The Basics of the Student Loan Mess

These past weeks there has been talk in the higher education press about private lenders and state guarantee agencies either withdrawing from the government-subsidized student loan market or refusing to underwrite new loans. These financial institutions cite either a cash crunch or a credit crunch, or reductions in the federal interest subsidy as the reasons for pulling back on such loans. 

 These are all legitimate reasons for the private financial markets to back out. Student loans were never meant to be a profit center when they were first proposed by the federal government under President Eisenhower. The purposes of student loans are to make college affordable and accessible to anyone who is admitted to college and to help them establish good credit early in the working lives.  

When I applied for my first student loan 30 years ago, I could borrow up to $2,500 and I didn’t need to pay an origination fee. Today, the maximum a college freshman can borrow under the subsidized loan program is $3,500; considering inflation it’s a lot less than I could have borrow 30 years ago and covers a much smaller share of the costs! The $2,500 I could borrow in 1978 would have covered more than half the cost of my freshman year at Rutgers. The $3,500 I could borrow today would cover less than a fifth of the freight—assuming I received the full amount after going through a means test! 

The federal unsubsidized interest (unsubsidized meaning the borrower or their families pay the interest while the borrower is in school) loans were a creation of the Reagan Administration. They were initially a means of providing loans for graduate and professional school students who could not qualify for the maximum amounts for subsidized interest loans.  

 During the go-go Eighties, a graduate or professional student could borrow up to $5,000 a year from the subsidized interest loan program—but had to prove financial independence or go through a means test along with their parents. Then they had to turn to the unsubsidized loans—popularly known as PLUS loans to make up the difference. Back in those days, the subsidized loan and the unsubsidized loan together with some employment could pay almost the full freight.

That’s not the case today. It’s easy to blame the colleges; their administrations make the tuition decisions, not the federal government. But they are just like other businesses that must deal with escalating health care costs (tenured college faculty are more senior level workforce than most government agencies and private corporations); fuel prices (larger schools own and operate as much housing as some medium and large-sized cities) and pensions. 

 There will need to be a major redesign of the student loan programs in the next presidential administration not only to reconsider outdated borrowing limits, but also the means tests and multiple government loan programs with their own set of regulations and bureaucracies. In an ideal society, students should not end their higher education owing more than their first year’s salary in their chosen field. That’s a lofty ideal, but one worth reaching for

On Moral and Charismatic Politicians

The media has passed enough judgment on former New York governor Elliott Spitzer and I agree with the pundits on all sides; there’s no possible defense for his extracurricular behavior and he is not above the law. 

But these past events show that we must consider the behavior that we expect from our elected officials in their public, and sometimes private, lives. If anything, Spitzer’s downfall amplifies that the phrase “moral politician” is an overused oxymoron. Neither of our two major political parties has cornered a market on morality.  

Maybe it’s time they stop trying, as Spitzer’s successor David Patterson has done. He broke the news of his past extra-marital affairs immediately after taking office. Given his predecessor’s past indiscretions, Patterson probably had no choice. It would have been a matter of short time before Republican “oppo-man” would have leaked the information to the press. It was a shame that an incoming governor had to confront notions of morality by admitting guilt on his first day on the job, but it was a necessary shame for him, so the ship of state could sail on.  

But don’t expect similar “touchy-feely” statements from members of the New York State legislature. Democrats hope to move on from Spitzer’s embarrassment and Republicans have about two and a half years left to take advantage of it. There’s no reason for other New York politicians to “expose” themselves if they don’t have to. 

Whether a candidate is a crusading attorney, a wealthy entrepreneur or an entertainer, Americans seek and want to elect leaders who have been successful in their prior endeavors, hopeful that they can successfully work their magic on a broken government. New Yorkers in particular like to vote for such candidates, even if they didn’t live in the Empire State before they declared their intentions to run for office.  But as the media likes to remind us, these would-be magicians are only human. After all, the crusaders, the rich and the famous are offered more temptations than the rest of us. Why do voters still expect them to resist? Do voters still expect them to be something more than human? 

I live in the neighboring state of New Jersey, though I’m fortunate to be represented by a very competent Congressman. He’s always gotten my vote for as long as I have lived in his district. He communicates regularly with his constituents by e-mail and answered every question thoroughly in the town meetings that I have attended. A physicist by academic training, he has held positions as a teacher, Congressional Science Fellow, and arms control expert at the U.S. State Department and assistant director of a research laboratory at Princeton. While I would not consider our representative to be charismatic, he does not talk down to the voters and he certainly listens. He’s also much smarter than me. He’s been deservedly re-elected four times and no one questions his character or intelligence. Nor does he preach how others should act or live. 

