Is there a gap in the ethics of educators?
It begins as a good news, bad news scenario. The school does the right thing and admits incoming students on a "need-blind" basis. Meaning for those who aren't familiar with this process, the school looks solely at the merits of the student applicant in deciding whether or not they will be accepted, without considering whether or not the student or family can actually afford the tuition.
Then comes the bad news. Even though a very careful, accurate analysis of the financial situation regarding the ability of the student/family to pay the tuition shows they can only pay X amount, the educational institution offers only X-Y=Z amount of financial assistance. Z is the amount of the assistance offered and Y is what people refer to as the gap.
In today's L. A. Times is an op-ed piece by a freelance journalist who is apparently having trouble with paying her student loans. She's certainly not alone, there are millions of Americans who are behind or in default on their student loans. In her piece, Sarah Amandolare points out that 53% of public college directors find gapping to be ethical, while 74% of private college directors, a much higher percentage, find gapping to be an ethical practice.
During my 17 years of working in private education I spent hundreds of hours in financial aid committee meetings, discussing aid awards based solely on financial need. We talked about gapping quite a bit. I see nothing at all wrong with the practice. Some people prefer to think of it as a "Yay/Boo" message. Yay that the student is great and the school wants them, boo being that the school doesn't want them badly enough to provide them the assistance they will need to attend.
I view it as a "Yay/We're Sorry" message. Yes we want you and we're very sorry but we can only provide a certain amount of assistance. One decision has nothing to do with the other. We decide first that you are "the right stuff" and then we see if we are able to give you the assistance you will need.
However, since Ms Amandolare is so concerned about the ethics of this situation and assigning blame to the government for making loans with such a high probability of default, I think we should try something different. All students seeking aid from a college fill out a FAFSA. So, let's add a couple of lines to the FAFSA, as follows:
"How much can you afford to pay on an annual basis for education for Student at the university?" The applicant would answer this question separately for each school they apply for, since the geography and tuition of schools differ widely.
"How much are you willing to borrow over the course of the undergraduate (or graduate if appropriate) program at the university?" Again, a separate answer for each school applied for.
The more critical question would be part of the Common Application almost every university and college uses:
"If a school cannot meet 100% of your financial need as requested, would you prefer that you not be notified if you are accepted for admission? If you prefer, all schools who accept you for admission who cannot meet your financial need will notify you that you were not accepted. Wait-listing you would only keep a false hope alive that the school can admit you AND underwrite your entire financial need."
Now I suspect everyone would almost certainly want to know if they got in. Even if it meant learning the school is going to gap them. Why should schools do this? The Parents Financial Statement (PFS) that is used by most independent K-12 private schools has a space on it where it asks a simple question. How much can the parent afford to pay for tuition?
One year when I was a financial aid administrator, I was reviewing applications for assistance and one PFS caught my eye. The student had been accepted (a wonderful applicant) and given the family finances, they clearly could afford to pay very little toward the tuition. We were prepared to offer them the full amount of their financial need based on our assessment of their situation. But on that PFS, the family had indicated they could pay $10,000 per year. So I called the parents to find out how they could do that, given the income they'd listed. Turned out there was another relative who was willing to underwrite $10,000 per year of tuition for the applicant. We accepted their offer.
Personally, I still think educational institutions should admit students on a need-blind basis and then offer whatever assistance they can offer. Let the student/family decide what they can and can't afford to borrow. That's their choice. Don't prevent an outstanding student from getting the education they want because they think that being gapped is a "Yay/Boo."
* * *
Time for the NFL to step up and make a statement. If for some reason Michael Sam, a defensive end out of Missouri isn't drafted, it won't be because of his talent level. It will because he announced publicly what his teammates have known since he was a freshman. He told the world he is gay.
It is clearly he has the ability to at least be drafted, if not become a key player for some NFL team. He led the SEC in sacks and tackles for a loss. He's projected to go as early as the third round in the draft this coming May. He's slightly undersized for a defensive end, but not overly so. He has strength and decent speed. The question isn't his skill level. It is whether or not an NFL team will draft an openly gay player.
