ON KASICH'S HIGHER-ED FUNDING STRATEGY...
Ohio Gov. John Kasich addressed the state’s approach to funding higher education during his annual State of the State speech Monday. He didn’t launch any new initiatives, but rehashed new policies — many The Post has reported on before.
To catch up the uninitiated, Ohio will no longer allocate its state funding for public colleges and universities based on the number of students enrolled in each institution. Degree completion is now weighted to be about 50 percent of the state’s funding formula.
The premise is, on the surface at least, a sound one. The state and its universities should certainly aim to have as many of its students earn degrees as possible. Shepherding in flocks of unprepared students who are arguably destined to drop out helps no one.
Shifting that focus, if effective, could have tangible economic benefits for the state as well. Research shows that people with associate’s degrees earn considerably more than those with only high school diplomas — and the increases in earnings grow significantly with each additional level of education.
The plan, however, is by no means a panacea. It does nothing to address ballooning tuitions and record levels of student debt. Nevertheless, Ohio University seems to be steering itself into a position to best capitalize on the change.
The university’s Board of Trustees approved a guaranteed tuition plan — dubbed the OHIO Guarantee — that will dramatically bump up tuition for students enrolling in Fall 2015, but then keep that price of tuition and fees the same for four years for those students.
The plan, university officials contend, will take the guessing out of college costs. Plus, it’ll motivate students to stay in school and graduate on time. But it’ll also help Ohio University; of the state’s 13 public four-year universities, we’ll see the biggest bump from the change.
And that’s where we start to worry. At what point does the plan blur from promoting degrees into essentially fast-tracking students into earning their diplomas by deadline?
What happens if, like many students, you have a change of heart about your true calling in life, change your major and need an extra year to meet the requirements? You’re already locked in to finishing the degree you’ve started in order to finish college before your four-year guaranteed tuition turns back into a pumpkin. That’s financial incentive to throw away your dreams.
Focusing on degree completion sounds great on paper, but it’s going to screw over anyone who’s not 100 percent on track to finish his or her degree in the allocated time.
There’s much more here to be done, Mr. Governor.
ON HAVING "THE TALK" WITH YOUR SIBLINGS...
We’d like to suggest that you have “the talk” with your younger brothers and sisters. It’s something we all go through once we reach our prepubescent years, and many of our parents aren’t doing a good enough job educating our generation about it. It might be awkward, but we urge you to confront your siblings about cyberbullying.
About a third of young people have been threatened online, more than half of teens and adolescents have bullied others over the Web and 90 percent of teens admit to turning a blind eye to cruel social media behavior. Those figures are disturbing to say the least, and they’re made possible by the increased availability of technology to teens and preteens who seem to often know right from wrong in “real life” but reason that virtual decisions don’t affect real lives.
There’s no doubt that the Internet makes it easier to be a bully, and technology magnifies the effects bullies have on those they torment.
You can help remedy that misconception by proactively approaching your younger siblings about cyberbullying.
The good news is that they likely won’t hear about it from you first when you sit them down. There’s a good chance they’ll already have heard about cyberbullying in their schools, given that Ohio became one of about a dozen states to pass anti-cyberbullying legislation when its Jessica Logan Law was signed into effect in January 2012.
It’s important to note that as a student body, we by no means have completely cut cyberbullying out of our lives.
One could argue that the substantial social media attention given to Fall Semester’s public sex act on Court Street took the form of cyberbullying at times. A lot of fictional information was flung back and forth, and some unsubstantiated personal attacks were posted online.
Our younger siblings look up to us, even for guidance on the simplest of things like Internet conduct. The least you can do is set a good example for them.
A fine place to start is reading more about the law and the effects of cyberbullying on our front page. Surely you can stuff it in your backpack and use it to spark a discussion with your younger sibling while hitting the beach — or the recliner — next week.
Don’t be a bystander. Have “the talk.” Your siblings’ online “friends” will thank you later.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post’s executive editors.
This editorial originally appeared in print under the headline "Breaking down
two timely topics"