The next time you vote, pay less attention to a candidate’s comments on morality and more to their positions and their record on the issues that are important to you. Go out to a town meeting and ask them questions. Watch how they listen. You can’t judge a candidate’s character unless you know them personally, or you have been in their shoes; you can only judge them by their deeds. Unless a candidate has broken a law, his or her private life is none of our business, just as your private life is your own.

Good Student Credit Should Be a Corporate Social Responsibility

The March 18 USA Today had an interesting cover story in education politics: Colleges’ debit card deals draw scrutiny.

The purpose of these deals is to foster computerized cashless transactions on-campus, for example purchasing books, meals or tickets to athletic events through a debit card that doubles as a student ID. The students account balance may include monies received through financial aid. Under the agreements between the banks and schools, the schools receive revenue—up to $1 million or so a year—each time a student uses the card in an on-campus transaction.

The USA Today story alluded that the debit cards may be a good deal for the school, but not necessarily the best deal for the students, especially when it comes to overdraft fees. The article cites the a study by the Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer advocacy group that states that young adults ages 18-24 pay, on average, more than $3 in fees for every $1 overdrawn, compared with nearly $2 in fees paid by other adults.

The overdraft practices are reminiscent of the predatory practices of banks in their relationships with low-income customers: to levy the highest penalties on the customers who can least afford them. It is disappointing to see colleges buy into these practices, but easy to understand why: they have an opportunity to outsource transaction processing and student ID records to an outside provider. It is a means for an educational institution to turn a cost center into a revenue center.

The student debit card programs have become the latest higher education cause for New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, following a successful investigation into the student loan lending practices of banks that among other things, offered perks to financial aid officers to direct students to use their products. Cuomo’s investigation is only in its infancy, but the attorney general’s office is concerned about excessively high overdraft fees, and that banks may use their relationships with schools to pitch high-interest credit cards to their students.

Unless Cuomo’s investigation finds new evidence of kickbacks to school officials, solutions to the problems of student debit cards can be worked out between the schools and banks without government intervention.

One solution is to not allow students to overdraw their account. The systems at the point of sale could tell a cashier or the bursar that the student has insufficient funds; a balance check would be unnecessary. This will work if a second solution is in place: student deposits clear in one day, instead of the usual three at most money center banks. Commerce Bank is one financial institution that markets such a service to competitive advantage.

Spokespersons for the banks and their associations have argued that the overdraft penalties force college students to manage their money responsibly. I would argue that preventing overdrafts will do the same, without putting students further behind the financial eight-ball or encouraging them to live beyond their means. They would also learn to have cash on hand for their coffees and mocha lattes.

My proposed solutions could be considered corporate social responsibility on the part of the banks and schools. No doubt it’s in their best interest for students to graduate with better credit and more income to repay student loans.

Miss Guided is Aptly Named TV

At the beginning of January, I wrote a column about Room 222, an Emmy and Golden Globe winning docudrama on high school life that first aired on ABC almost 40 years ago. At the time, I commented that the issues faced by students and teachers in Room 222 were little different from the issues they face today.

Instead of a new Room 222, the very same network has given us Miss Guided, a high school sitcom about a once-dorky girl who returns to her alma mater as a guidance counselor. She’s gone through college, probably grad school, as well as a makeover, and now feels that she “knows it all.” She feels well-equipped to help teens with their in-school and after-school problems because she’s been there herself. But she goes about it all wrong by trying to be cool, instead of trying to act more distant and professional. But it’s not like her principal or vice principal actually care if she succeeds. In fact, they have little memory of her being a former student, or wonder why she bothered coming back.

Personally, I’d wonder the same, and that’s why Miss Guided loses it for me. Having been given similar labels as Becky Freeley, Judy Greer’s guidance counselor character, in my K-12 life, I had no desire to relive high school. I couldn’t wait to graduate and get on with my life. I could care less about proving myself to people who didn’t like me. Ten years after I graduated from high school, I went to my class reunion with my wife. Classmates who remembered me reminded me of my incompetence on the track team, something I had long put behind me. I laughed it off that night, but later wondered why I had spent the money to listen to people I’d forgotten for ten years talk about something I didn’t want to remember.

