Of course metro Baltimore did very well in the Daily Beast's rankings of smartest cities. We're No. 10 out of 55 major metro areas, beating out Philly, New York and San Diego but trailing Boston, Washington and Hartford. An educated, literate workforce is Maryland's economic strength, compensating for the place's highish cost of doing business.

The methodology itself was smart. The Beast measured how much of a metro area's population went to college, how many universities a metro area has, whether or not the population pays attention to politics and whether the denizens buy nonfiction books. The biggest surprises for me were how poorly Chicago (24th), Atlanta (23rd) and LA (27th) did, and how well Hartford did (6th).

Among the losers: Fresno, Calif., Louisville, Ky., Phoenix and Harrisburg, Pa. Phoenix was 50th smartest out of 55. Its smart-city IQ of 63 was less than half Baltimore's 135.

The Beast seems to have interviewed our mayor, who seemed delighted to be asked a question that doesn't have to do with grand juries.

“We are very blessed to have wonderful schools [and] universities,” says Sheila Dixon, Baltimore’s first female mayor, “but ultimately it is the engaged, educated, and active citizenry in the City of Baltimore that deserves the recognition.”

Well, not just the citizenry of the city. Daily Beast ranked metro areas, which for us includes all the counties surrounding Baltimore.

Posted by Jay Hancock at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)
Categories: Education
        

Today's column is about increasing financial literacy and requiring Maryland high school students to take a semester of personal-finance instruction. Among the sources I consulted was this recent paper by Annamaria Lusardi of Dartmouth, Olivia S. Mitchell of Wharton and Vilsa Curto at the National Bureau of Economic Research. They write about the responses of young people to three basic consumer-finance questions. Answers are below the fold, along with the percentage of incorrect responses given for each question.

1) Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2% per
year. After 5 years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you
left the money to grow: more than $102, exactly $102, or less than $102?

2) Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account was 1% per year and
inflation was 2% per year. After 1 year, would you be able to buy more than,
exactly the same as, or less than today with the money in this account?

3) Do you think that the following statement is true or false? “Buying a single
company stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund.”

Continue reading "Are you smarter than a subprime mortgage client?" »

Posted by Jay Hancock at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Education
        

I will question his view of Towson University. To say that Towson and its sister schools "were supposed to educate the kids who didn't get into the University of Maryland, College Park" is ridiculous. We are not here to serve College Park. We are here to serve the citizens of Maryland, and we do that very well. It is also not valid to compare Towson University to Goucher College. Goucher is a small, private school with a student body that is a fraction of Towson's student body.

I plead guilty to unfairly maligning Towson. It is harder easier to get into than College Park. But of course it's far more than that. I've heard from people who got into College Park and chose Towson instead. I should have worded it differently. The point of the Goucher comparison is that Towson is so hard to get into these days that it has a higher rejection rate than the selective Goucher. Caret doesn't refute the rest of the column, which makes a pretty good case that Maryland is rationing higher education, to the cost of the state.

UPDATE: We'll be talking about this with C4 on WBAL today at 2:30.  

Posted by Jay Hancock at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)
Categories: Education
        

Today's column argues that O'Malley should end the three-year tuition freeze so state universities can have the resources to admit more students. The freeze is making schools less accessible, not more. Places such as Morgan State (tuition of $4,280), Salisbury U. ($4,814) and Towson U. ($5,180) are becoming quasi-elite schools, rejecting thousands of kids because the freeze has limited their wherewithal. Is it time to raise the price?

Even as interest in these schools soared, the tuition freeze and tight state budgets forced them to put a lid on admissions.

This year, Towson admitted almost 1,000 fewer freshmen and enrolled 400 fewer than it did last year. That's even though applications hit 15,623 this year, up from 11,750 in 2005.

"We actually pulled back from accepting additional applications," said Brian P. Hazlett, the university's director of admissions. "We didn't want to accept applications from students we didn't have the ability to enroll."

UPDATE: Pulled from comments:

My son was caught in the squeeze. He was not accepted at Towson and is now attending college in New York at about 5x the cost. Would've been nice to have a choice...

And please don't say Community college was a choice - it was, but - they are totally overwhelmed all over the country with some places getting 120% of last years registrations and holding midnight classes. Besides very few cc's offer much in his field.

We are very lucky to be able to afford the other option.

UPDATE II: An emailer asks a good question:

Why not raise taxes to keep tuition low and at the same time allow greater numbers of students to attend college. It will cost money, but in the current global economy it would, in the end, be a wise investment.

My answer:

Maryland taxpayers already contribute about $1 billion a year to the university system on top of what tuition brings in. And two years ago O’Malley pushed through one of the biggest tax increases in Md. history, so he’s kind of maxed out. The real question is: Why can’t we make education more efficient?

Posted by Jay Hancock at 8:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)
Categories: Education
        

Congratulations to Principal Patrick Harris, the teachers and the pupils at Dr. Carter G. Woodson Elementary in Cherry Hill. As reported in today's Sun, their MSA test scores rocked this year. Fifth grade math competence scores went from 47.2 percent to 79.5 percent. Fifth grade reading competence went from 55.6 percent to 82.1 percent.

Fourth grade math went from 75 percent to 79 percent; fourth grade reading went from 56.1 percent to 76.7 percent. Third grade math rose from 62.2 percent to 69.8 percent while third grade reading fell from 60 percent to 51.2 percent.

The Sun's "Reading by 9" volunteer tutoring program has partnered with Woodson for more than a decade. Towson University also sends lots of help. But the main job is done by the hard-working staff.

Posted by Jay Hancock at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Education
        

Says Tyler Cowen:

The higher education bubble has burst. The expiration of stimulus funds in 2011 will be a crushing event for many public sector universities.

Posted by Jay Hancock at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Education