minahkaypoh

A colleague who is skeptical of my argument that students and families are susceptible to sticker shock, and that this particularly affects the choices of those without financial strength, raising a good question: If these students and families don't know about financial aid (or changes in financial aid), why would they know about institutional sticker price (or changes in institutional stick price)? The answer appeared during a trip I took on the New York City subway today. Look at this ad and you tell me-- isn't the message quite clear?  If this is the number you see as you stare at subways ads for an hour commute to work, don't you think it will sink in?  With so many ads all the time telling the buyer "Trust us, big discount! Just file papers!" why would anyone believe another one, let alone one that comes with a long complex set of forms. It's a mistake to focus merely on the question of whether a net price intervention can move the dial a bit, helping so...

The Answer Sheet over at the Washington Post recently ran an editorial by a professor at Fordham University about his reasons for not allowing Teach for America to recruit in his college classroom.  Mainly, he objects because TFA focuses on short-term rather than long-term commitments to teaching and as a result, he claims, “an organization which began by promoting idealism and educational equity has become, to all too many of its recruits, a vehicle for profiting from the misery of America’s poor.” Like this professor, I don’t allow TFA to recruit in my classrooms at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Apparently, many of my colleagues feel the same way. When I noted this on Twitter and Facebook, the response was substantial.  Faculty from across the country said “me too,” “me too,” though only a few elaborated on why. Those that did expound on their practices revealed that TFA’s strategy of in-classroom recruitment may have unintended consequences. ...