So, to me, Becky is a glutton for punishment. I can’t feel sorry for her character because she hasn’t grown up. If I had a daughter like young Becky, I’d tell her to have a dream, focus on it like a laser beam and ignore anything in her path. I’d want her to be brilliant and happy with herself and feel that her detractors are unworthy. But in Miss Guided, we have a show where her detractors, including a former beauty queen classmate, are the focus of her life.

I realize that I might be too sensitive, and Miss Guided is only a sitcom. The show has enough comedy for non-dorks to like. Those who didn’t take school too seriously, or don’t take it seriously now, will laugh their touckis off at Becky’s misadventures. They might remember a teacher from their past or present that is remarkably like Becky and laugh at her, not with her, as Judy Greer would want.

As for me, I’ll take my high school laughs old-school and watch Welcome Back Kotter in reruns. I prefer a strong teacher with a heart who can match wits with his sweathogs. Gabe Kotter kept them from leaving school behind for four seasons. I don’t believe Miss Guided has similar prospects, but as Mark Twain once said: education consists mainly of what we have unlearned. He would have had more hope for Becky Freeley than I do.

Can a College Gossip Site be Forced to Turn Off the Juice?

When I became a writer, I started and then I stopped working a story on bullying. I felt that readers would not be sympathetic with a male main character who was the butt of abuse, practical jokes and malicious innuendos. After reading about a college site called JuicyCampus and taking a look at comments on the site, I felt glad that I never wrote the story, yet I felt bad that students now take the time to bully others—and not necessarily classmates—on the Internet. 

JuicyCampus is very much like a celebrity gossip site except there are no paparazzi; no editors to protect the reporters and publisher from libel suits, because there are no reporters at all; and, the “celebrities” are unsuspecting college students. But unlike real celebrities who have armies of lawyers to protect them from possible libel, unsuspecting college students have no resources or recourse when they have been humiliated on the site. 

I don’t know what’s worse: the people who would post malicious comments under a cloud of anonymity with little or nothing to gain, or the site owners who are trying to profit from them. This site has posted extraordinarily high traffic ranks since late February—it ranks among the top 4,600 sites visited by U.S. viewers–because of the posts and negative publicity. Alexa.com, which tracks traffic and site rankings, showed huge spikes in traffic during this period. The site is brutally slow and not especially user-friendly, no doubt because the servers are struggling to handle the traffic, which has partly spiked as a result of student anxiousness and fear. 

The site owners have written an interesting privacy statement; they claim that it won’t be possible for others to learn a poster’s identity and volunteer that cloaking devices are available if a poster is concerned that their IP address will be tracked. They do not require students to register, or attempt to collect registration information, so no one, including the site owners themselves, knows who posted what. While that makes for “juicy” content, it’s also encouraging cowardly and destructive behavior that divides a college community.  

But I agree with the college technology managers who have commented on JuicyCampus:  there is little a school can do to prevent access to the site. Even if a college technology team could flag it and block access from the school’s computers, students could not be prevented from visiting it on their own desktops and laptops. It may take legal or economic action instead. 

The New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs and the state’s Attorney General are investigating whether JuicyCampus violates consumer fraud laws: investigators want to know how the site owners select featured colleges—there are only 61 listed and posters do not need to be a student at any particular school, verifies that users are over 18 and responds to complaints. Among the 61 schools are two of the military service academies and three institutions: Bob Jones, Brigham Young and Notre Dame that are known for their religiosity; at all five schools, such malicious posts would be heavily frowned upon. 

It will be interesting to learn the outcome of this investigation, as well as any possible judicial verdict that may arise from it. I doubt that a site like JuicyCampus would display the current content if it were forced to collect registrations, or change its privacy policy to work in cooperation with federal, state and local law enforcement and legal counsels hired by colleges, students and parents.  

In the meantime, student groups have asked their classmates to boycott JuicyCampus. Such boycotts will make more students aware of the problems of the site and pressure JuicyCampus not to add their school to their list.  But they will also draw more traffic to the site, and that may give its owners what they want: traffic that leads to high advertising revenues. As I previously mentioned, the site follows the business model of a celebrity gossip magazine. 

The best solution might be to hit the site’s owners in the wallet. Two online advertising services: Google’s and AdBright have already cancelled their relationships with JuicyCampus. It may be a good idea for the colleges and their student governments to take their case to the rest of the online advertising community.  

If two advertising services have gone thumbs-down, others are likely to follow.

More Guidance Counselors Would Help More Children Get Ahead

Before becoming a writer, I spent ten years marketing Web-based job posting and resume tools to college career centers. One outcome of this experience is that I gained considerable appreciation for career counselors and guidance counselors at the high school level.

