Sunday, June 18, 2023

THE GREED AGENDA: ONE MORE WAY BILLIONAIRES ARE SCREWING AMERICANS

 

THE GREED AGENDA: ONE MORE WAY BILLIONAIRES ARE SCREWING AMERICANS

It's time to face the music: the same billionaires who shipped our jobs overseas are the ones who slashed state support for higher education. And the consequences have been dire.

Over the last decade, funding for public two- and four-year colleges has plummeted by over $6.6 billion, after adjusting for inflation. That's a staggering figure, and it's no wonder that tuition costs have skyrocketed as a result. It's become harder than ever for students to enroll and graduate, and low-income students and students of color are disproportionately affected.

But who's to blame for this mess? Look no further than the Koch brothers, the Walton Family Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Lumina Foundation, ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), and various conservative think tanks. These billionaires and organizations have been promoting policies that prioritize tax cuts and ideological opposition to public spending over investing in our future generations.

The consequences of their actions are clear: higher tuition costs, increased student debt, reduced access and quality, lower graduation rates, and diminished economic and social benefits. It's a lose-lose situation for everyone except the ultra-wealthy.

And yet, there is hope. Some states have bucked the trend and increased funding for higher education. Illinois leads the pack with the highest state funding per full-time equivalent (FTE) student, while New Hampshire lags far behind. Other states like California, Colorado, Louisiana, Nevada, Oregon, and Texas have also upped their support by 10 percent or more.

It's time for more states to follow suit and invest in their future by prioritizing higher education funding. After all, education is the key to unlocking opportunities and creating a better future for all. And if we want to truly make America great again, we need to start by investing in our own people.

So let's call out the billionaires who have been putting their own interests ahead of everyone else's. Let's demand that our elected officials prioritize education funding over tax cuts for the wealthy. And let's work together to create a brighter future for ourselves and generations to come.

THE DEEP DIVE

  • - The average cost of tuition and fees for the 2022-2023 school year is $39,723 at private colleges, $22,953 for out-of-state students at public schools and $10,423 for in-state residents at public colleges².
  • - States have collectively scaled back their annual higher education funding by $9 billion during the last 10 years, when adjusted for inflation⁶⁸. The average decline between 2008 and 2020 was nearly $1,500 per student, adjusted for inflation⁸.
  • - State appropriations per full-time student have fallen from an inflation-adjusted $8,489 in 2007 to $7,642 in 2017². That has pushed up the portion of university budgets that come from students to $6,572 from $4,817 over the same 10 years².
  • - Some of the reasons for state defunding of higher education include the Great Recession, tax cuts, competing priorities such as Medicaid and prisons, and ideological opposition to public spending³⁸.
  • - Some of the consequences of state defunding of higher education include higher tuition, increased student debt, reduced access and quality, lower graduation rates, and diminished economic and social benefits³⁸.
  • - Some of the billionaires, foundations and organizations that have promoted or influenced state policies on higher education funding include the Koch brothers, the Walton Family Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Lumina Foundation, ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), and various conservative think tanks³⁹.

State funding for higher education varies widely across different states. According to a report by the National Education Association¹, based on data from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association², here are some comparisons:

  • - In 2020, Illinois had the highest state funding per full-time equivalent (FTE) student at $14,496, while New Hampshire had the lowest at $3,151¹.
  • - Between 2008 and 2020, Illinois also had the largest increase in state funding per FTE student at $5,071, while Louisiana had the largest decrease at $5,500¹.
  • - In 2022, 32 states reported funding increases to higher education, with California, Colorado, Louisiana, Nevada, Oregon, and Texas upping state support by 10 percent or more³.
  • - Between 2017 and 2018, 23 states increased their per-student funding by an average of 2.4 percent, while 27 states decreased it by an average of 4 percent⁴.


Bing, 6/18/2023

See the Average College Tuition in 2021-2022 - U.S. News & World Report. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/paying-for-college-infographic.

Most Americans don’t realize state funding for higher ed fell by .... https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/most-americans-dont-realize-state-funding-for-higher-ed-fell-by-billions.

State Higher Education Funding Cuts Have Pushed Costs to Students .... https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-higher-education-funding-cuts-have-pushed-costs-to-students.

Is College Tuition Really Too High? - The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/is-college-tuition-too-high.html.

DeSantis college plan would cut diversity programs, review tenured .... https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/01/31/desantis-dei-tenure-florida-colleges/.

2023 Average College Tuition By State. https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/state/.

What You Need to Know About College Tuition Costs - U.S. News & World .... https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/what-you-need-to-know-about-college-tuition-costs.

What's behind the sky-high cost of a college education - CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-college-is-so-expensive-and-what-can-be-done-about-it/.

State Funding for Higher Education Still Lagging | NEA. https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/state-funding-higher-education-still-lagging.

See the Average College Tuition in 2021-2022 - U.S. News & World Report. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/paying-for-college-infographic.

Most Americans don’t realize state funding for higher ed fell by .... https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/most-americans-dont-realize-state-funding-for-higher-ed-fell-by-billions.

State Higher Education Funding Cuts Have Pushed Costs to Students .... https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-higher-education-funding-cuts-have-pushed-costs-to-students.

College Tuition Really Too High? - The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/is-college-tuition-too-high.html.

DeSantis college plan would cut diversity programs, review tenured .... https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/01/31/desantis-dei-tenure-florida-colleges/.

2023 Average College Tuition By State. https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/state/.

What You Need to Know About College Tuition Costs - U.S. News & World .... https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/what-you-need-to-know-about-college-tuition-costs.