Jason Collins came out last year. He's a very good NBA player. His stats aren't impressive, but his ability to be a leader on the court and in the locker room, as well as his strong defense should have landed him a contract somewhere in the NBA. Even if he is 35 years old, and seeking to play in a professional sports league where the average age is 26.24, he still has the game. If a team was willing to sign an openly gay player.
The NBA teams who wouldn't sign Jason Collins can hide behind his age, the fact he's slowed down and such other factors as opposed to whether their current roster members would be comfortable sharing a locker room with him. There is no logical reason for a straight man to have any concern about sharing a locker room or playing basketball (or any other sport) with an openly gay man; however, fear is not logical or rational.
The NFL and its owners can't hide behind this type of excuse. Michael Sam has the physical ability and the skills. The question is, will he be drafted, and will he make a team's opening day roster? We'll find out soon enough.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
The dude who listed his girlfriend for sale on EBay may well have been joking, but none of the women I ever dated would have found that to be funny if I'd done it.
I don't drink coffee (I'm allergic) but I might have to make a run to Los Feliz, just to look inside this place:
I'm too tired to deal with the Dylan Farrow/Woody Allen drama in this blog. Maybe tomorrow.
So now Shia LaBeouf is wearing a bag over his head like the Unknown Comic, Murray Langston used to do. Personally, I like to think of LaBeouf as the Untalented Actor, but that's just me.
The compulsory figure portion of figure skating was removed over 20 years ago in international competitions. Why is it still called figure skating?
If celebrities don't want to get into hot water for involvement with foreign nations run by despots, maybe they should have their "people" check such things out before agreeing to go there.
Every Lakers loss this season brings us one step closer to a #1 pick in the draft.
So now the excuse House Speaker Boehner is offering for not pushing for immigration reform now is that President Obama supposedly won't enforce immigration laws. Does the fact more people have been deported while Obama has been president than any of his recent predecessors kind of shoot that excuse down in flames?
The jackpot for Powerball is getting bigger, but that doesn't mean it's worth buying an extra ticket. At $2 per ticket it's already a tad overpriced.
The estate of the late actor James Dean is suing Twitter to force them to shut down the Twitter account @JamesDean, claiming they have his name trademarked. Unless they can prove the owner of that account is using the photos of the actor to make money, they haven't got a case.
Maybe the cab driver who got stiffed on a fare of nearly $1,000 for driving a woman from JFK to Framingham, MA should have made sure she could pay BEFORE driving her there.
* * *
February 9th in History:
474 – Zeno crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
1555 – Bishop of Gloucester John Hooper is burned at the stake.
1621 – Gregory XV becomes Pope, the last Pope elected by acclamation.
1654 – The Capture of Fort Rocher takes place during the Anglo-Spanish War.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: The British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion.
1788 – The Habsburg Empire joins the Russo-Turkish War in the Russian camp.
1825 – After no presidential candidate receives a majority of electoral votes in the election of 1824, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams President of the United States.
1849 – New Roman Republic established
1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Confederate convention at Montgomery, Alabama.
1870 – President Ulysses S. Grant signs a joint resolution of Congress establishing the U.S. Weather Bureau.
1889 – President Grover Cleveland signs a bill elevating the United States Department of Agriculture to a Cabinet-level agency.
1895 – William G. Morgan creates a game called Mintonette, which soon comes to be referred to as volleyball.
1900 – The Davis Cup competition is established.
1904 – Russo-Japanese War: Battle of Port Arthur concludes.
1913 – A group of meteors is visible across much of the eastern seaboard of North and South America, leading astronomers to conclude the source had been a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth.
1920 – Under the terms of the Svalbard Treaty, international diplomacy recognizes Norwegian sovereignty over Arctic archipelago Svalbard, and designates it as demilitarized.
