Bob Jensen's Tidbits

While I'm under contract to write a book I suspended weekly editions of Tidbits. However, when my monthly editions of New Bookmarks become too cluttered with tidbits I will occasionally come out with a special edition of Tidbits. This is a June 16, 2008 special edition.

Above is one of the reasons I only found time to play five holes of golf in five years.
A big old bull frog sings me to sleep at night accompanied by hoot owls.

On May 14, 2006 I retired from Trinity University after a long and wonderful career as an accounting professor in four universities. I was generously granted "Emeritus" status by the Trustees of Trinity University. My wife and I now live in a cottage in the White Mountains of New Hampshire --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/NHcottage.htm

Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Academics have also found Vertigo to be the most concentrated distillation of Hitchcock's fascination with the act of seeing, a favorite theme among film scholars for obvious reasons. The momentous glimpses, glances, looks, and stares exchanged by Scottie and Judy/Madeleine add up to a compendium of the gaze, illustrating its power to enthrall, gratify, deceive, and even destroy. Associating the Hitchcockian gaze with the patriarchal gaze, feminist critics like Laura Mulvey have often emphasized its harmful, authoritarian effects in Vertigo and elsewhere. More eclectic commentators take a broader view, however, finding more complexity in Hitchcock's films than single-minded theories can encompass. In his recent book Hitchcock and Twentieth-Century Cinema (Wallflower Press, 2005), for instance, the film scholar John Orr says the fates of Hitchcock's characters are "bound up with perceiving a world in flux," just as the success of his films is "bound up with the spectator's pleasurable act of perceiving [the characters] perceiving." Hitchcock's artistic vision is bound up with the nature of vision, and no film penetrates its mysteries more deeply than Vertigo does. For a generation of academics and critics, it has been a laboratory for investigating some of cinema's most fundamental properties.
David Starrett, "At 50, Hitchcock's Timeless 'Vertigo' Still Offers a Dizzying Array of Gifts," The Chronicle Review, June 13, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i40/40b01801.htm?utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en

The Tennessee Plough Boy (Eddie Arnold) died on May 8, 2008 one week short of being 90 years young..
He' a legend in country music --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Arnold

Online Books, Poems, References, and Other Literature
In the past I've provided links to various types electronic literature available free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

Independence Day Quiz --- http://games.toast.net/independence/
It's asserted that less than five percent of high school graduates can pass the quiz.

Regardless of who wins in November, the attitudes of Americans toward the role of identity in democratic life are unlikely to change much. Relative to Europe, Americans will surely remain deeply patriotic and much more committed to their faiths. Europeans, meanwhile, may move closer to the Americans in their views. The recent shift to the right in Europe – from the victory of conservative leaders like Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi to the surprise defeat of the leftist mayor of London, Ken Livingston – might partially reflect a belated awareness there that a unique heritage is under assault by a growing Muslim fundamentalism. The logic of the struggle against this fundamentalist threat will inevitably demand the reassertion of the European national and religious identities that are now threatened. Europeans are now saying goodbye to Mr. Bush, and hoping for the election of an American president who they believe shares their sophisticated postnational, postmodern and multicultural attitudes. But don't be surprised if, in the years ahead, European leaders, in order to protect freedom and democracy at home, start sounding more and more like the straight-shooting cowboy from abroad they now love to hate.
Natan Sharansky, "Democracies Can't Compromise on Core Values," The Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2008; Page A15 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121358021414976189.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