What's behind the sky-high cost of a college education - CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-college-is-so-expensive-and-what-can-be-done-about-it/.

State Funding for Higher Education Still Lagging | NEA. https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/state-funding-higher-education-still-lagging.


CHATGPT IN THE CLASSROOM: CHEATING THE FUTURE OR FUTURE OF CHEATING

CHATGPT IN THE CLASSROOM:  CHEATING THE FUTURE OR FUTURE OF CHEATING

Are you tired of hearing about ChatGPT and how it's ruining academic integrity? Well, fear not, dear reader, because I have a solution that will make you laugh and forget about all those pesky cheating scandals.

First off, let's address the elephant in the room: Did Susy become a genius overnight or did she cheat with ChatGPT? The answer is simple: who cares? As long as Susy is learning and growing, does it really matter how she got there? Plus, have you seen some of the ridiculous essays that come out of ChatGPT? I'm pretty sure Susy could do better on her own.

But for all you teachers out there who are worried about cheating, I've compiled a list of hilarious ways to prevent it. 

1. Have your students write their essays in crayon. That way, if they try to copy and paste from ChatGPT, it'll be obvious when the font suddenly changes to "scribble."

2. Make your essay prompts completely nonsensical. For example: "Write a 500-word essay on the existential crisis of a potato." I guarantee you no AI platform will be able to generate a coherent response to that.

3. Use reverse psychology. Tell your students that they're not allowed to use ChatGPT, but don't actually monitor them. They'll be so paranoid about getting caught that they won't even think about cheating.

4. Have a "ChatGPT Day" where everyone is allowed to use the platform for their essays. Then, have a class discussion about how terrible the essays turned out and how much better everyone's writing is without AI.

5. Hire a comedian to give a lecture on the dangers of cheating with ChatGPT. Make it so funny that your students will never want to touch the platform again.

Now, if you're still worried about cheating, there are some more serious strategies you can use. 

One option is to monitor student activity to detect any suspicious behavior, such as using AI platforms. But let's be real, who has time for that? 

Another option is to incorporate anti-plagiarism tools, which can detect any assignments that have been copied from an AI platform. Some of these tools include: 

Some of the anti-plagiarism tools that can detect ChatGPT are:

  • - GPT-2 Output Detector by OpenAI: This is a tool developed by the same company that created ChatGPT. It predicts how likely it is that a text has been written by a human or an AI¹.
  • - Writer AI Content Detector and Content at Scale: These are two tools that allow users to enter a URL or a text and get a percentage score of how likely it is that the content is human-generated¹².
  • - GPTZero: This is a tool created by a Princeton University student that measures the randomness of a text using two metrics: perplexity and burstiness. The lower the numbers, the greater the possibility that the text was created by a bot¹³.
  • - Giant Language Model Test Room (GLTR): This is a tool developed by researchers from MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab and Harvard Natural Language Processing Group that highlights words in different colors based on how predictable they are. The more purple and red words, the more likely the text was generated by an AI¹⁴.
  • - Copyleaks AI Content Detector: This is a tool that uses natural language processing and machine learning to detect any instances of AI-generated content in academic papers, blogs, websites, and more².
  • - GPTRadar: This is a tool that uses deep learning to analyze the linguistic patterns and features of a text to determine if it was written by a human or an AI⁵.
  • - Winston AI: This is a tool that uses neural networks to compare a text with millions of online sources to detect any signs of plagiarism or AI-generated content.
  • - CopyScape: This is a tool that checks if a text matches any other online content, including those generated by AI platforms like ChatGPT.
  • - Plagibot: This is a tool that uses natural language understanding and semantic analysis to detect any plagiarism or AI-generated content in a text.

Or, you could just provide original and challenging assignments that cannot be easily completed with the help of technology. That way, your students will actually have to think for themselves and learn something in the process.

In all seriousness though, cheating is a serious issue and we should do what we can to prevent it. But let's not forget to have a little fun along the way. And who knows, maybe one day ChatGPT will become so advanced that it can actually write funny articles like this one. But until then, let's just stick to good old-fashioned human humor.

Bing, 6/18/2023

How to Prevent ChatGPT Cheating | Tech & Learning. https://www.techlearning.com/how-to/how-to-prevent-chatgpt-cheating.

How to prevent cheating using ChatGPT and other AI platforms - LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-prevent-cheating-using-chatgpt-other-ai-platforms-nikolay-gul.

ChatGPT creates a new tool to catch students cheating using ChatGPT .... https://fortune.com/2023/01/31/chatgpt-open-ai-new-tool-catch-students-cheating/.

how to avoid being caught using chat gpt ? : r/ChatGPT - Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/10avy3j/how_to_avoid_being_caught_using_chat_gpt/.

Protecting Exam Integrity: How to Prevent Cheating Using ChatGPT - Talview. https://blog.talview.com/protecting-exam-integrity-how-to-prevent-cheating-using-chatgpt.

ChatGPT has a new way to detect its own plagiarism. https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/chatgpt-new-way-to-detect-plagiarism/.

15 Best AI Plagiarism Checkers to Detect ChatGPT Content (2023) - Beebom. https://beebom.com/best-ai-plagiarism-checkers/.

How to detect ChatGPT plagiarism - Digital Trends. https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-detect-chatgpt-plagiarism/.

Can universities detect ChatGPT? - Essentially yes - PC Guide. https://www.pcguide.com/apps/can-universities-detect-chat-gpt/.

GPTZero: how to detect ChatGPT plagiarism | Digital Trends. https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/gptzero-how-to-detect-chatgpt-plagiarism/.