There are few moments in the life of a college as meaningful as commencement, and Friday, May 15, was a powerful reminder of why our mission at Lincoln Land Community College matters. As I looked out over our graduates – surrounded by proud families, friends and faculty – I was filled with deep pride and […]
Higher education
Posted inCommunity & Lifestyle
Choose your adventure at LLCC Campus Visit Day
Adventure can be about scaling mountains and crossing oceans. It’s also about exploring possibilities and shaping your future. At every stage of life, we have the chance to define and redefine who we are, and education is one of the most powerful tools for that transformation. Choosing a college, a training program or a class […]
Posted inCommunity & Lifestyle
Why personal enrichment matters more than ever
Change has a way of arriving whether we’re prepared for it or not. Careers shift, routines evolve, families grow and move and the pace of daily life can feel both demanding and repetitive. In the middle of all that, it’s easy to lose track of the interests or abilities that once brought us a sense […]
Posted inNews
For-profit school under fire for business practices
A for-profit college with a branch in Springfield is taking criticism for alleged deceptive practices. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin is calling for stronger oversight of ITT Technical Institute and other for-profit schools by the federal government, citing the collapse of a school system that left students with no diplomas and a mountain of debt. Durbin […]
Posted inOpinion
The educated poor: adjunct professors
There’s a growing army of the working poor in our U.S. of A., and big contingents of it are now on the march. They’re strategizing, organizing and mobilizing against the immoral economics of inequality being hung around America’s neck by the likes of Wal-Mart, McDonald’s and colleges. Wait a minute. Colleges? That can’t be. After […]
Posted inOpinion
The Baffler
The University of Illinois tells us that enrollment for the fall term at its Urbana campus is nearly 43,400 students, the most in the school’s history, thanks in part to the second-largest number ever of incoming freshmen. That’s progress for the university. Whether it will mean progress for all those freshmen is another question, writes […]
Posted inOpinion
Forget student loans – make higher ed free
Well, finally! Hard-right congressional leaders and the Obama White House have agreed that interest rates on student loans should not double to nearly 7 percent, as they let happen early in July. Instead, college students will be billed at a rate that will steadily rise higher than 8 percent. This is progress? Temporarily, yes, because […]
Posted inOpinion
People skills
Back on Sept 29, 2011, I asked in The college game whether college was always the only or the best way to prepare for a career. In Education Isn’t the Same as Skills, Slate columnist Matt Ygesias warns that we shouldn’t be so blithe about identifying formal education with skills, since it is possible for […]
Posted inOpinion
Positive spillovers
Illinois legislators aren’t the only people who have to borrow money to pay for services whose value they sometimes question. Tuition and fees at four-year public institutions in the U.S. rose nearly 400 percent in the 30 years after 1981 – after adjusting for inflation – and student debt is rising faster than the salaries […]
Posted inOpinion
The myth of energy independence
The definition of “energy independence” is evolving. Until recently, it has meant the U.S. producing enough of our own oil so that we were not dependent on other nations for our energy needs. But now we’re in a world of oil interdependence. Oil markets know no national allegiance. Globalization and profit motive are altering a […]