What kind of government forces people to make gasoline out of food, artificially boosts the price of corn to $6 a bushel, guarantees that inflated price as the "base" for higher federal subsidies to corn farmers in the future, and then tries to hide its own depredations by excluding high food prices from its measure of "core" inflation? Washington never learns from its mistakes. In "The Worst Hard Time," Timothy Egan notes how federal price supports encouraged farmers in World War I to plow up millions of acres of dry grasslands and plant wheat. When the price of wheat crashed after the war, the denuded land lay fallow; then it blew away during the droughts of the 1930s, turning a big chunk of America into a Dust Bowl.
Ernest S. Christian and Gary A Robbins, "Stupidity and the State," The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2008; Page A9 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121279364915353389.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the national gender ratio is 98 males to every 100 females. Compare to a global average of 102 males to every 100 females, and to countries like China, which has 107 males for every 100 females. Australia might not be the worst off in this regard; America's ratio is 97 males to every 100 females, and Estonia's is a distressing 85:100. But within Australia, the differences can be pronounced. Six out of Australia's eight states and territories have lower numbers of males than females.
Robert Skeffington, "Man Drought," The Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2008 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121269592936449047.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

If only the metadata accompanying e-texts were as interesting as that found in used books! Online bookseller AbeBooks.com recently asked its vendors about the strangest things they've found in used books. The list will surprise you: a Christmas card from L. Frank Baum, a Mickey Mantle rookie card, a diamond ring, a strip of bacon, $40,000, a World War II U.S. ration book, and even "a holographic image of a lady who sheds her clothing," among other items. Surely similar items have turned up in collections bequeathed to academic libraries around the country. What strange things have you found in your library's old books?
Catherine Rampell, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 11, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3083&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Cuba is to abolish its system of equal pay for all and allow workers and managers to earn performance bonuses, a senior official has announced.
"Cuba to abandon salary equality," BBC News, June 12, 2008http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7449776.stm

As United States airlines reel from soaring oil prices and a sinking domestic economy, most of their European rivals appear better placed to ride out the storm. While no airline can avoid the oil price shock, analysts say, European operators are benefiting from the relatively strong euro, given that jet fuel is priced in dollars. European carriers also fly relatively newer models of Boeing and Airbus planes, which burn 30 percent less fuel than models from the 1970s and 1980s, many of which are still in use by United States airlines.
The New York Times, June 12, 2008 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/business/12air.html?ref=business
Jensen's Leading Questions for Obama and McCain
What are your plans to reduce the U.S. trade deficit and strengthen the U.S. dollar? The weakening U.S. dollar, fueled by President's Bush's spendthrift budgets, is the number one cause of high oil prices and jumps in inflation pricing in the U.S. All other proposed causes are politicalsubterfuge intended to avoid making the hard choices that will not win the presidency but will save the nation.

Anyone wondering why U.S. energy policy is so dysfunctional need only review Congress's recent antics. Members have debated ideas ranging from suing OPEC to the Senate's carbon tax-and-regulation monstrosity, to a windfall profits tax on oil companies, to new punishments for "price gouging" – everything except expanding domestic energy supplies. Amid $135 oil, it ought to be an easy, bipartisan victory to lift the political restrictions on energy exploration and production. Record-high fuel costs are hitting consumers and business like a huge tax increase. Yet the U.S. remains one of the only countries in the world that chooses as a matter of policy to lock up its natural resources. The Chinese think we're insane and self-destructive, while the Saudis laugh all the way to the bank
"$4 Gasbags," The Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2008; Page A16 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121322599645166029.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

California won't drill for the estimated 1.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil off its coast because of bad memories of the Santa Barbara oil spill – in 1969. We won't drill for the estimated 5.6 billion to 16 billion barrels of oil in the moonscape known as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) because of – the caribou. In 1990, George H.W. Bush, calling himself "the environmental president," signed an order putting virtually all the U.S. outer continental shelf's oil and gas reserves in the deep freeze. Bill Clinton extended that lockup until 2013. A Clinton veto also threw away the key to ANWR's oil 13 years ago.
Daniel Henninger, "Drill! Drill! Drill!," The Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2008; Page A15 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121322872046666269.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
Also see http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=66441