1922 – Brazil becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
1934 – The Balkan Entente is formed.
1942 – World War II: Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to discuss American military strategy in the war.
1942 – Year-round Daylight saving time is re-instated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources.
1943 – World War II: Allied authorities declare Guadalcanal secure after Imperial Japan evacuates its remaining forces from the island, ending the Battle of Guadalcanal.
1945 – World War II: The Battle of the Atlantic – HMS Venturer sinks U-864 off the coast of Fedje, Norway, in a rare instance of submarine-to-submarine combat.
1945 – World War II: A force of Allied aircraft unsuccessfully attacked a German destroyer in Førdefjorden, Norway.
1950 – Second Red Scare: Senator Joseph McCarthy accuses the United States Department of State of being filled with Communists.
1951 – Korean War: Geochang massacre
1959 – The R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic missile, becomes operational at Plesetsk, USSR.
1964 – The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a "record-busting" audience of 73 million viewers.
1965 – Vietnam War: The first United States combat troops are sent to South Vietnam.
1969 – First test flight of the Boeing 747.
1971 – The Sylmar earthquake hits the San Fernando Valley area of California. (I remember it like it was yesterday)
1971 – Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro League player to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 14 returns to Earth after the third manned Moon landing.
1973 – Biju Patnaik of the Pragati Legislature Party is elected leader of the opposition in the state assembly in Odisha, India.
1975 – The Soyuz 17 Soviet spacecraft returns to Earth.
1991 – Voters in Lithuania vote for independence.
1996 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army declares the end to its 18-month ceasefire and explodes a large bomb in London's Canary Wharf.
2001 – The American submarine USS Greeneville accidentally strikes and sinks the Ehime-Maru, a Japanese training vessel operated by the Uwajima Fishery High School.
Famous Folk Born on February 9th:
Johan Aegidus Bach
Thomas Paine
William Henry Harrison
Samuel J. Tilden
Amy Lowell
Ronald Colman
Peggy Wood
Carmen Miranda
Dean Rusk
William Darby (two time recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, and the man behind "Darby's Rangers")
Bill Veeck
Roger Mudd
Garner Ted Armstrong (another televangelist accused of adultery and gambling)
Barry Mann (he wrote this song - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEkB-VQviLI)
J. M. Coetzee
Sheila Kuehl
Carole King (an amazing talent!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6duhLeR7LeY)
Joe Pesci
Joseph E. Stiglitz
Vince Papale
Judith Light
Ciaran Hinds
Jim J. Bullock
Charles Shaughnessy
Holly Johnson
Amber Valletta
Zhang Ziyi
John Walker Lindh (aka "Walker, Taliban Ranger")
In honor of the lovely Amber Valletta's birthday, "Hitch" is the source of today's movie quotes:
Sara: What should we toast to?
Hitch: Never lie, steal, cheat, or drink. But if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. If you must steal, steal away from bad company. If you must cheat, cheat death. And if you must drink, drink in the moments that take your breath away.
#2
Hitch: Life is not the amount of breaths you take, it's the moments that take your breath away.
#3
Vance: [grabs Hitch by the wrist] You see what I'm doing? This is what I'm about - power suit, power tie, power steering. People can wince, cry, beg, but eventually they do what I want.
Hitch: Oh! So that's, like, a metaphor?
Vance: Oh, yeah.
Hitch: Right. Well, see, I'm more of a literal kind of guy. So when I do this...
[he reverses the grip, twists Vance's arm back and slams him on the table]
Hitch: This is more like me saying that I will literally *break your shit off* if you ever touch me again. Okay, pumpkin?
#4
Hitch: Now, on the one hand, it is very difficult for a man to even speak to someone who looks like you. But, on the other hand, should that be your problem?
Sara: So life's kind of hard all around.
Hitch: Not if you pay attention. I mean, you're sending all the right signals - no earrings, heels under two inches, your hair is pulled back, you're wearing reading glasses with no book, drinking a Grey Goose martini, which means you had a hell of a week and a beer just wouldn't do it. And if that wasn't clear enough, there's always the "fuck off" sign that you have stamped on your forehead.
