ITT Educational Services Inc. and other for-profit schools are facing a maelstrom of financial threats that analysts say could
hurt student recruiting and profit margins–and already has driven stock prices down sharply. ITT shares are off 61 percent
since hitting an all-time high of $131.82 in November.
Many consumer bankruptcies typically can be traced to a divorce, job loss or medical issue. Now another perpetrator-subprime mortgages-is entering the fray. The fallout from the housing crisis, coupled with a weakening economy, is contributing to a rise in bankruptcy filings nationwide. They spiked more than 30 percent in January compared with the same time last year, according to the Virginia-based American Bankruptcy Institute. With more than 1 million subprime mortgages due to reset this year, ABI Executive Director Samuel…
Professional and collegiate basketball are on the brink of a landmark agreement that hoops insiders said will change the landscape
of the sport in this country. Proponents say it would be good for basketball, but others say it’s an attempt to further commercialize
the sport.
Mitch Daniels has done many controversial things as governor. He leased the Indiana Toll Road. He got rid of the state employees’ union. He convinced the Legislature to switch to daylight-saving time. He proposed a property tax package that has many popular features. He also has advanced various ideas, some good, and some less good that went nowhere. Now our governor has come forth with the most positive and important initiative of his administration: awards for academic excellence. As Daniels…
Business leaders and educators agree on what’s needed to improve Indiana’s economic health and enhance its place in the global
economy: a larger pool of skilled workers. Toward that end, a group of notfor-profits is expanding a program to get more low-income
Indianapolis students to further their education after high school.
Indiana University President Michael McRobbie calls it “Innovate Indiana.” His ambition is to corral all of IU’s strengths
under one new branded initiative to boost the Hoosier economy. Purdue University already has leveraged a similar strategy,
promoted with “Go BusinessMakers!” billboards, to national acclaim.
Indiana Senate Bill 335 is a poorly crafted public policy that fails to reflect the totality of immigration and the societal and economic issues associated with it. Hispanics are the nation’s largest minority group, numbering 47 million. About a quarter of Hispanic adults, roughly 11 million, are unauthorized immigrants. The Pew Hispanic Center estimated Indiana’s unauthorized immigrant population at 65,000, roughly 1 percent of the population. In 2004, 93 percent of unauthorized men age 18-64 were in the labor force,…
Deadlines for a weekly publication are tricky. Sometimes when news breaks, you get lucky. Sometimes, you don’t. In this case, forgive me if I’m a little late to the parade and-following the elephants with broom and shovel-to the sorry mess involving the men’s basketball program at my alma mater, Indiana University. So, to sum up, this is what bothers me most: Everything. And who’s to blame? Everyone. It’s the culture. It’s the media. It’s gross mismanagement. It’s poor hiring. It’s…
Endowments at Indiana colleges and universities are soaring, due in part to impressive investment returns in recent years.
The swelling coffers here and across the nation are stoking the debate over whether universities should be using more of their
wealth to hold down tuition increases.
EVERYBODY’S DOING IT SECONDHAND PROSE Volume discounts offered at library sale Inside Secondhand Prose, a CD of old-timey bluegrass music plays softly as a half-dozen volunteers quietly go about their business. They’re emptying bags and boxes, sorting through thousands and thousands of books and stocking shelves in preparation for the Indianapolis-Mar ion County Public Library’s next book sale, March 7-9 and 14-15. Six times a year, the library opens up its shop inside the Library Services Center, 2450 N. Meridian…
Based on 50 conversations IU Foundation President Curt Simic had with donors the week after news broke of the potential firing
of men’s basketball coach Kelvin Sampson over alleged NCAA improprieties, the chief of Indiana University’s philanthropic
arm says he has little fear the latest athletic department controversy will affect financial support to the school.
Less than a month after starting a job she didn’t know she wanted, Indiana Black Expo CEO Tanya Bell has big plans for the nation’s oldest and largest group of its kind. Bell wants to diversify the statewide organization’s revenue stream and expand its already-impressive roster of more than 100 corporate sponsors. Doing that will mean raising awareness of the year-round programs that have been overshadowed by IBE’s two signature events: its annual Summer Celebration and Circle City Classic football…
For more than a half-century, we have built complex statistical models to attempt to explain why regions enjoy different levels of prosperity. Virtually every conceivable variable-from ethno-linguistic similarity indexes to existing natural resources to government structures-have been tried, with the models proving enormously successful. One critical insight in this extensive body of research is that human capital-the quality of a labor force-yields the strongest explanation for differences in prosperity. When we apply these models to the United States, the importance…
Today-not tomorrow or next week, but now-is the moment to get involved in improving your life and the lives of your family and neighbors. Don’t delay. All you need do is both of two simple things. First, find out who is running in the primary election on May 6 for the Indiana House of Representatives and Senate from your district. Yes, the national news media have told us that our Indiana primary may be meaningless. They are referring to the…
By the time Jesse Kharbanda earned a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford, the University of Chicago student already knew he wanted to advocate environmental policies in the developing world, someday. Eight years later, some might say Kharbanda has landed in the developing world, all right-Indiana, insofar as it’s considered the backwater of environmental stewardship. One might recall the state’s 49thplace ranking in a 2007 review of “greenest” states by Forbes magazine. Only West Virginia-a national leader in illiteracy-scored worse….
For years, the Indianapolis not-for-profit once known as Bands of America built a reputation for organizing a series of regional marching band competitions that culminates in a national march-off here each November. In 2006, the organization broadened its scope through a merger with an East Coast advocacy group, marrying performance-based evidence that music education has value with research-backed efforts to keep school programs around. Now Music for All’s research is making waves nationally, and the organization just landed $495,000 to…
My sons Zach and Austin came of voting age in 2006. That November, there weren’t many contested or competitive races where they lived (near Fort Wayne). Zach registered and voted, anyway. Austin didn’t bother. Zach and I gave Austin a hard time about that. Last September, Zach headed off to college in California, while Austin and his girlfriend, Karolina, began their freshman year at New York University. A few weeks after arriving in Manhattan, there was a campaign rally in…
Should Indiana’s taxpayers vote on school construction? This seemingly simple question is a vexing issue for the Legislature. The debate surrounding the issue is surprisingly misguided and emotional. A few ill-informed editorials have not added value to the debate. Let me add a bit of data to the discussion to enlarge our understanding. Under Indiana’s current system of government, no elected official reviews the complete budgetary process for local government spending. This, perhaps more than anything else, has caused our…
What would happen if Congress passed a law requiring every U.S. statehouse to use the exact same building design? And that every city hall, every fire station and library must be built from a canned design? Imagine being told that, from now on, every house in the state would have the exact same design, so homeowners could spend less on design costs. It sounds crazy to think one design fits all, but that’s exactly what lawmakers are considering for educational…
Students donning caps and gowns this May will find jobs aplenty, college career officers and others say. Some industries–like
health care, accounting, engineering, computer science and sales–are more flush with jobs than others. But students receiving
liberal arts degrees also are in high demand because of their well-rounded education.