When I was in high school, I visited my guidance counselor to make my class schedule and research colleges. I had some idea of what I wanted before I came into the guidance office, so I probably benefited less than other students who were less certain about their career and educational options, or needed to speak to a counselor to get help on a personal problem.

Under No Child Left Behind, guidance counselors have several roles under participation and proficiency; they, more than teachers try to prevent students from dropping out of school and try to find assistance for students in need of tutoring or social services that their schools do not provide.

I have to believe that schools that are continually in need of improvement under No Child Left Behind need qualified guidance counselors as badly as they need qualified teachers. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected a 13 percent growth in employment for school counselors, from 260,000 professionals in 2006 to 292,000 by 2016. The American School Counselor Association recommends an average of one counselor for every 250 elementary and secondary school students; the national average is one for every 476.

From FY 2005 through FY 2007, the federal government provided, on average $34.7 million funds for local education agencies to hire more elementary school counselors. In FY 2008, the Bush Administration finally appropriated sufficient funds–$48.6 million– to allow local education agencies to add secondary school counselors.

The increase is welcome, but the funding was still just a drop in the bucket. There is also a proposed Put School Counselors Where They’re Needed Act to support 10 demonstration projects in poor performing schools sitting in a House subcommittee since September 2007. That proposal is also not ambitious enough.

Given the major intentions of No Child Left Behind, to eliminate the “achievement gap,” and to attain 100 percent proficiency within six years, I wish to offer a funding solution: to redirect $130 million allocated for the Youth Anti Drug Advertising Program in FY 2009 to help more schools, especially the worst performing, attract guidance counselors.

 I know that’s a stretch, but the federal Office of Management and Budget has stated on their site, ExpectMore.gov, that an independent, long-term evaluation found no connection between these anti-drug advertisements and youth drug use behavior.  I also believe this is a great example of an opportunity for private sector volunteerism to take over for a government program.

If the federal government is serious about supporting a world-class education system, then an investment in counseling would be far more productive than an investment in advertising that hasn’t worked.

Hope for Peace at the Democratic Convention in August

I picked a heck of a year to complete a manuscript for a novel based around the murder of a military recruiter.

That thought came to me as I read about Recreate ’68, a rallying message for a consortium of anti-war organizations joining to protest outside the 2008 Democratic convention in late August in Denver.

Recreate ’68 leadership hope to attract tens of thousands to join in non-violent protest against the war in Iraq. They chose the Democratic convention because they feel “used” by a party that has not moved successfully to end the war.

Like their predecessors of forty years ago, Recreate ’68 plans to protest against an unpopular war and attempt to dominate the news cycle during a convention likely to be undecided on a presidential nominee at the opening gavel.

But those are not the only similarities between 1968 and Recreate ’68.

I visited Recreate ‘68’s Web site and found symbols similar to the protest movements of 40 years ago: the raised fist logo and the reference of law enforcement as “pigs.” I also found a distressing holiday poem unkind to the Democrats and the Denver police, with verses such as:

 The spy cameras were hung by the police with care,In the hopes of snaring a protestor and claiming it’s fair;

The homeless were nestled all snug in new beds,to hide them away from democrat heads;

When out on the street there arose such a clatter,

The police sprang from the station to see what was the matter.

Away to the Pepsi Center they flew like a flash,with batons swinging looking for heads to smash.

The smell of tear gas permeated the nightall knew that the oppressors were in for a fight,

When, what to America’s wondering eyes should appear,But Recreate ’68, showing no fear. 

America was founded, and nurtured by non-violent civil disobedience and there is no reason to deny Recreate ’68 the same right to peaceful protest.

But to presume a fight in your message leads observers, especially the media, to believe you are ready to fight.

This is where history has a chance to repeat.

At this time, conservative pundits, such as Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, have openly criticized Republican presidential candidate John McCain; they have chided him for not being a “true conservative.”

My sense is those voices have helped Senator McCain: they have given independents and moderates good reasons to consider voting for him.

Combine that with a Recreate ’68 protest escalating to violence on national television, with the Democrats caught in the middle—still trying to nominate a candidate.

I can’t imagine the usual post-convention “bounce” for the eventual nominee.

However, I can imagine that conservatives and liberal actions will put John McCain in the White House, just as they helped Richard Nixon forty years before.

Public TV Teaches Pre-School Teachers to Teach

I am going to watch for the next time my local Public Broadcasting System (PBS) affiliate sends a mailing for contributions—and I might write a check this time. I had thought that PBS would have taken a beating under a conservative presidency, but they made some adjustments in their educational offerings.

