Latest news with #presidents
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
It's Time For Public Colleges To Slash Costs, Not Educational Value
Closeup of checkbook and graduation tassel representing the soaring costs of a college ... More see some similar pictures from my portfolio: Facing plummeting revenues, declining enrollments, and strained state budgets, public universities stand at a crossroads. We can continue down the path of unsustainable spending and relentless tuition hikes, or we can seize this crisis as the catalyst for long-overdue, fundamental cost reform. As an educator and administrator who witnessed the pernicious effects of unfocused cuts during the 2008 recession, I argue forcefully for the latter. Here's how public colleges can start: The spectacle of public university presidents earning over $1 million with incentives, while football coaches command $5 million salaries plus private jets, country club memberships, and lavish perks, is not justifiable – it's obscene. Solution:Institute a hard cap on total compensation for all public university employees, including presidents and coaches. A $350,000 ceiling is a reasonable starting point for debate. The billions poured into elite athletics programs, particularly outside of profitable sports in the revenue-generating Power Five conferences, represent a profound misallocation of public funds that directly contributes to soaring student costs. Universities have engaged in decades of facility one-upmanship, featuring luxury dorms, resort-style recreation centers, gourmet food courts, and constant new construction. This competition with private elites for a "boutique" student experience, funded by taxpayer dollars and student debt, must stop. Solution: Mandate rigorous audits that prioritize maintenance over new construction and focus spending on core academic infrastructure. Public colleges should compete on value and outcomes, not luxuries. The vast machinery of admissions – glossy brochures, armies of recruiters crisscrossing the country, sophisticated enrollment management systems – consumes enormous resources with questionable ROI. While high school visits are appreciated, their necessity and effectiveness are debatable. Solution: Regional public colleges should significantly reduce their admissions budgets. Focus resources on regional college fairs, efficient application processing, and clear digital information. For Division III public schools, eliminate athletic recruiting budgets – let them play with the students they have. Does every public university in a state system need its under-enrolled department for obscure majors? No. Solution:Create robust state-wide consortia to strategically distribute low-demand majors to specific campuses, eliminating redundant departments, faculty lines, and support staff. This preserves access while cutting waste. Pennsylvania and Vermont have merged colleges and resources to minimize this redundancy. Prioritize Academic Efficiency in the Classroom While small, specialized seminars (like my son's 3-person Turkish class) offer unique value, they are unsustainable luxuries for core offerings. Solution: Implement minimum teaching loads for full-time faculty. Aggressively audit course offerings, consolidating or eliminating chronically under-enrolled classes. Protect class sizes in high-demand core disciplines. Rethink Financial Aid Priorities Public funds subsidizing merit scholarships for students without financial need divert resources from those who genuinely require assistance—solution: End non-need-based merit aid. Redirect every dollar towards need-based grants and lowering tuition for all. Freeze Tuition & Demand Federal Partnership Purdue University, under President Mitch Daniels, froze tuition for nine consecutive years (and the Board has continued this to present), proving it's possible. Rutgers, my state university, charges in-state students over $15,000, 50% more than Purdue. Solution: Mandate aggressive cost-cutting to enable multi-year tuition freezes across public systems. Furthermore, the federal government must step up with an- Affordable Education Act. Modeled on healthcare subsidies, this would require families to contribute to public college costs based on income/assets, with the federal government covering the gap. This relieves states of unsustainable aid burdens. For over three decades, public college costs have skyrocketed at twice the rate of inflation, fueled by unrestrained spending justified by the need to "compete." This competition, however, has often focused too much on superficial amenities and administrative bloat rather than educational substance. My son wrote in high school opposing a local school budget that was heavily invested in new turf fields and labs. What students honestly need, he wrote, are "old-fashioned great teachers teaching in reasonably sized classes." His youthful clarity cuts through the noise: Public higher education must rediscover its core mission. It must compete ruthlessly on delivering an affordable, high-quality education that prepares students for the future, not on providing country club memberships for coaches funded by debt. Let's rebuild a public higher education system defined by value, accessibility, and fiscal sanity. Our students' futures—and our nation's—depend on it.
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Business
- Washington Post
US and China to talk in Stockholm on trade with eye on Trump-Xi summit later this year
WASHINGTON — When top U.S. and Chinese officials meet in Stockholm , they are almost certain to agree to at least leaving tariffs at the current levels while working toward a meeting between their presidents later this year for a more lasting trade deal between the world's two largest economies, analysts say.
Washington Post
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
How Trump plans to avoid becoming a lame duck
Most presidents stumble in their second term. Years into their presidencies, mistakes have had time to develop into crises: Vietnam for Lyndon B. Johnson; Watergate for Richard M. Nixon; Iran-contra for Ronald Reagan. Voters often empower opposition parties in Congress, blocking presidents from making big policy changes. The country's focus drifts toward the next presidential race.
