When President Obama signed an executive order this past week to allow millions of student-loan borrowers to cap payments at 10 percent of their monthly income, he addressed the largest pile of debt burdening Americans: Collectively, we hold more than $1 trillion in student loan debt, more than all the credit card debt in the United States. “It has become clearer and clearer how important higher education is to our economic future,” White House domestic policy adviser Cecilia Muñoz said Tuesday. “It has also never been more expensive.” But in Maryland, public university...
Starbucks will provide a free online college education to thousands of its workers, without requiring that they remain with the company, through an unusual arrangement with Arizona State University, the company and the university will announce on Monday. The program is open to any of the company’s 135,000 United States employees, provided they work at least 20 hours a week and have the grades and test scores to gain admission to Arizona State. For a barista with at least two years of college credit, the company will pay full tuition; for those with fewer credits it will pay part of the c...
Starbucks and Arizona State University unveiled more details about their new scholarship partnership on Monday—and in doing so corrected some misinformation that company officials had given in advance of the announcement. They also revealed the limits of the financial contribution Starbucks is making and gave a greater sense of the value of the discount ASU Online is providing. First the misinformation: Last week a Starbucks spokeswoman said that the Starbucks College Achievement Plan would be available only to company employees who enrolled full time and said that was because such stude...
Starbucks has long been a trailblazer in offering company benefits; part-time employees get stock options and health insurance. Schultz has also been one of the few chief executives willing to speak out — and do something — about the need to get people back to work again. A few years ago, I wrote a column about a Starbucks program that turned donations from customers into small business loans.What I hadn’t realized is the extent to which Arizona State is a trailblazer as well. Under Crow’s leadership, it is attempting nothing less than the reinvention of the university....
Affirmative action as we know it is probably doomed. When you ask top Obama administration officials and people in the federal court system about the issue, you often hear a version of that prediction. Five of the Supreme Court’s nine justices have never voted in favor of a race-based affirmative action program. Already, the court has ruled that such programs have the burden of first showing “that available, workable race-neutral alternatives do not suffice.” The issue appears to be following a familiar path in Chief Justice John Roberts’s court. On divisive social issu...
AUSTIN, Texas—Since Wallace Hall Jr. was appointed to serve on the board of the University of Texas in 2011, he has sought thousands of pages of records to try to root out potential wrongdoing at the university. Now, the Dallas businessman faces possible impeachment from state lawmakers after a legislative probe concluded Mr. Hall went too far, improperly using confidential student records and filing unduly burdensome document requests.
On a team that racked up 49 wins and featured eight Major League Baseball draft picks, the two student managers tasked with running the newest gadget bestowed on Virginia baseball can be easy to overlook during a typical home game. Drew Bonner sits in the concourse behind home plate in his wheelchair, diligently typing code into an iPad after every pitch. Tyler Slate can usually be found hunkered down with two 60-inch television screens in a dark room beneath the bleachers at Davenport Field, Virginia’s home stadium, splicing together film into the wee hours of the night.
OMAHA — It already had been a memorable Sunday for Joe Papi — a Father’s Day spent watching his son play in front of a packed stadium at the College World Series. He wasn’t sure it could get any better. But with one ninth-inning swing of the bat, it did. From his seat near the concourse behind the third base dugout at TD Ameritrade Park, Joe Papi had a bird’s-eye view of the natural, left-handed stroke he first witnessed in his driveway when Virginia first baseman Mike Papi was 3. His son’s walk-off double gave the Cavaliers a dramatic, 2-1 win over Mi...
A documentary produced by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, “The Kennedy Half Century,” has won an Emmy Award for Best Historical Documentary from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the center announced Monday. Directed by Paul Tait Roberts, the documentary chronicles the influence of former President John F. Kennedy’s life and features interviews with national political and media figures.
The Mother of Presidents is hosting some of Africa’s next generations of leaders. The 25 men and women gathered at the University of Virginia on Monday are a part of the Young African Leaders Initiative, a larger national group of 500 Africans who are in a six-week leadership, academic and mentoring program. It is President Barack Obama’s “signature effort to invest in the next generation of African leaders,” according to the program’s main website, which also notes that nearly 60 percent of Africa’s total population is below age 35.
U.S. Senator Tim Kaine is traveling back to Washington from Charlottesville after leading the University of Virginia's first Conference on National Defense and Intelligence. It was a timely talk considering the violence in Iraq. The senator spoke to nearly 200 military contractors and experts in defense and intelligence during Monday's conference at the UVA Darden School of Business, which focused on advancements in national security technology happening here in Virginia.
The University of Virginia is hosting 25 participants in the White House's Young African Leaders Initiative. The group is among 500 Washington Fellows who will participate in a six-week leadership, academic and mentoring program in cities across the U.S.
The University of Virginia Children's Hospital celebrated its newest addition Saturday, an 11 story outpatient center just for kids and their families. A dancing dragon set a festive mood at Saturday's open house for the new University of Virginia Pediatric Outpatient Care Center.
With the cutting of the ribbon the doors of the new Battle Building at the University of Virginia (UVA) Children's Hospital, were open to the public and hundreds of people gathered to see all that the new facility has to offer.
Last fall, I was asked to join an initiative that wants to answer a simple question that demands some very complex answers: How can we reinvigorate the American Dream in the 21st century? To answer that question, the University of Virginia’s Miller Center launched the Milstein Symposium. The multi-year effort develops nonpartisan, innovative and action-oriented ideas that tackle some of the most pressing economic issues our nation faces today. Each year, three commissions focus on topics such as entrepreneurship, education and infrastructure.
The University of Virginia will officially cut its ties with the Semester at Sea study abroad program by 2016, ending an academic sponsorship overshadowed by a UVa student’s death. A reason for the impending breakup, to occur 10 years after the relationship began, was not provided by university or Semester at Sea representatives when asked Saturday.
It would have taken but a few moments for the workers to etch their names and a few words into the fresh cement. That fleeting shot at immortality more than 150 years ago has inspired some interesting sleuthing at the University of Virginia. The names have come to light as a result of the renovation of the Rotunda, which is expected to continue through the summer of 2016.
Italian-made, hand-stitched, replete with bishop sleeves, collar neck and sheer bodice transitioned by a cummerbund into a drop-waist ballerina hem and made of 100 percent parachute silk; it's obvious why Hilda Franklin “Frankie” Bell said yes to this dress. … Dick Bell and his brother Frazier, 63, met recently at the University of Virginia's Claude Moore Medical Library Historical Collections and Services to view the dress. They also proffered mementos from their parents' service as part of a mobile army surgical hospital during the Second World War.
Last fall, I was asked to join an initiative that wants to answer a simple question that demands some very complex answers: How can we reinvigorate the American Dream in the 21st century? To answer that question, the University of Virginia’s Miller Center launched the Milstein Symposium. The multi-year effort develops nonpartisan, innovative and action-oriented ideas that tackle some of the most pressing economic issues our nation faces today. Each year, three commissions focus on topics such as entrepreneurship, education and infrastructure.
Last fall, I was asked to join an initiative that wants to answer a simple question that demands some very complex answers: How can we reinvigorate the American Dream in the 21st century? To answer that question, the University of Virginia’s Miller Center launched the Milstein Symposium. The multi-year effort develops nonpartisan, innovative and action-oriented ideas that tackle some of the most pressing economic issues our nation faces today. Each year, three commissions focus on topics such as entrepreneurship, education and infrastructure.