Dear Commons Community,

I recently gave an interview for The Evolllution, on the topic, Exploring the Dangers of the American Education-Industrial Complex. You can hear the complete interview at:  http://www.evolllution.com/featured/audio-exploring-the-dangers-of-the-education-industrial-complex/

Here is a brief excerpt:

Question:  Is there anything you’d like to add about the educational-industrial complex and its impact on the expansion of online learning?

“…the education-industrial complex has definitely expanded online learning in this country and higher education, and to me that’s good. But I think some of it has been done at the expense of quality and unfortunately there’s been a number of unscrupulous providers of online learning who see this as strictly a cash cow and a way to make significant profits. If you look at some of the for-profit colleges in particular, you’ll see that they’ve reaped… in excess of $1 billion in federal financial aid tuition in the past year or so.

I think there’s significant money to be made here and there needs to be a certain amount of federal regulation, particularly with financial aid, to make sure that we’re not sending students down some path that looks rosy but is full of thorns.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Paul Krugman in his New York Times column, posits that the this year’s presidential election is becoming a referendum on whether or not the American people support the need for a social safety net.

“Republicans came into this campaign believing that it would be a referendum on President Obama, and that still-high unemployment would hand them victory on a silver platter. But given the usual caveats — a month can be a long time in politics, it’s not over until the votes are actually counted, and so on — it doesn’t seem to be turning out that way.

Yet there is a sense in which the election is indeed a referendum, but of a different kind. Voters are, in effect, being asked to deliver a verdict on the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society, on Social Security, Medicare and, yes, Obamacare, which represents an extension of that legacy. Will they vote for politicians who want to replace Medicare with Vouchercare, who denounce Social Security as “collectivist” (as Paul Ryan once did), who dismiss those who turn to social insurance programs as people unwilling to take responsibility for their lives?

If the polls are any indication, the result of that referendum will be a clear reassertion of support for the safety net, and a clear rejection of politicians who want to return us to the Gilded Age.”

Amen!

Tony