DeVos to cancel $150M in student loan debt after court loss

The Education Department on Thursday announced that it will be canceling $150 million in student loans, upholding an Obama-era policy that Secretary Betsy DeVos has long fought to overhaul.

DeVos had previously proposed to restrict “borrower defense” claims brought by students who had been enrolled in schools that were either closed or made false promises, but a federal judge ruled in September that DeVos’s efforts to nix the 2016 regulations from taking effect was illegal.

The department said in a press release that it has so far identified roughly 15,000 borrowers who are eligible for an automatic “closed school” discharge as a result of the court rulings siding with the students.

Out of the $150 million in student loans the department has announced will be automatically discharged, $80 million is attributable to loans taken out by borrowers who attended Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit educational chain that closed its schools in 2015.

Borrowers whose schools closed between Nov. 1, 2013, and Dec. 4, 2018, will account for the remaining $70 million.

The department confirmed that it will begin notifying borrowers of the move on Friday.

Some discharges may take longer than 90 days to complete, the announcement also states, and borrowers will be informed by loan holders of which specific loans will be forgiven.

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British Universities warned to curb 'spiralling' grade inflation

Universities have been warned to curb their “spiralling” grade inflation, as the regulator’s analysis reveals a surge in first class degrees.

The Office for Students (OfS) has threatened institutions with sanctions, including fines or even de-registration, if they fail to take action over the issue.

A major analysis of degrees awarded by 148 universities shows that the percentage of first class degrees has increased from 16 to 27 per cent over the past six years.

Meanwhile, the percentage of first and upper second class degrees awarded has increased from 67 to 78 per cent over the same period.

The research, published on Wednesday by the OfS, shows that students who left school last year with CCD or below at A-level were almost three times more likely to graduate with first class honours than they were in 2010-11.

Damian Hinds, the Education Secretary, said the new figures should act as a “wake up call” for universities, as he called on the regulator to “deal firmly” with any institutions “found to be unreasonably inflating grades”.

The lifting of student number controls in England in 2015 gave universities free rein to recruit as many undergraduates as they see fit - but the move has led to accusations that they now act like businesses, seeking to maximise their revenue by recruiting as many students as possible.

Universities are in fierce competition to attract students and offering a high proportion of top degrees is seen as one way to entice school leavers to an institution.

Birmingham University is the most extreme case, with the proportion of first class degrees rising by 28.5 per cent over six years, according to the OFS analysis. The proportion of first class and upper second degrees awarded by the Russell Group university has increased by 36.6 per cent over the same time frame.

Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of the OfS, said the grade inflation since 2010 is “significant" and "unexplained”, adding that the sector must “quickly get to grips” with the issue.

She said: “It is fundamentally important – for students, graduates and employers – that degrees hold their value over time. This spiralling grade inflation risks undermining public confidence in our higher education system.”

She warned that if the university sector does not take action over the issue, “we will use our powers to drive change”.

Universities must abide by a series of conditions of registration with the OfS, one of which states that degrees must hold their value over time. If an institution breaches this condition, it could be fined, have its registration suspended or revoked altogether.

Alistair Jarvis, chief executive of Universities UK, acknowledged grade inflation is an issue, adding that universities are “already taking steps” to tackle it. “It is essential that the public has full confidence in the value of a degree,” he added.

Mr Hinds said: “Students across the country work hard for their results and they deserve a grading system that properly recognises this.

“We want and expect to see results improve over time, but the scale of this increase in firsts and 2:1s  cannot be proportionate to improving standards.

“I sincerely hope today’s figures act as a wake-up call to the sector – especially those universities which are now exposed as having significant unexplained increases. Institutions should be accountable for maintaining the value of the degrees they award.”

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UCB Profs: Don’t Use Student Evals Because White Men Score Higher

Antifa isn’t the only form of left-wing lunacy at UC Berkeley. One professor wants the school to stop using student evaluations because white male professors score higher, according to Campus Reform.

UC Berkeley history professor Brian DeLay tweeted “Over the next few weeks, students will get the chance to evaluate their professors and TAs. They’re going to get it wrong. They’ll be harder on women and people of color than on white men. Tenured white male faculty, in particular, should help their students understand this.”

Brian pointed to a study purporting to show that students rate white male professors higher than professors of other races and genders. The professor says “I’ve often gotten valuable feedback in student evals, feedback that has improved my teaching. We have a lot to learn from our students, obviously. But given the well-documented shortcomings of [student evaluations of teaching], we shouldn’t be using them for hiring, tenure, or promotion decisions.”

Now there are a few concerns here. One: correlation is not causation and students could be rating white male professors higher for factors unrelated to their genitalia and melanin level. Two: it kind of undermines your whole racism/sexism thesis when male professors are getting higher ratings despite there being more females than males enrolled in higher education. And three: aren’t professors supposed to be the ones preventing the wrongthink with things like implicit bias tests? It’s like, “hey, let’s stop student evaluations that prove to us what a bad job we’re doing at doing a bad job!”

Here’s the thing: students are the most important stakeholders at a school. Professors will be more inclined to ram left-wing talking points down students’ throats if they know these same students can’t hold them accountable. Plus, if students suffer from implicit bias, wouldn’t it stand to reason that faculty members would, too? Seems like they aren’t thinking things through at Berkeley.

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