Citigroup still paying massive bonuses.

In a bid to attract talent, Citigroup ( C - news - people ) has been paying traders in London guaranteed bonuses totaling millions of dollars. Among the lucky recipients are Rachel Lord, an executive in Citi's equities group, and Stefanos Bitzakidis, who is listed on Bloomberg as global head of exotic equity derivatives. The two received a total of roughly $3 million in guaranteed bonuses to join Citigroup from Morgan Stanley this year, says a person familiar with the situation. They are among a number of traders in Citi's equities division who have received guarantees to join the firm in recent months.

Talent??? What talent!

A couple things here. First and foremost, you have an artificial level of price, supply and demand regarding students. There will always be a large pent up demand for college education, that in my opinion, is kept artificially high. Universities get millions of dollars for research grants, grants for hiring certain minorities, money for credits for loan application for minorities and foreign exchange students. That is only the tip of the iceberg. How do I know this? While in college, I ended up working at the college first part time then basically I lived at the school (Study then work, rinse and repeat). Universities pick students who have a history of volunteering on campus, and one ends up on committees ranging from departmental hirings to parking fees. I have personally witnessed departments picking foreign based professors over those trained here; ironically enough an Indian-born professor who went to school here and had an excellent CV lost out to a job to another Indian-born professor who trained overseas.

As stated, prices are kept artificially high, because if these schools truly had to compete for students, the cost for college would come down. Several community colleges here in Illinois attempted to become full 4-year deals or had attempted to move some of their programs to such status. Both attempts were quashed by both the state of Illinois, protests from the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) and surprisingly enough the University Professionals of Illinois. So thus the supply of 4-year degree outlets are "kept in check."

Regarding student selection, if I had a dollar for every time I sat in a class where an illegal alien (not a foreign-exchange student, but someone who actually entered the country illegally) also took the class who had her or his education paid for, well you get the idea. I've seen poor students (black, white, it doesn't matter) not get the funding they need via FASFA, but illegals can through sham social security numbers. The same has secretly been going on in employment. One year I worked at my school paper, one of the young ladies who stayed on an expired visa from Argentina, was getting paid through her student Id!

Economic hard times tends to see increases in students. While there are some "good schools" and "bad schools," in all honesty I think they are all the same. I've had family members who went to Harvard, and to be honest outside of the "connections" you can get, the education is just about the same as a state school. I could not go to a top school, I had to pay for my classes out of pocket, so I picked a cheap school in my state. You know what I found out, most of the professors there went to places like Harvard or Yale or even top state schools like U of I. The education they gained there they passed on to students at this low-cost school.

This article you post really bugs be, and probably why I'm really getting into this, is because I've even seen veterans not able to get classes yet certain foreign exchange students allowed to take them though the classes were officially "full." No one here is surprised over the Blago scandal, this is actually old news that doesn't just originate with that disgraced man. Louis Guitierez, Aldermen Mel, the various Ryan clans, Mayor Daley, etc etc etc, all have their people/kids who get in regardless. When you cherry pick students, especially politically-connected ones who show obvious signs of lack of qualifications, you kick out those who probably would have gone on to really contribute in this economy.

But this also could be argued with regards of foreign exchange students. You have students here who are willing to pay or get loans (or Pell grants) either born here or are citizens, being essentially barred. Yet here we have foreign exchange students, who from what I have seen, are now coming here also applying for the same pool of lending and grant money. This pool is actually a zero-sum game. One dollar going to Nigel from the UK is one less going to Barry from Ohio.

Secondly, lately, many of these foreign exchange students are actually going back to their countries. In the past, a good chuck (and depending from where, the majority) would stay here, spend money or start a business or work here and pay taxes. Now, the trend is that they go back to their country. Now those that borrow may pay back, I'd be curious to see Sallie Mae's states on foreign exchange students and loans. But regarding grants, here once more, they get an education utilizing grants that could have gone to an American, then go back to their country and contribute there instead. Also, and maybe this has changed since I finished college back in early part of this decade, but when I went to school many foreign exchange students didn't spend money and many remitted what they could back home.

This may not sound politically correct, but if you're going to have entrance exams, then dammit let those who pass well get in over those who are just connected. If universities are going to give preferences, then let it be based on merit and citizenship. I'm sorry, I know that may sound racist, but you don't see universities overseas bending backwards for American students. Universities, in my opinion have for too long veered off from reality. Many are fat and out of touch. They say that California used to have free university education, why isn't that the case now?

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www.venomopolis.com

run noslaves.com. But i am trying to make it much more of an "anything goes" community space for Professionals, techies, geeks, where H-1B is a huge issue because they are being displaced. I hope to put most writing on EP and let others run the show over there.

I care about that issue but it's just kind of a one trick pony in terms of writing about it and as you note, so many aspects of policy affect the U.S., middle class, not just a 1,2 issue activism agenda.

I'm more analytic I think than activist.

thereare good,but older statstics via the HERI's (Higher eduation Research Institute) faculty survey.

As for students aggregated data with no personally identifying information is available.

The problem inboth cases is that you can get info about the current set of teachers and grad students, but nothing about those who applied and were rejected.

So even where there is something that is suggestive that certain groups are being excluded from graduate education and teaching positions, the universities in question will say that these groups are on average less qualified.......

Can't eat cash. But paying off your mortgage and planting a potato field instead of a front lawn might work.
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Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

in her thought that the government deserves the money more than my kids.

You are going to see more and more Teres'a getting bold with their thoughts that government is the master.

Between May and December of this year, 99,050 Michiganders will exhaust their UI benefits. Since they have nowhere else to go, welfare numbers will sky rocket. Has anybody looked at DHS statistics?

The stimulus money is for job training for adults. It is loaded with red tape and crawling with feds. It is the wrong money for the job that needs to be done. What good is job training when there are no jobs? They should have poured money into public service employment instead of training. They did a version of this for summer youth, and in one county alone, 3,000 kids will have summer jobs. Since their parents have no money, this should help.

Both the meltdown and the fix are screwed.

YES WE CAN doesn't necessarily mean he will.

Read the writings of Teresa Ghilarducci, including her testimony before Congress.

It is downright scary to think that there has been the proposal that 1/2 of out 401K residual upon our death go to the government - not to our heirs.

I think one can still get a lot of facts. For example, how many were accepted into graduate school with just a 2 yr. degree, % of foreigners to Americans and then next to that their rejection rates, the funding rate, etc.

There used to be a site, PhD.org who did this.

I'm also not so sure what this has to do with economics, except maybe how Americans are once again getting screwed.

I just did noslaves.com which is a Professional labor/techie site and I can bet money they want to know about it because higher education is required in all of these occupational areas.