Although the Senate's recent attempt to introduce a cap-and-trade system for carbon crashed and burned when it collided with $4 per gallon gasoline, fear not. Some in Congress are fearlessly tilting at another windmill: the "windfall" profits earned by oil companies. Unfortunately, by reducing supplies, a windfall profits tax will only lead to even higher prices. Still, if Congress really wants to "do something" about high gasoline prices and global warming, it can always try rationing. To lower gasoline prices permanently, you can reduce demand, increase supply, or do both. Congress long ago capped supplies by proclaiming from on high: Drillest thou not offshore, nor in ANWR. The next obvious step for our solons is to cap demand by rationing gasoline, and then gradually reduce the quantity of ration coupons. "Trading" in coupons would be encouraged to ensure gasoline is allocated to uses of only the highest value. So Congress could reserve quantities of ration coupons for key lobbyists and their clients. Environmentalists could buy up coupons and "retire" them, lowering gasoline sales even more. Refineries could continue to produce gasoline, but as consumer demand would be sharply limited (and declining), oil companies would be forced to reduce the prices they charge. No more windfall profits! And lower carbon emissions!
Jonathan Lesser, "Cap and Trade for Gasoline?" The Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2008; Page A9 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121340131140573813.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
Also see "Carbon: Tax, Trade, or Deregulate? Something is going to be "done" about global warming, so what should it be? A debate," by Ronald Bailey, Fred L. Smith and Lynne Kiesling, Reason Magazine, July 2008 --- http://www.reason.com/news/show/126851.html

That such musings are no merely individual quirk is confirmed by James Baldwin in an essay written in his mid-forties — a portion of which I have copied out onto a small piece of paper and carried around in my wallet over the past several months. In it, Baldwin writes: “Though we would like to live without regrets, and sometimes proudly insist that we have none, this is not really possible, if only because we are mortal. When more time stretches behind than stretches before one, some assessments, however reluctantly and incompletely, begin to be made. Between what one wishes to become and what one has become there is a momentous gap, which will now never be closed. And this gap seems to operate as one’s final margin, one’s last opportunity, for creation. And between the self as it is and the self as one sees it, there is also a distance even harder to gauge. Some of us are compelled, around the middle of our lives, to make a study of this baffling geography, less in the hope of conquering these distances than in the determination that the distance shall not become any greater. ”This passage helps me keep my bearings. But I’ve broken the quotation off at that point because Baldwin then shifts to a higher pitch of personal drama than quite resonates given my own circumstances: “One is attempting,” he writes, “nothing less than the recreation of oneself out of the rubble which has become one’s life....”Well now that seems a bit much. Clutter, yes, but not rubble — though in saying that, one has the sense of tempting fate . . . For better or worse, Intellectual Affairs is firmly planted in the “baffling geography” that Baldwin describes as occupying the zone between what one most deeply wants and that which actually exists. After two hundred columns, I still don’t have a map. But it’s too late to turn back now.
Scott McLemee, "200 and Counting," Inside Higher Ed, June 11, 2008 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/06/11/mclemee

To GOP strategists' frustration, focus groups still show that many people don't know what Mr. Obama proposes policy-wise – and don't care. They are drawn to his promise to move past political business as usual. John "My Friends" McCain won't be able to match his rival's verbal mojo. He's instead going to have to counter with a compelling theme of his own. First, he'll have to find one.
Kimberly A. Strassel, "What We've Learned About Barack," The Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2008; Page A13 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121270837880050313.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

And finally, how much more will college attendance increase? Will it go to 100 percent (currently, about 60 percent of high school graduates go on to college--of course many kids drop out of high school)? That depends on two factors: the brain/brawn tradeoff, and IQ (or some alternative measure of intellectual aptitude). If the intellectual demands of work relative to the physical demands continue to increase, the demand for college will also increase. IQ is, though, a limiting factor. But it is less of a limiting factor than one might think. The reason is that a frequent byproduct of technological advance is deskilling.
Richard Posner, "The Boom in College Education," The Becker-Posner Blog, June 9, 2008 --- http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/
Jensen Comment
I wonder if Becker and Posner would've written their commentaries differently if they were Wal-Mart Greeters for a week?

