Posts Tagged ‘The New York Times Company’
College is for rich kids.
Does that statement sound right to you? With college scholarships, outreach initiatives and diversity programs pervasive in American universities you might think that statement would ring false.
This interesting article from The New York Times by David Leonhardt paints a different picture.
Elite universities are continuing to overlook low income students. Even state schools like the University of Michigan have alarming statistics.
“more entering freshmen in 2003 came from families earning at least $200,000 a year than came from the entire bottom half of the income distribution.”
A more recent study by Georgetown university surveyed 193 of the nation’s top universities. Here’s what they said about the 2010 freshman class:
“only 15 percent of students came from the bottom half of the income distribution. Sixty-seven percent came from the highest-earning fourth of the distribution. These statistics mean that on many campuses affluent students outnumber middle-class students.”
What to do? The article discusses the efforts to counter this national trend made by the now retiring President of Amherst College, Anthony Marx.
He altered financial aid priorities, allowed more transfer students from Community colleges and weighted SAT scores in favor of applicants from challenging circumstances.
According to the article his efforts seem to be working.
Is this equation worth trying elsewhere?
We at USDemocrazy are nutzo for the ‘net, but we’ve also talked before about our passion for paper. Thus, we get kinda depressed when we hear of major American newspapers shrinking, shrivelling and shutting down all together.
Ever heard of a little (OK, not little) paper called the Boston Globe? We have learned the venerable Globe came pretty darn close to being shut-down by its parent company, The New York Times Company. Fortunately, we also learned (through newspapers, no less) the close-down crisis may had been averted.
The New York Times Company, the Globe, and the three major Boston unions worked through the night on Sunday and reach a deal. The Globe stated:
This includes agreements with the drivers, mailers, pressmen, the electricians, machinists, and technical services group. As a result of these agreements, which are subject to ratification by union members, we expect to achieve both the workplace flexibility and the financial savings that we sought from these unions.
It appeared maybe a modern metropolitan media meltdown may have been missed! BUT NO!
One of the unions, the Boston Newspaper Guild, has stopped… and then resumed negotiations with the paper over lifetime job guarantees for 200 of its employees. (The Globe reportedly offered to cut Guild wages by 23%.)
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE! There’s MORE!
Some Washington big-wigs are coming to the Globe’s rescue! Massachusetts Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, insist that the biggest newspaper in their state should not be left to die. John Kerry declares newspapers are vital to our free democracy. (We tend to agree.)
This all comes amid the announcement of Amazon’s newest version of the Kindle, which is rumoured to have a larger screen and facilitated for reading news “papers.” We’re keeping our eyes on the news of the newest Kindle, which we’re wondering will make news “papers” obsolete entirely…