Then comes the bad news. Even though a very careful, accurate analysis of the financial situation regarding the ability of the student/family to pay the tuition shows they can only pay X amount, the educational institution offers only X-Y=Z amount of financial assistance. Z is the amount of the assistance offered and Y is what people refer to as the gap.
In today's L. A. Times is an op-ed piece by a freelance journalist who is apparently having trouble with paying her student loans. She's certainly not alone, there are millions of Americans who are behind or in default on their student loans. In her piece, Sarah Amandolare points out that 53% of public college directors find gapping to be ethical, while 74% of private college directors, a much higher percentage, find gapping to be an ethical practice.
During my 17 years of working in private education I spent hundreds of hours in financial aid committee meetings, discussing aid awards based solely on financial need. We talked about gapping quite a bit. I see nothing at all wrong with the practice. Some people prefer to think of it as a "Yay/Boo" message. Yay that the student is great and the school wants them, boo being that the school doesn't want them badly enough to provide them the assistance they will need to attend.
I view it as a "Yay/We're Sorry" message. Yes we want you and we're very sorry but we can only provide a certain amount of assistance. One decision has nothing to do with the other. We decide first that you are "the right stuff" and then we see if we are able to give you the assistance you will need.
However, since Ms Amandolare is so concerned about the ethics of this situation and assigning blame to the government for making loans with such a high probability of default, I think we should try something different. All students seeking aid from a college fill out a FAFSA. So, let's add a couple of lines to the FAFSA, as follows:
"How much can you afford to pay on an annual basis for education for Student at the university?" The applicant would answer this question separately for each school they apply for, since the geography and tuition of schools differ widely.
"How much are you willing to borrow over the course of the undergraduate (or graduate if appropriate) program at the university?" Again, a separate answer for each school applied for.
The more critical question would be part of the Common Application almost every university and college uses:
"If a school cannot meet 100% of your financial need as requested, would you prefer that you not be notified if you are accepted for admission? If you prefer, all schools who accept you for admission who cannot meet your financial need will notify you that you were not accepted. Wait-listing you would only keep a false hope alive that the school can admit you AND underwrite your entire financial need."
Now I suspect everyone would almost certainly want to know if they got in. Even if it meant learning the school is going to gap them. Why should schools do this? The Parents Financial Statement (PFS) that is used by most independent K-12 private schools has a space on it where it asks a simple question. How much can the parent afford to pay for tuition?
One year when I was a financial aid administrator, I was reviewing applications for assistance and one PFS caught my eye. The student had been accepted (a wonderful applicant) and given the family finances, they clearly could afford to pay very little toward the tuition. We were prepared to offer them the full amount of their financial need based on our assessment of their situation. But on that PFS, the family had indicated they could pay $10,000 per year. So I called the parents to find out how they could do that, given the income they'd listed. Turned out there was another relative who was willing to underwrite $10,000 per year of tuition for the applicant. We accepted their offer.
Personally, I still think educational institutions should admit students on a need-blind basis and then offer whatever assistance they can offer. Let the student/family decide what they can and can't afford to borrow. That's their choice. Don't prevent an outstanding student from getting the education they want because they think that being gapped is a "Yay/Boo."
* * *
Time for the NFL to step up and make a statement. If for some reason Michael Sam, a defensive end out of Missouri isn't drafted, it won't be because of his talent level. It will because he announced publicly what his teammates have known since he was a freshman. He told the world he is gay.
It is clearly he has the ability to at least be drafted, if not become a key player for some NFL team. He led the SEC in sacks and tackles for a loss. He's projected to go as early as the third round in the draft this coming May. He's slightly undersized for a defensive end, but not overly so. He has strength and decent speed. The question isn't his skill level. It is whether or not an NFL team will draft an openly gay player.
