Tuck School of Business professor Matthew Slaughter coauthored a bipartisan policy brief calling for the country to revamp its unemployment compensation system. The report was released by the Financial Services Forum, an economic think tank headed by the CEOs of twenty of the country's largest finance companies. The report calls for a new $22 billion "Adjustment Assistance Program" to mitigate the uncertainty workers face in an increasingly globalized and technology-based economy. The program would include wage-loss insurance, paying workers who are forced to take lower-paying jobs and increasing job training programs. Slaughter is a professor of international economics at Tuck and a former Bush administration economist.
The Education Department is being accused of ineffectively promoting college grants to high schoolers, according to an article in Monday's Chronicle of Higher Education. The Academic Competitiveness and National Smart Grant programs, directed by the Education Department, pay the college tuition of low-income students who have a grade point average above 3.0 and major in a "rigorous" subject, such as engineering, math and science. An audit by the Education Department's inspector general states the department "did not conduct sufficient follow-up with non-participating schools to ensure those required to participate in the [Academic Competitiveness Grant] and/or National Smart program were doing so." Congress provided up to $790 million for these grants in 2006, but only $450 million actually reached students, according to the audit. The department did not adequately reach out to high schools, the audit said, meaning many eligible students did not realize they qualified for the grants.
Dartmouth students trekked 50 miles across the state of New Hampshire this weekend in order to complete "The Fifty," a Dartmouth Outing Club tradition. The hike, which is 53.4 miles long, begins at Robinson Hall and ends at Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. Students typically take 23 to 28 hours to complete the hike and walk throughout the night. Each year, some of the participants are unable to finish the race for reasons ranging from exhaustion to getting lost. The DOC recruits volunteers to run several way stations, points at which hikers can eat and rest.
