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5 votes
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Harvard, MIT sue US immigration authorities over new rule for foreign students
23 votes -
ICE announces modifications to international student policies amid coronavirus pandemic
8 votes -
scholar.social: Academic and research-focused microblogging platform
11 votes -
The practical case on why we need the humanities
14 votes -
Researchers at Cornell University concluded that an online semester would result in more COVID-19
16 votes -
US pediatricians call for in-person school this fall
12 votes -
Lurching toward Fall, disaster on the horizon
10 votes -
Higher ed: Enough already
17 votes -
I just made my last ever student loan payment!
I'm throwing myself a little party here -- digital drinks on me! Yes, I know my loans weren't accruing interest on account of COVID-19, but long before that all started I'd been aggressively...
I'm throwing myself a little party here -- digital drinks on me!
Yes, I know my loans weren't accruing interest on account of COVID-19, but long before that all started I'd been aggressively paying them down because I wanted them GONE. And now they ARE! (Or, they will be once the payment clears, which for some unknown reason takes my loan servicer like two full weeks).
The quarantine actually helped me accelerate payments. I rolled over what I was saving in gas money and not eating out into my loan payments. Also, as a teacher I only get paid during the school year, but I have the option to reduce my regular paychecks and roll the difference into a lump sum that gets paid out at the beginning of the summer. I choose this option so that my budgeting is consistent year-round (rather than me having to squirrel away my own nest egg for the summer from my other paychecks). The payoff amount on my loan would have been done around August had I kept with my regular schedule of payments, so I went ahead and treated myself to making the final payment in full, now, as I had the money for it upfront.
I cannot tell you how good it feels to finally be free of them. I paid off my undergrad loans in under 10 years and felt super proud of myself, only to immediately have to turn around and start the process all over again for grad school. Months after I finished my undergrad loan payments I was again accepting tens of thousands of dollars in debt so that I could get a master's degree to qualify myself for a job that I'd already been doing for years. It was not a great feeling, nor something I was very happy about, but you do what you have to do, right?
BUT NOW IT'S OVER. NO MORE STUDENT LOANS. I'VE WON THAT AMERICAN MILLENNIAL BOSS FIGHT.
It honestly feels like I just got a big raise, as, come August, once my timeline for paying the loans is done, all the money that I was putting towards them is now mine to do whatever I want with. I'm not saying this to gloat (and I know that I'm financially very privileged even in light of my debt), but simply because I'm reveling in the feeling of being out from under the suffocating thumb of a difficult financial pressure, and it feels wonderful.
EDIT: If anyone's wanting to join in my festivities remotely, participating is easy! All you need to do is pour yourself a tasty drink of your choosing, grab a delicious snack you love, and throw Carly Rae Jepsen's discography on shuffle.
43 votes -
The death of expertise
9 votes -
Welcome to RWX.GG
8 votes -
MIT, guided by open access principles, ends Elsevier negotiations
13 votes -
The educational standardization trap
10 votes -
Schools turn to surveillance tech to prevent Covid-19 spread: "We are very much interested in the automated tracking of students"
6 votes -
US schools lay off hundreds of thousands
8 votes -
More than 200 schools in South Korea have been forced to close just days after they re-opened, due to a new spike in virus cases
13 votes -
Colleges face student lawsuits seeking refunds after coronavirus closures
12 votes -
Education without loans
5 votes -
No, you don't have a "lizard brain": Why the Psychology 101 model of the brain is all wrong
7 votes -
The coming disruption - Scott Galloway predicts a handful of elite universities and tech companies will soon monopolize higher education
6 votes -
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sues Betsy DeVos over “reprehensible” new sexual assault rules
5 votes -
California police used military surveillance tech at grad student strike
11 votes -
CISSP qualification given cert status equivalent to Master’s degree level in Europe
3 votes -
How a leftist cartoonist’s college campus drawing nearly became a far-right meme
6 votes -
Why I’m learning more with distance learning than I do in school
8 votes -
I’m a developer. I won’t teach my kids to code, and neither should you
19 votes -
Meet Syd Sanders, Maine's first transgender high school valedictorian
8 votes -
Prison inmates in Western Australia made 100 school desks in less than two weeks to donate to families for children homeschooling during the coronavirus pandemic
5 votes -
Exam anxiety: How remote test-proctoring is creeping students out
9 votes -
Michigan Governor Whitmer announces plan for free college tuition for front-line workers battling coronavirus
13 votes -
Many schools are already closed until the end of the year. So what happens to all those missed classes?
11 votes -
Why do so few people major in computer science?
15 votes -
How did we reach 7 billion people without informing/educating all about how we really live?
[M/29/small town India, English isn't my first language] I'll admit to being what is called a country bumpkin. The education I received was lacking in many ways, I wasn't taught about the real...
[M/29/small town India, English isn't my first language]
I'll admit to being what is called a country bumpkin. The education I received was lacking in many ways, I wasn't taught about the real world, I never really thought about how the food on my plate was grown or how we plunder the living world for resources etc.
My question is, how did humanity reach 7 billion plus people without even paying a thought about educating the kids properly.
There is a bitter irony to the fact that we have all been convinced to use the word "growth" to describe what is ultimately a process of depletion and breakdown. tweet
If we are depleting the earth of all resources, how will coming generations live?
But if we don't grow, how can we progress?
Edit: Why can't we have good quality education for everyone and good quality healthcare for everyone on this planet?
21 votes -
Biden’s free-college plan is a solution in search of a problem
6 votes -
A very detailed Corona curriculum for your kids
5 votes -
Singapore: Most workplaces to close, schools will move to full home-based learning from next week
4 votes -
Internet Archive has created a National Emergency Library, allowing users access to all 1.4 million books in their collection with no waiting lists
25 votes -
PSA for parents/guardians of school-age kids: Many distance/online learning tools are currently available for free through your child's teacher
For anyone who's caring for school-age children, I want to let you know that nearly every single online education platform/tool is currently offering up their normally premium paid services for...
For anyone who's caring for school-age children, I want to let you know that nearly every single online education platform/tool is currently offering up their normally premium paid services for free on account of school closures. While some will offer these directly to parents/students, most of them require a teacher to sign up and then have the student account exist underneath them.
If there is a resource that you or your children would like to access, please email your child's teacher and ask if they'll sign up for it. It'll likely take only two minutes on their end (and they'll be happy to do it! trust me!), but it'll open up a ton of resources for you and your child.
7 votes -
Small colleges were already on the brink. Now, coronavirus threatens their existence
4 votes -
Joe Biden adopts part of a tuition-free public college proposal as a nod to US progressives
10 votes -
NYC schools will close Monday
6 votes -
Momentum builds for NYC teacher ‘sickout’ mutiny over de Blasio’s refusal to close schools
5 votes -
Five US states are closing all schools over coronavirus fears
16 votes -
Belgium shuts down all schools, bars, restaurants, gyms and leisure sites until April 3rd
7 votes -
All publicly funded schools in Ontario closing for 2 weeks due to COVID-19
5 votes -
San Francisco shutting all schools for 3 weeks
12 votes -
Denmark shuts down schools and universities to fight coronavirus pandemic
10 votes -
Coronavirus prompts Harvard, MIT to send students home
5 votes -
Coronavirus update: Gov. Newsom warns of more California school closings, leaders call for calm
8 votes