocrites?” asking whether the fact that environmentalists don’t live lives... Read more
This came from instapundit.com, actually: “Police and fire pension funds report $200,000 shortfall,” from the Forest Park Review, via wirepoints.com. The story is that a local actuary, Timothy W. Sharpe, of west suburban Geneva, whose bread-and-butter work is pension plans for police and firefighters made a change from the GAM-71 to the RP-2000 mortality table this past year, boosting the pension liabilities substantially. His rationale for using the old table? Sharpe defended his actions saying he was using the same... Read more
Falls into the category of “read one thing at the NYT site, and follow a link”: “After Surgery, Surprise $117,000 Medical Bill From Doctor He Didn’t Know,” a story about the practice of out-of-network doctors being called into a surgery and charging astronomical rates that even patients who plan in advance can’t control. In operating rooms and on hospital wards across the country, physicians and other health providers typically help one another in patient care. But in an increasingly common... Read more
Just a link from the WSJ: “U.S. Dollar Will Achieve Parity With Euro by 2017, Says Goldman” (via Slate.com). The euro is on its way to parity with the dollar by the end of 2017, say analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The currency has dropped 5.75% since hitting a 2014 high in March, closing on Friday at 1.3133. Goldman says that decline is the beginning of a long drive lower. Higher U.S. interest rates versus those in the euro... Read more
Here’s an article from the local Daily Herald, on the new contract for the toll collectors in Illinois. SEIU represents 569 workers, mostly toll collectors as well as janitors. The union ratified the tentative agreement Sept. 12, which allows for raises of 3 percent in 2015, and 2.5 percent in 2016 and 2017. The average salary is $48,000. In what world do toll collectors merit $48,000 per year, for sitting in a toll booth and collecting coins all day? For... Read more
From Instapundit.com, in a story on a lawsuit by an expelled student, the first time I’ve read this openly stated: Duke’s dean of students, Sue Wasiolek, was asked whether she would characterize a situation in which two students “got drunk to the point of incapacity, and then had sex” as their having raped each other. No, she said. Rather, “Assuming it is a male and female, it is the responsibility in the case of the male to gain consent before... Read more
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