Jason Collins came out last year. He's a very good NBA player. His stats aren't impressive, but his ability to be a leader on the court and in the locker room, as well as his strong defense should have landed him a contract somewhere in the NBA. Even if he is 35 years old, and seeking to play in a professional sports league where the average age is 26.24, he still has the game. If a team was willing to sign an openly gay player.
The NBA teams who wouldn't sign Jason Collins can hide behind his age, the fact he's slowed down and such other factors as opposed to whether their current roster members would be comfortable sharing a locker room with him. There is no logical reason for a straight man to have any concern about sharing a locker room or playing basketball (or any other sport) with an openly gay man; however, fear is not logical or rational.
The NFL and its owners can't hide behind this type of excuse. Michael Sam has the physical ability and the skills. The question is, will he be drafted, and will he make a team's opening day roster? We'll find out soon enough.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
The dude who listed his girlfriend for sale on EBay may well have been joking, but none of the women I ever dated would have found that to be funny if I'd done it.
I don't drink coffee (I'm allergic) but I might have to make a run to Los Feliz, just to look inside this place:
I'm too tired to deal with the Dylan Farrow/Woody Allen drama in this blog. Maybe tomorrow.
So now Shia LaBeouf is wearing a bag over his head like the Unknown Comic, Murray Langston used to do. Personally, I like to think of LaBeouf as the Untalented Actor, but that's just me.
The compulsory figure portion of figure skating was removed over 20 years ago in international competitions. Why is it still called figure skating?
If celebrities don't want to get into hot water for involvement with foreign nations run by despots, maybe they should have their "people" check such things out before agreeing to go there.
Every Lakers loss this season brings us one step closer to a #1 pick in the draft.
So now the excuse House Speaker Boehner is offering for not pushing for immigration reform now is that President Obama supposedly won't enforce immigration laws. Does the fact more people have been deported while Obama has been president than any of his recent predecessors kind of shoot that excuse down in flames?
The jackpot for Powerball is getting bigger, but that doesn't mean it's worth buying an extra ticket. At $2 per ticket it's already a tad overpriced.
The estate of the late actor James Dean is suing Twitter to force them to shut down the Twitter account @JamesDean, claiming they have his name trademarked. Unless they can prove the owner of that account is using the photos of the actor to make money, they haven't got a case.
Maybe the cab driver who got stiffed on a fare of nearly $1,000 for driving a woman from JFK to Framingham, MA should have made sure she could pay BEFORE driving her there.
* * *
February 9th in History:
474 – Zeno crowned as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
1555 – Bishop of Gloucester John Hooper is burned at the stake.
1621 – Gregory XV becomes Pope, the last Pope elected by acclamation.
1654 – The Capture of Fort Rocher takes place during the Anglo-Spanish War.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: The British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion.
1788 – The Habsburg Empire joins the Russo-Turkish War in the Russian camp.
1825 – After no presidential candidate receives a majority of electoral votes in the election of 1824, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams President of the United States.
1849 – New Roman Republic established
1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Confederate convention at Montgomery, Alabama.
1870 – President Ulysses S. Grant signs a joint resolution of Congress establishing the U.S. Weather Bureau.
1889 – President Grover Cleveland signs a bill elevating the United States Department of Agriculture to a Cabinet-level agency.
1895 – William G. Morgan creates a game called Mintonette, which soon comes to be referred to as volleyball.
1900 – The Davis Cup competition is established.
1904 – Russo-Japanese War: Battle of Port Arthur concludes.
1913 – A group of meteors is visible across much of the eastern seaboard of North and South America, leading astronomers to conclude the source had been a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth.
1920 – Under the terms of the Svalbard Treaty, international diplomacy recognizes Norwegian sovereignty over Arctic archipelago Svalbard, and designates it as demilitarized.
1922 – Brazil becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
1934 – The Balkan Entente is formed.
1942 – World War II: Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to discuss American military strategy in the war.
1942 – Year-round Daylight saving time is re-instated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources.