We are nearing the end of American identity politics as we know it. Bearing that gift to those who prize the individual over the tribal is a messenger who shared a Hyde Park neighborhood with Milton Friedman, though with a public record that suggests he is more statist than classical liberal. But Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), can’t be categorized that simply. He is, rather, an intellectual and ideological work in progress. Not stuck in cable-babble caricatured time, he may be traveling the circuitous path many “liberal-tarians”—or libertarian Democrats like me—treaded as we grew and found our way back to the self-reliant values that informed our pluralistic democracy. We lost those values in the Industrial and Progressive eras, when advocates of centralized planning prized society’s perfection over individual liberty. While Obama’s positions don’t exactly channel the Cato Institute, his departure from usual Democratic Party left-liberalism is reflected in the left’s suspicion of him for not having all the 162-point plans of Sen. Hillary Clinton, or spewing the syrupy populism of trial lawyer to the underclass, Sen. John Edwards.
Terry Michael, "Obama as the End of Identity Politics as We've Known Them (And I Feel Fine)," Reason Magazine, June 10, 2008 --- http://www.reason.com/news/show/126944.html

But in many ways, it will be business as usual in Washington DC with or without President Obama
An Absurd Way to Bring About "So-Called Change" in Washington: Let Yesterday's Thieves Pave the Way for More Theft

Update
James A. Johnson, the consummate Washington insider whom Senator Barack Obama tapped to head his vice-presidential search effort, resigned abruptly on Wednesday to try to silence a growing furor over his business activities. Mr. Johnson’s departure deprives Mr. Obama of decades of experience and access to Washington’s power elite. Mr. Johnson has been a fixture in Washington political and legal circles for three decades, and he led the vice-presidential search team for Senator John Kerry, the Democrats’ presidential nominee in 2004.
John M. Broder and Leslie Wayne, The New York Times, June 12,2008 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/us/politics/12veep.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Local officials in this liberal city say it's time for the U.S. Marines to move out. The Berkeley City Council has voted to tell the Marines their downtown recruiting station is not welcome and "if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome guests." The measure passed this week by a vote of 8-1. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,327347,00.html

Jensen Comment
I can't think of anybody in Berkeley that the Marines would want.

The Berkeley City Council rescinded its earlier outright ban on the Marine recruiters the fear that the University of California at Berkeley might lose hundreds of millions in Federal government research contracts. The City of Berkeley does not want to go too far in antagonizing its only good asset --- the University of California. But the Berkeley City Council never passes up a chance to insult the U.S. military. The only less-friendly cities to the U.S. military are neighboring San Francisco and possibly Tehran although they might be more polite about in Tehran.

Researchers at the University of Munich have created new environmentally friendly bombs. The explosives commonly used now by military and industry (such as TNT and RDX) hurt not only their intended targets, but the environment as well by releasing toxic gases. They are also relatively unsafe to handle, LiveScience reports. The German scientists used tetrazoles to create explosives that release fewer toxic byproducts. Does this make you feel bad about not recycling?
Catherine Rampel, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 4, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3057&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

If textbook vendors were smart, they'd just use Scott Adams for most of their illustrations.
"Stretching Accounts Payables." Financial Rounds, June 14, 2008 --- http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/
Also enjoy the Dilbert cartoons!

My friend, Sean, who taught freshman composition and technical writing is a natural teacher. He brought his real world corporate experience into the classroom, loved coming to work every day and truly cared about everyone on his class roster. The students loved him. He was rigorous, fair, and knowledgeable. He had a year-to-year full time appointment, but no assurance of being rehired. Last week he packed his briefcase for the last time, What a loss.
Beverly C. Lucey, "Migrants, Money, and Migraines: Headaches of the Adjunct Professor," The Irascible Professor, May 20, 2008 --- http://irascibleprofessor.com/comments-06-05-08.htm