Washington Post
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Trump on past presidents: Ike was 'underrated,' FDR 'amazing,' Polk 'sort of a real-estate guy'
WASHINGTON — Turns out Donald Trump gauges his esteem for presidential predecessors by how well their portraits fit into his White House redecorating scheme. Or sometimes how well the frames around those portraits do. 'I'm a frame person,' Trump said Tuesday during a meeting with his Cabinet. 'Sometimes I like frames more than I like the pictures.'
Associated Press
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Trump on past presidents: Ike was 'underrated,' FDR 'amazing,' Polk 'sort of a real-estate guy'
WASHINGTON (AP) — Turns out Donald Trump gauges his esteem for presidential predecessors by how well their portraits fit into his White House redecorating scheme. Or sometimes how well the frames around those portraits do. 'I'm a frame person,' Trump said Tuesday during a meeting with his Cabinet. 'Sometimes I like frames more than I like the pictures.' Trump wrapped up a 90-plus-minute session by explaining how he personally worked to redecorate the White House's Cabinet Room, seeming to take real joy in choosing which portraits were hung. The president also said he helped choose the room's drapes and polled those present about whether he should repaint the room in gold leaf. (Cabinet members think he should.) 'I actually spent time in the vaults. The vaults are where we have a lot of great pictures and artwork. And I picked it all myself,' Trump said. 'I'm very proud of it.' The president said that meant 'a lot of time, effort' and 'very little money.' And he even recounted having gone to the State Department and told its head, Marco Rubio, to have a grandfather clock there moved to the White House. That's despite there not being any record of Trump having paid a public visit to the State Department during Rubio's tenure. Trump also pointed out each portrait and shared what he thought of each past president depicted. He started by indicating 'the great Andrew Jackson " and went from there — renewing his frequent praise for William McKinley and getting in a dig about how Bill Clinton once offered donors overnight stays in the Lincoln bedroom in exchange for campaign contributions. Here's what Trump said about some of his other presidential predecessors: James K. Polk (1845-49): 'That's a gentleman named — and we call him — President Polk. He was sort of a real-estate guy. He was — people don't realize — he was a one-termer. But he was a very good president. But, and I'm not sure I should be doing this, he actually gave us the state of California.' Then Trump revealed that his choice of Polk's picture might have had more do with the portrait's frame being almost the same size as the frame surrounding Jackson's portrait, which he suggested was especially aesthetically pleasing: 'Polk is actually a very good president who's got the same frame that I needed, OK.' Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-61): 'A very underrated president. Built the Interstate (Highway) System. And he was the toughest president, I guess, until we came along. But I don't mind giving up that crown, because, I don't want to be too tough on it. But we want to be humane. But he was the toughest president on immigration. He was very strong at the borders. Very, very strong. And, sometimes you can be too strong. He was strong at the borders and, during a certain period of time, there was so strong that almost every farmer in California went bankrupt. And we have to remember that. We have to work together. We have to remember that. But he was a very good president, and a very good general and a very good president and I thought he deserved a position somewhere on this floor.' Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-45): 'He was not a Republican, to put it mildly. But he was, you know, a four-termer. He was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And, if you notice, we have a lot of ramps outside. You have a ramp. People say, 'It's an unusual place for a ramp.' It was because of him. He was wheelchair bound. But he was an amazing man.' Abraham Lincoln (1861-65): 'Over there is 'Honest' Abe Lincoln. And that picture was in his, ugh, in his bedroom. And we thought this would be a very important place because this is where wars are ended. I'm not going to say wars are declared. I'm going to say wars are ended. OK? We'll be positive. And, that's the picture of Abe Lincoln from his bedroom, sat in the bedroom for many, many years. That was his favorite picture of himself. And the Lincoln Bedroom's very famous. You remember when Bill Clinton had it and he rented it out to people. We don't do that.' John Adams (1797-1801): 'They were the first occupants of the White House. 1800. And John Quincy Adams, Mrs. Adams, they were the first occupants. So we have them looking at each other and, in between their stares is Abraham Lincoln trying to make peace.' (Trump is correct that John Adams, the nation's second president, and his wife Abigail, were the first first couple to move into the White House in 1800. But he was mistaken about John Quincy Adams, who was John and Abigail's son and the sixth president. He served from 1825 to 1829). William McKinley (1897-1901): 'McKinley was a great president who never got credit. In fact, they changed the name of Mount McKinley and I changed it back because he should have been — the people of Ohio, he was the governor of Ohio — the people of Ohio were very happy when I did that. I heard they were very insulted. They took the name of Mount McKinley off. That was done by Obama a little while ago and I had to change it back. I changed it back. He actually was a great president. He was a president. He was the tariff, the most, I guess since me — I think I'm gonna outdo him — but he was a tariff president. He believed that other countries should pay for the privilege of coming into our country and taking our jobs and taking our treasure. That's the way he explained it. They took our jobs and they took our treasure. And for that he should pay. And he made them pay. And he built a tremendous fortune.' ___ Will Weissert covers the White House for The Associated Press.
