The president is in the middle of a tour through New York and Northeast Pennsylvania, having made stops at the University of Buffalo and in the city of Syracuse yesterday; he will visit Binghamton University and Lackawanna College in Scranton today.  President Obama has already announced his untenable plan to tie federal aid for colleges and universities to outcomes involving graduation rates (evidently he never read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance), service to minority and economically disadvantaged students, job placement rates, and student debt loads.  He prefaced his suggestions with, as is his practice in dealing with any complex issue, the observation that we simply "can't go about business as usual."  As he made many similar observations while pushing for his Obamacare plan, my recommendation to all my fellow professors is that we be on guard and keep ever in the forefront of our mind Reagan's dictum that the most feared words in the English language...(Read Full Post)