The Case Against the World Wide Web
A provocative article in the forthcoming issue of Atlantic Monthly argues that Web surfing is rewiring our brains, making us unable to stay focused long enough to make it to the end of a book or long article. To support his thesis, the author, Nicholas Carr, cites these scholars: Bruce Friedman, of the University of Michigan Medical School; Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University; and James Olds, a professor of neuroscience at George Mason University. Mr. Carr also mentions a report of online research habits by scholars from University College London. A study by the National Endowment for the Arts also seems to support Mr. Carr's argument. The study, "To Read or Not to Read," showed, among other things, that the portion of college graduates who were proficient in reading prose declined 23 percent from 1992 to 2003.
Andrea L. Foster, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 12, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3085&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
People generally read some books for pure entertainment and the fast passage of time. With Agatha Christie still being my favorite mystery writer, I read mystery books like Agatha Christie might've written while I'm on airplanes and in hospital waiting rooms and even while Erika shops. I read these without looking for embedded messages other than learning about properties of some poisons if I ever did undertake to commit murder

People read some books for the message, especially passages from the Bible or Qur'an or biographies about great leaders or teachers like Abraham Lincoln, Socrates, and Albert Einstein.

People read some classics for both entertainment and embedded messages such as Moby Dick and the great books of Leo Tolstoy, although I must admit that several times in my life I grew too weary of Tolstoy to ever finish War and Peace. Often the benefits of the message are not worth the wearying effort to wade through the verbiage. This is probably why even our best writers often turn to short stories or magazine/journal articles or poems to communicate their messages.

I don't blame the Internet for the decline in book reading or the speed reading and scanning of books. The Internet is a fault only to the extent that it is part of our frenetic lifestyles and the flood of information from more and more books, articles, television, NetFlix DVDs, Blockbuster DVDs, etc. Books have to compete with many newer alternatives aside from the Internet. And our lifestyles just do not make it easy to find a few hours each day to read a long book cover-to-cover. Admittedly part of the problem is the added time we now devote to email messaging, blogs, online journals, podcasts, Webcasts, and Bob Jensen's tidbits. But somehow I personally think I would be depriving myself of much learning if I cut off my broadband cable and started working my way through the classics or the endless stream of new, often poorly written, so-called best sellers.

There's nothing sacrosanct about book reading in the information age. Books must compete with other alternatives. And often books are very worthwhile, although I must admit that I'm prone to speed reading and scanning just like I was 50 years ago. There's more in Randy Pausch's new short book than in his video speeches, television interviews, and most likely the forthcoming movie about his life and death. Some books we just read to learn more about what we can't find anywhere else. This makes books compete if they contain more of what we are seeking. I'm not really seeking to learn more about Barbara Walter's sex life, so I don't choose to read her autobiography. But there are books that I seek out because I want to know more about particular topics.

I find that the main advantage of a printed book is that I like reading from hard copy rather than a computer screen and that I find books to be better than any other alternative for perusing and scanning. I must admit that I rarely, if ever, read every word in any book at any time. I guess this goes with my Type A personality and aversion for wasting time even at things like golf. There's a golf course on two sides of my property and a life-time membership came with the purchase of my house. I've played a total of five holes in five years up here in the mountains because there are better things to do like spending ten hours a day on the Internet. Maybe there's something true about "The Case Against the World Wide Web."

Perhaps my brain really has been altered by the WWW, at least what's left of my aging brain!