1943 – World War II: Allied authorities declare Guadalcanal secure after Imperial Japan evacuates its remaining forces from the island, ending the Battle of Guadalcanal.
1945 – World War II: The Battle of the Atlantic – HMS Venturer sinks U-864 off the coast of Fedje, Norway, in a rare instance of submarine-to-submarine combat.
1945 – World War II: A force of Allied aircraft unsuccessfully attacked a German destroyer in Førdefjorden, Norway.
1950 – Second Red Scare: Senator Joseph McCarthy accuses the United States Department of State of being filled with Communists.
1951 – Korean War: Geochang massacre
1959 – The R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic missile, becomes operational at Plesetsk, USSR.
1964 – The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a "record-busting" audience of 73 million viewers.
1965 – Vietnam War: The first United States combat troops are sent to South Vietnam.
1969 – First test flight of the Boeing 747.
1971 – The Sylmar earthquake hits the San Fernando Valley area of California. (I remember it like it was yesterday)
1971 – Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro League player to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 14 returns to Earth after the third manned Moon landing.
1973 – Biju Patnaik of the Pragati Legislature Party is elected leader of the opposition in the state assembly in Odisha, India.
1975 – The Soyuz 17 Soviet spacecraft returns to Earth.
1991 – Voters in Lithuania vote for independence.
1996 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army declares the end to its 18-month ceasefire and explodes a large bomb in London's Canary Wharf.
2001 – The American submarine USS Greeneville accidentally strikes and sinks the Ehime-Maru, a Japanese training vessel operated by the Uwajima Fishery High School.
Famous Folk Born on February 9th:
Johan Aegidus Bach
Thomas Paine
William Henry Harrison
Samuel J. Tilden
Amy Lowell
Ronald Colman
Peggy Wood
Carmen Miranda
Dean Rusk
William Darby (two time recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, and the man behind "Darby's Rangers")
Bill Veeck
Roger Mudd
Garner Ted Armstrong (another televangelist accused of adultery and gambling)
Barry Mann (he wrote this song - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEkB-VQviLI)
J. M. Coetzee
Sheila Kuehl
Carole King (an amazing talent!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6duhLeR7LeY)
Joe Pesci
Joseph E. Stiglitz
Vince Papale
Judith Light
Ciaran Hinds
Jim J. Bullock
Charles Shaughnessy
Holly Johnson
Amber Valletta
Zhang Ziyi
John Walker Lindh (aka "Walker, Taliban Ranger")
In honor of the lovely Amber Valletta's birthday, "Hitch" is the source of today's movie quotes:
Sara: What should we toast to?
Hitch: Never lie, steal, cheat, or drink. But if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. If you must steal, steal away from bad company. If you must cheat, cheat death. And if you must drink, drink in the moments that take your breath away.
#2
Hitch: Life is not the amount of breaths you take, it's the moments that take your breath away.
#3
Vance: [grabs Hitch by the wrist] You see what I'm doing? This is what I'm about - power suit, power tie, power steering. People can wince, cry, beg, but eventually they do what I want.
Hitch: Oh! So that's, like, a metaphor?
Vance: Oh, yeah.
Hitch: Right. Well, see, I'm more of a literal kind of guy. So when I do this...
[he reverses the grip, twists Vance's arm back and slams him on the table]
Hitch: This is more like me saying that I will literally *break your shit off* if you ever touch me again. Okay, pumpkin?
#4
Hitch: Now, on the one hand, it is very difficult for a man to even speak to someone who looks like you. But, on the other hand, should that be your problem?
Sara: So life's kind of hard all around.
Hitch: Not if you pay attention. I mean, you're sending all the right signals - no earrings, heels under two inches, your hair is pulled back, you're wearing reading glasses with no book, drinking a Grey Goose martini, which means you had a hell of a week and a beer just wouldn't do it. And if that wasn't clear enough, there's always the "fuck off" sign that you have stamped on your forehead.
posted by me at 9:09 PM
<< Home