PBS TeacherLine offers more than 100 courses across multiple subject areas. Teachers can earn continuing education units, professional development points and graduate credits for course completion.

Given that I had completed a previous post on pre-school education, I noticed that 14 courses have been targeted at pre-kindergarten instruction. These included four courses related to phonics, which is a staple learning method under No Child Left Behind.

PBS’ newest offering, called Raising Readers, is not phonics-based but it uses the power of public educational media content to teach reading skills to children ages 2 to 8, especially those from low-income families.  Raising Readers encourages parents and caregivers to take actions that will help children acquire critical reading skills by featuring a community engagement component designed to connect with low-income families in 20 markets.

Raising Readers has a good chance for success with co-branded web content from Sesame Street, one of the longest running programs in U.S. television history, and Between The Lions, which attracts 5 million viewers age 4 to 7 each week.

One advantage of public television is that it can try coursework in test markets before it goes national. The content of Raising Readers was tested in a pilot program in which 91 child care providers, recruited via four participating PBS KIDS Raising Readers stations, took part in the pilot testing in fall 2007. The stations who recruited and participated in the pilot included Maryland Public Television (Baltimore, MD), KQED (Oakland/San Francisco, CA), KLRN (Toledo, OH) and KLRN (San Antonio, TX). 

Raising Readers is available for $129 through PBS TeacherLine’s Web site, while two hundred free course offerings will be provided in target markets in conjunction with local public broadcast stations. Selected after careful review of factors including children’s reading scores, ethnic and geographic diversity and concentration of children from low-income families, the first target markets are the markets mentioned above, as well as Mississippi Public Broadcasting (Jackson, MS), Alabama Public Television (Birmingham, AL), WSIU (Carbondale, IL), WPSU (State College, PA), KPBS (San Diego, CA) and WNED (Buffalo, NY).

Raising Readers is funded under a program of the U.S. Department of Education called Ready to Learn Television. Although the proposed funding for Ready to Learn Television was not increased for FY 2009, it is at least secure. The proposed funding is $24 million, the same amount that has been appropriated over each of the past two years.

While a conservative presidency is trying to cut other educational initiatives, especially those that are not based on testing or drills, it is nice to see that Ready to Learn Television is being given a chance to succeed and to help develop better pre-school instruction.

The Sandbox President

I recently finished reading The Sandbox Investment: The Pre-School Movement and Kids-First Politics and had the pleasure of hearing the author, David Kirp, speak at Rutgers. Kirp, a professor of public policy at the University of California-Berkeley, has written a very parent-friendly and teacher-friendly book about the state of pre-school politics in our country.

Kirp’s major point is that birth to three and pre-kindergarten education and child care has become politically popular on all ends of the political spectrum: conservative, moderate and liberal, but that there are unresolved answers to the question of quantity versus quality in politician’s quests to offer pre-school for all.

Kirp traces the popularity of pre-school first to the shipyards in Portland, Oregon during World War II when shipbuilder Edgar Kaiser funded day care for the children of his female workers. Kaiser not only funded an on-site day care center and pre-school, he also paid top dollar for the teachers.

While Kaiser’s successful experience was discontinued after the war was over, a University of Michigan PhD named David Weikart began a pre-school program in Ypsilanti, Michigan sixteen years later. Weikart designed the school, and he later opened a research center that collected data on the students from the time they were seven years old until they were eleven, then at ages fourteen, fifteen, nineteen, twenty-seven, and forty, Weikart’s center, the High/Scope Foundation, was able to keep track of 97 percent of the students over this long timeframe.

 This study, known among educators as the Perry Study, revealed that a superb pre-school experience, underline superb, can make a lifelong difference. Perry pre-schoolers were less likely to skip school, be assigned to a special education class, or repeat a grade, They attained better grades and were far more likely to graduate high school. They became healthier, wealthier and wiser citizens.

The Perry Pre-School, the study concluded, succeeded because of an emphasis on quality teaching, problem solving and parental involvement, as opposed to tests and drills.

The Perry Study has guided educators and kids-first advocates for more than five decades. It led to the beginnings of the federal Head Start program in Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society as well as many state and local pre-school and child care initiatives, some good and some bad. Kids-first politics has gained acceptance of economists as well, and economists drive political decision-making more than educators or psychologists do.