A big difference that has taken place in the last 40 years is that when I started the typical working paper, double-spaced, was 20 to 25 pages. But now they are 60 to 70 pages, and as I get older and my eye sight deteriorates especially, I find this a terrible thing. I wish people would put their ideas in a punchier, simpler way.
"An Interview with Avinash Dixit," Forthcoming in the Royal Economic Society Newsletter --- http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/oswald/avinashdixit.pdf

New Wiki Helps Humanities Researchers Find Online Tools
A new wiki provides a directory of online tools for humanities scholars. The site, which uses software that lets anyone edit or add to the material, covers more than 20 categories, including blogging tools, specialized search engines for scholars, and software programs that can record what is on a user's screen. The site, called Digital Research Tools, or DiRT, is run by Lisa Spiro, director of the Digital Media Center at Rice University. The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University runs a similar collection of resources called Exploring and Collecting History Online, or ECHO.
Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 6, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3068&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Long a standard reference source for scholarship, largely because of its tightly controlled editing, the Encyclopaedia Britannica announced this week it was throwing open its elegantly-bound covers to the masses. It will allow the "user community" (in the words of the encyclopedia's blog) to contribute their own articles, which will be clearly marked and run alongside the edited reference pieces. This seems to be a response to the runaway success of the user-edited online reference tool Wikipedia. (See for yourself. Do a Web search on a topic and note whether Wikipedia or Britannica shows up first.) Scholars have been adamantly opposed to Wikipedia citations in academic papers because the authors and sources are always changing. Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's co-founder, agrees with this, but in next week's issue of The Chronicle (click back to our home page on Monday for more) he also points to some changes in the reference tool that may make it more palatable to scholars. At Britannica, "readers and users will also be invited into an online community where they can work and publish at Britannica’s site under their own names," the encyclopedia's blog explains. But it's not a complete free-for-all. The voice of Britannica adds that the core encyclopedia itself "will continue to be edited according to the most rigorous standards and will bear the imprimatur 'Britannica Checked' to distinguish it from material on the site for which Britannica editors are not responsible."
Josh Fischman, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 6, 2008 --- http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3064&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Jensen Comment
This might be the wave of the future for academic research journals. In a journal's online archives could be those "set in stone" reviewed articles given a blue ribbon. Then there could be the "open source communications" for contributions that are edited and revised by the world in general. The academic community will ultimately have to judge whether two or three editor-assigned (anonymous) reviewers have more cost-benefit to scholarship than the entire world of (signed) reviewers.

Western Governors University, which was founded in 1997 as a collaboration of colleges in 19 states offering online programs, was for many years known for not meeting the ambitious goals of its founders. Projected to attract thousands of students within a few years, it initially attracted but scores of students. But the university has been growing lately, and on Wednesday announced that enrollment has hit 10,000, including students from all 50 states.
Inside Higher Ed, June 5, 2008 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/05/qt

WGU now has many undergraduate and graduate degree programs, including those in traditional fields of business such as accounting, marketing, etc. --- http://www.wgu.edu/

Judith Boettcher in Syllabus, June 1999, 18-24 Judith Boettcher is affiliated with CREN. She predicts the following scenarios (which appear to be heavily in line with the emerging WGU programs mentioned above):

Will Universities Be Relics? What Happens When an Irresistible Force Meets an Immovable Object? John W. Hibbs

Question
How do for-profit-colleges and universities differ fundamentally from traditional colleges and universities?

At the beginning of their new book on for-profit higher education, William G. Tierney and Guilbert C. Hentschke talk about the academic division between “lumpers” and “splitters,” the former focused on examining different entities or phenomena as variations on a theme and the latter focused on classifying entities or phenomena as truly distinct. In New Players, Different Game: Understanding the Rise of For-Profit Colleges and Universities, just published by Johns Hopkins University Press, Tierney and Hentschke consider the ways for-profit colleges are part of or distinct from the rest of higher education. Tierney and Hentschke are professors at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, where Tierney is also director of the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis. They responded to questions via e-mail about their new book . . . For-profits are not, technically, just a ‘technology.’ But they do function in a manner that is radically different from the manner in which traditional postsecondary institutions function. For-profits, like their traditional brethren, come in many shapes and sizes — some are gigantic (such as the University of Phoenix) and others are small barber’s colleges. What differentiates them from traditional institutions is that they have a different decision-making model, different ways to develop and deliver the model, and different ways to measure success. The point is not that all for-profits utilize distance learning (because they do not), but that they eschew the established norms of the academy and pursue success in quite different ways.
Scott Jaschik, "New Players, Different Game," Inside Higher Education, August 30, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/08/30/forprofit

