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Obama: Feds Will Define What a Good College Is, Punish and Reward Accordingly (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Speaking at the University of Buffalo, President Barack Obama today unveiled an ambitious new plan for the federal government to create a national rating system that will define what a good college is and financially reward or punish colleges depending on how they rank in the government’s system.

He said he intends to have the rating system in placed by the fall of 2015 and intends to work with Congress to enact legislation linking federal aid to colleges to the rating system.

As outlined by Obama, this rating system would look at essentially materialistic and financial characteristics of a college as opposed to intellectual and moral ones.

For example, as the president described it, the rating system will not measure how many of a school’s graduates go on to become exemplary and virtuous in the conduct of their personal and public lives, but it will measure things such as “how many students graduate on time,” “how well do those graduates do in the work force,” whether the college is “helping students from all kinds of backgrounds succeed,” and “how successful colleges are at enrolling and graduating students who are on Pell Grants.”

Federal Pell Grants are gifts of cash–not loans–that the federal government gives to some students, but not others. They are not based on academic merit but on whether a student’s income and his or her parents’ income is low enough to qualify the family as what the Department of Education calls “low-income.”

Read more from this story HERE.

80 Percent of College Students Chipping in for Education

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Photo Credit: APJust as the Great Depression left a lasting mark on the generation who lived through it, the children of the Great Recession may already be shifting their world view about money, judging by a new survey that says about 80 percent of them are shouldering some or all of their college costs.

“I think kids are stepping up and it requires a degree of financial responsibility,” said Linda Descano, the president and CEO of Citi’s Women & Co.

“I think it’s a huge financial wake-up call,” she said. “I think they’re really seeing, they really have to own themselves. They don’t have the security their parents did.They see their grandparents struggling to cover health care. I think they’re realizing those safety nets are no longer there. How are you going to stay relevant? You can’t just go to one place and stay there forever.”

Four out of five college students are now working while going to school, typically 19 hours a week while classes are in session, according to the 2013 College Student Pulse survey conducted by YouGov for Citi and Seventeen Magazine. The survey, released this week, was conducted online in July and considered the views of more than 1,000 college students and high school seniors.

The YouGov findings are in line with a recent study released by SallieMae financial services company that found that parents now pay for about 27 percent of college costs, compared with 37 percent in 2010.

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College Republicans, Deemed Security Threat, Denied Admittance to Obama Speech

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Photo Credit: The College FixTen College Republicans were dubbed a security threat and refused admittance to President Barack Obama’s speech at the University of Central Missouri on Wednesday.

Despite the fact that the students had tickets to the event, security personnel turned them away at the door to the recreation center where Obama gave a speech on economic policy, telling the group it wasn’t about their politics but the president’s safety, State Treasurer of the College Republicans Courtney Scott told The College Fix.

The students, some of whom donned Tea Party T-Shirts and others who wore patriotic or Republican-inspired clothing, had protested the president earlier in the day on campus, but had put away their signs and said they were ready to simply listen to Obama when security shut them down – and even told them to leave the vicinity and stay several hundred yards away from the rec center.

The students had waited in a long line and under the hot sun to wind their way to the front of the line two hours in advance of Obama’s scheduled 5:30 p.m. remarks. Still, they were rejected.

“It just didn’t make any sense,” Scott told The Fix. “A lot of us traveled several hours to watch the speech. We were very disappointed not to be able to attend.”

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College Enrollment Falls as Economy Recovers

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Photo Credit: William Widmer The long enrollment boom that swelled American colleges — and helped drive up their prices — is over, with grim implications for many schools.

College enrollment fell 2 percent in 2012-13, the first significant decline since the 1990s, but nearly all of that drop hit for-profit and community colleges; now, signs point to 2013-14 being the year when traditional four-year, nonprofit colleges begin a contraction that will last for several years. The college-age population is dropping after more than a decade of sharp growth, and many adults who opted out of a forbidding job market and went back to school during the recession have been drawn back to work by the economic recovery.

Hardest hit are likely to be colleges that do not rank among the wealthiest or most prestigious, and are heavily dependent on tuition revenue, raising questions about their financial health — even their survival.

“There are many institutions that are on the margin, economically, and are very concerned about keeping their doors open if they can’t hit their enrollment numbers,” said David A. Hawkins, the director of public policy and research at the National Association for College Admission Counseling, which has more than 1,000 member colleges.

The most competitive colleges remain unaffected, but gaining admission to middle-tier institutions will most likely get easier.