The greater problem, according to Kirp, is the rush to quantity, the political preference for “economical” childcare and pre-school programs that can help as many people as possible, or to offer quality programs that require tuition or means-testing. “Economical” programs in a promise of pre-school for all are just as dangerous as unaffordable programs. Running pre-schools on the cheap has led to over-crowded facilities, unstructured play, over-emphasis on “drill and kill” instruction, and under-qualified teachers.

After reading The Sandbox Investment, I looked at the platforms of the three major presidential candidates to learn where they stand on pre-school. While mayors and governors have driven the most positive developments, the chances for the best programs to gain more acceptance and success will need the help of the federal government. The costs for quality pre-school, as opposed to time and space programs are more than the states can bear on their own.

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has been connected with children’s issues for almost four decades, first as an attorney with the Children’s Defense Fund. She also brought Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters, a model parent education program, to Arkansas in order to better prepare all children to start school. Senator Clinton also supports pre-kindergarten for four-year olds, as well as Head Start, but posts few details on these positions on her Web site.

Democrat Barack Obama, who began his career as a community organizer in Chicago, has proposed a “Zero to Five” plan to be executed through Early Learning Challenge Grants to help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school. Senator Obama is also a father of two young elementary school children as he pursues the presidency. That is also no small accomplishment.

Republican candidate John McCain believes in expanding school choice for parents as a means of removing their children from failing public schools. He has not stated on his Web site whether this would also apply to pre-school.

At this time, I’d call it a draw between Clinton and Obama for the title of Sandbox President.

Is Division 1 Basketball a No Win Scenario for New Jersey Tech?

As March turns to college hoops madness, one public college in my home state, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), achieved basketball notoriety by setting an NCAA record of 29 losses against no wins. A team without a conference, NJIT has played Division 1 men’s and women’s basketball for the past two years. NJIT and Rutgers are the only New Jersey public colleges that play Division 1 sports.

I cannot understand why NJIT made the leap to Division 1. It is the third smallest public four-year college in the Garden State after Ramapo and Rutgers-Camden. With only 5,400 undergraduates and a largely commuter student body, as well as the science/technology focus of the school, its hard to see how NJIT could develop a fan base that could sustain a Division 1 basketball program.

NJIT is located in Newark, which has some excellent high school basketball teams, as well as the state-of-the-art 18,500 seat Prudential Center that opened this fall. However, the Prudential has commitments to Seton Hall, which plays a nationally competitive Big East schedule.  That relegates NJIT to play at home in an athletic complex that seats little more than 1,000 people. If NJIT is serious about a long-term commitment to Division 1 ball, it will need a more capacious place to play.

Consistently mentioned as one of America’s more wired college campuses and lauded for the diversity of its student body, NJIT is a very good school. Twenty five percent of NJIT undergraduates are black and Hispanic, extremely high for a science/technology university. Students can also participate in cooperative education, combine school and work, and graduate in four years; most co-op schools such as Cincinnati, Drexel and Northeastern require five.  U.S. News College Guide reported that NJIT had an 82 percent freshman retention rate and a 57 percent six-year graduation rate; that is quite good considering the science/technology focus of the school.  

Besides NJIT, only one other public science/technology school, Georgia Tech, plays Division 1 college basketball. Other institutions such as Virginia Tech and Texas A&M have morphed from science/technology schools into large state universities.

Georgia Tech has more than twice the number of students and a longer history with major college sports than NJIT. John Heisman, the namesake for college football’s Heisman Trophy, coached there for 16 seasons, going undefeated for three. He also coached Georgia Tech in the most one-sided college football game ever played when they defeated the Cumberland College Bulldogs 222-0 in 1916. Georgia Tech has won or shared four national titles in college football with the last one coming in 1990.

Georgia Tech has also been successful on the hardwood, playing in two NCAA Final Fours over the past 25 years and sending Chris Bosh, Stephon Marbury, Kenny Anderson, John Salley, Mark Price and Jarrett Jack to the pros. However, only Salley and Price received their degrees.

I have no doubt that NJIT would like to attain the academic reputation, as well as the basketball success of Georgia Tech, but I also believe their administration and alumni would want to see all of their players graduate, instead of leaving after one or two college seasons.

A successful basketball program could pay dividends for NJIT, provided they find a coach who can provide the right blend of athletic and academic motivation to the players. If they win, the other problems, including the facilities and the independent status, will start to go away. As long as NJIT does not become a one-season “launch pad” to the pros, a winning program could set an excellent example for the rest of the student body and achieve the public relations results the president desires.  

All NJIT needs is deep pockets for the right coach, and patience through the growing pains. A lack of money and patience will only continue the no win scenario.