For the first time, a for-profit education company has received permission to offer degrees in Britain, The Guardian reported.
Inside Higher Ed, September 26, 2007 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/09/26/qt

With Grand Canyon Education planning an initial public offering, an article in The Wall Street Journal explores the state of the for-profit market on Wall Street. Several for-profit entities are seeing stocks increase, with analysts feeling particularly favorable about online education.
Inside Higher Ed, June 5, 2008 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/05/qt

"Online College Plans IPO In Rough Market," by Lynn Cowan, The Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2008; Page C3 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121263175442747247.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Investing in for-profit colleges is often considered a haven during a rocky economy. But turmoil in the student-loan market could add a hint of uncertainty to Grand Canyon Education Inc.'s plans for an initial public offering of stock this year.

The company, which acquired 55-year-old Grand Canyon University in 2004 and converted it from a traditional nonprofit bricks-and-mortar college to a school that also offers online degrees, registered last month with the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise as much as $230 million in an IPO.

Based in Phoenix, the company hasn't set a price range, share size or date yet for its offering, which it plans to list on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the trading symbol LOPE.

Smart Money?

Many of Grand Canyon's public peers -- Strayer Education Inc., which operates Strayer University; Capella Education Co.; and American Public Education Inc. -- have been trending higher since hitting 2008 lows in March. Capella rose 26% on its first day of trading in November 2006 and is now more than triple its $20 IPO price, while American Public Education rose 80% on its first day in November, the third-best debut of 2007, and is up about 78% from its $20 IPO price.

Apollo Group Inc., which operates the University of Phoenix, hasn't shown the same upward trend as its peers since March; late that month the company reported earnings for its second quarter, ended Feb. 29, that missed analysts' estimates.

"There's an association between increased unemployment figures and increasing enrollment of adults in postsecondary schools," says Richard Garrett, program director and senior research analyst for education research and consulting firm Eduventures. "The underlying story for these firms remains positive."

Colleges that offer an online-degree component are viewed in an especially positive light, according to Mr. Garrett and other industry watchers, because it is easier and more economical to expand their programs.

Earlier IPO

Grand Canyon isn't alone in its interest in tapping the public markets; earlier this year, Education Management Corp. filed to return to the public markets after going private in 2006.

What's less clear is how the student-loan environment will fare in the future.

Lower demand among debt investors for student-loan securities, combined with a new law that cut the subsidies student-loan issuers get on Federal Family Education Loans, has caused some lenders to leave the market and others to pare back.

"This summer will be zero hour for determining whether the loan market in its current form will be able to serve students adequately, or whether there is further uncertainty on the horizon. The bulk of students will be receiving their loans in June and July," says Jessica Lee, an investment banker at Rittenhouse Capital Partners, which specializes in education and technology.

Ms. Lee believes that the for-profit education market should remain strong because of economic conditions and investors' flight to safety; most for-profit schools have low debt levels, along with high profit margins and free cash flow.

The Chronicle's Goldie Blumenstyk has covered distance education for more than a decade, and during that time she's written stories about the economics of for-profit education, the ways that online institutions market themselves, and the demise of the 50-percent rule. About the only thing she hadn't done, it seemed, was to take a course from an online university. But this spring she finally took the plunge, and now she has completed a class in government and nonprofit accounting through the University of Phoenix. She shares tales from the cy ber-classroom -- and her final grade -- in a podcast with Paul Fain, a Chronicle reporter.
Chronicle of Higher Education, June 11, 2008 (Audio) --- http://chronicle.com/media/audio/v54/i40/cyber_classroom/

Jensen Added Comment
It wasn't mentioned, but I think Goldie took the ACC 460 course --- Click Here

ACC 460 Government and Non-Profit Accounting