There really haven’t been any surprises. The leaves are starting to change, the weather is getting cooler, and (since this is an election year) the campaign ads are getting more vicious. The third week of classes zipped by quickly and I barely noticed that we’ve been in Cambridge for a full month.
Margret Spellings, the US Secretary of Education, came to speak at the JFK school on Wednesday. She gave a fairly short talk on the state of education in the United States. Sadly, in the context of the presidential election and the current economic crisis, her major announcement didn’t seem so major. She unveiled a new, simplified FAFSA that should help reduce one of the hurdles many students face in applying for federal aid. Let’s just hope there will still be lenders and money available once the new forms get printed. There’s a short article about her talk in the Harvard Crimson.
HGSE has posted a short Q & A with professor Bridget Terry Long. Dr. Long is an expert in financial aid and has been doing some very interesting work on financial aid simplification. We all get to take a course with her next semester, but for now, here’s her response.
There is also an article on the speech in Inside Higher Ed.
Here’s a shot of Spellings (and her futuristic outfit) from the Crimson.
Madam Secretary (photo by KANE HSIEH)
Hey, I’m humbled to have appeared on your blog! Are you a harvard student? what’s the story behind austintoboston?