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Lookie Here! College Scans Students’ Eyeballs

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Photo Credit: WNDA public university in in Rock Hill, S.C., has announced it is implementing a new eye scanner system that collects and records data about the features of students’ eyes before granting access to school buildings this fall.

Winthrop University’s Associate Vice President for Information Technology James Hammond told Campus Reform the college plans to use the devices to stop “bad guys” from accessing buildings at the 445-acre campus.

The scanners, or “EagleEye stations,” cost an estimated $2,000 each. The university has already scanned the eyes of more than 1,600 of its students.

Winthrop University head of technology services, Patrice Bruneau, told WCNC-TV the school is taking extra precautions after Newtown, Conn., gunman Adam Lanza killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School and his mother Nancy Lanza, before taking his own life, on Dec. 14, 2012.

“The Newtown tragedy just got everybody’s attention,” Bruneau said.

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Student Booted from U.S. College for Favoring English!

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Photo Credit: WNDAn Arizona college is being sued for labeling a student a “bigot” and punishing her with a long-term suspension after she requested that English be used in her nursing studies class so she could learn the subject.

The action was filed against Pima Community College on behalf of student Terri Bennett, who alleged that school officials created a “learning environment [that] was hostile to her as an English-language speaker.”

The complaint alleges that Bennett repeatedly was thwarted in her work listening to lectures, finishing group studies and participating in skills labs, clinicals and other learning activities by fellow students who spoke Spanish, which she did not understand. Study groups and labs in which she participated, an essential part of her nursing training, were being conducted in Spanish.

In response, she asked the college – which operates, ironically, under Arizona’s English-only legal requirement – to help enforce the use of English in her class so she could continue to pursue her educational goals. However, according to the complaint, Bennett was targeted by the school with ridicule, attacks, threats and, eventually, a nine-month suspension.

The group ProEnglish is helping Bennett with legal support.

Read more from this story HERE.

College and Career Ready Standards: A Catch Phrase Intended to Goad the Public Into Believing a Lie

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Photo Credit: Life in the Last Frontier

Photo Credit: Life in the Last Frontier

The goal behind College and Career Ready standards is to prepare children to be global citizens in the new global economy. Global citizenship implies a global community, known as a One World Order. To have citizens of One World, what will be the governing structure? Will it be a Democracy? A Republic? Communist? Socialist? Will the new global economy consist of Capitalism and the Free Market or will it be controlled by the One World government in terms of socialism and/or communism?

The United States is still the freest nation in the world. No other country, before or since, has stepped forth with a similar Constitution or governing structure grounded in the beliefs that individuals are both unique and important. While it would almost be fantastic if the global community adopted the same foundations as our own nation, we all subconsciously know that will NOT happen. The United States was founded as a Christian nation: grounded in Biblical principles. These principles alone are contrary to the majority of other country’s religions.

So what will the One World Order look like? It won’t resemble anything that American’s hold dear. Most likely, we will be subjects of a form of socialism or communism. The individual will be sacrificed for the good of the collective whole. Children of the Common Core, the College and Career Ready “standards,” will be pigeon-holed into the lines of work that the “state” determines from very young ages through data collection. The “state” will dictate a child’s education to promote what the “state” has determined to be that child’s career path. STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) careers will be reserved for those that the “state” determines are worthy to work in such fields: worthiness is determined through academic performance, ability to follow directions with no opposition, and ability to conform to current thoughts and ideas without questioning validity. The class system will be magnified.

The elite class that also has its hand in the governing structure will likely control the global economy. Forget about IRAs and 401-Ks because retirement is NOT an option in the global economy. With the eminent risks of doomsday events, there is no need for “retirement.” What will happen when you can no longer work to benefit the global society? Don’t worry – individuals are of no value; you can easily be replaced by the next college graduate.

I’m not merely creating a scary scenario in regards to the global community. Similar agendas are documented throughout history. The idea of the One World Order is nothing new, either. It is found in the writings of H.G. Wells. What most do not know is that his last book, Mind at the End of Its Tether (1945), he stated that the One World Order is optimistic humanism and it isn’t going to work!

John Dewey is considered the father of modern education; he was a Humanist and co-author of the Humanist Manifesto (1933). Dewey followed the teachings of German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt; both men viewed children as animals requiring guidance, control and molding. After he visited the Soviet Union, Dewey wrote six articles on the “wonders” of Soviet education. Dewey’s writings preclude and greatly influence College and Career Ready Standards. Both have the same objective.

“Our major concern that the school should provide a purified environment for the child
… this means stacking the cards in favor of the particular systems of value we possess. We must
move to make certain every Progressive School will use whatever power it may possess in
opposing and checking the forces of social conservatism.”

“Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective
society which is coming, where everyone is interdependent.”

“You can’t make socialists out of individualists.”

School curricula have been altered to purport the ideas presented in the Humanist Manifesto. This continues today in the form of College and Career Ready Standards. Here is an abbreviated version of the Humanist Manifesto #1:

1. Man gradually emerged by chance from lower forms of life over millions of years.
2. Man creates god out of his own experiences.
3. Man is his own authority and is not accountable to any higher power.
4. There are no absolute rules to live by.
5. All men should be exposed to diverse ‘realistic’ viewpoints, including profanity, immorality, and
perversions as acceptable modes of self-expression.
6. All forms of sexual expression are acceptable.
7. Government ownership or control of the economy should replace private ownership of property
and the free market economy.
8. ‘Global Citizenship’ should replace national self-determination.
9. There is no hope of existence beyond the grave – no heaven or hell.

People and corporations such as Partnership for Assessing Readiness for College and Career (PARCC), Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), Next Generation, Planned Parenthood, inBloom, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Weather Underground, Bill Ayers, Linda Darling Hammond, Tides Foundation, and UNESCO all have ties in one form or another to the proliferation of global citizens through education system control under the auspices of College and Career Ready standards.

Patriots, lovers of freedom, anyone who believes in and values America and our American way of life should be opposed to EVERY FACET of the College and Career Ready standards known as Common Core State Standards. It is high time that Americans come together to take back control of our educational system and re-instill the values that America has held dear for over 237 years. Our freedom and continuation as a great nation depend upon it.

Professor Calls for NRA Members to be Shot by Firing Squad for Treason

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Photo Credit: Biz Pac Review

A professor in West Virginia provides yet another example of the inescapable reality that the real threat to America, beyond a complicit media, is likely to be found in college classrooms.

Christopher Swindell, journalism professor at Marshall University, is calling on National Rifle Association members to be shot before a firing squad.

In an op/ed published in the Charleston Gazette on Thursday, Swindell offered his version of the “final solution” for supporters of the Second Amendment, as Independent Journal Review’s Michael Miller characterized his vile rhetoric.

While passing himself off as “mainstream,” Swindell labels the NRA’s concerns as “knuckle-dragging Cretan talk” and accuses the organization of advocating for the overthrow of the U.S. government:

“Here it is. The NRA advocates armed rebellion against the duly elected government of the United States of America. That’s treason, and it’s worthy of the firing squad.

Read more from this story HERE.

One-Third of Young Adults Regret Going to College

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Photo Credit: Forbes Here’s an indication of how burdensome student loans have become: About one-third of millennials say they would have been better off working, instead of going to college and paying tuition.

That’s a according to a new Wells Fargo WFC +0.57% study which surveyed 1,414 millennials between the ages of 22 and 32. More than half of them financed their education through student loans, and many say the if they had $10,000 the “first thing” they’d do is pay down their student loan or credit card debt.

That’s no surprise when you consider student borrowing topped the $100 billion threshold for the first time in 2010, and total outstanding loans exceeded $1 trillion for the first time in 2011. Student loan debt now exceeds credit card debt in the U.S. which stands at about $798 billion.

Delinquencies are also on the rise. The number of borrowers who are at least 90 days late on student loan payments has jumped from 8.5% in 2011 to 11.7% today, according to a study by the New York Federal Reserve.

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Cardinal Boycotting Boston College Commencement to Protest Irish Prime Minister’s Support for Abortion

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Photo Credit: Barry ChinCardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the archbishop of the Boston Archdiocese, said today he would not attend Boston College’s commencement because the scheduled speaker, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, supports controversial abortion-rights legislation in his country.

In a statement released this afternoon, O’Malley said the Catholic Bishops of the United States have urged Catholic institutions not to honor government officials whose views on the issue are inconsistent with the teachings of the Catholic church.

The Irish legislation would permit abortions if there is a real and substantial threat to the mother’s life, including from suicide.

“Since the university has not withdrawn the invitation and because the Taoiseach [prime minister] has not seen fit to decline, I shall not attend the graduation,’’ O’Malley said in a statement. “It is my ardent hope that Boston College will work to redress the confusion, disappointment and harm caused by not adhering to the Bishops’ directives.’’

He added, “although I shall not be present to impart the final benediction, I assure the graduates that they are in my prayers on this important day in their lives, and I pray that their studies will prepare them to be heralds of the Church’s Social Gospel and ‘men and women for others,’ especially for the most vulnerable in our midst.’’

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