They're Talking On Campus...
… about the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, H.R. 3221, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in September. The bill would end the program that subsidizes private lenders that provide federally guaranteed student loans. The government itself will make all such loans as of July 1, 2010.
The projected savings from that change—$87 billion over 10 years—would fund the largest increase ever for Pell Grants. The savings would also provide $10 billion for community colleges to further the president’s American Graduation Initiative and another $3 billion for improving college access and completion rates.
… about President Barack Obama’s address to delegates to the 2009 AFL-CIO Convention. “We’re going to make this country work again,” he said. “Quality, affordable health insurance. A world-class education. Good jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced. A strong labor movement. That’s how we’ll lift up hardworking families,” he told delegates. “That’s how we’ll grow our middle class. That’s how we’ll put opportunity within reach in the United States of America.”
... About a finding, reported in The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, that only 0.7 percent of all African-American bachelor’s degree recipients received their degree in any type of ethnic or gender studies. More Blacks majored in the physical sciences than earned their degree in Black studies, and nearly five times as many Blacks majored in computer science and the biological sciences than in Black studies.