Feasibility and design of a tertiary education entitlement in Australia

Overview: This report to the Mitchell Institute presents the outcomes of modelling the potential costs of an income contingent loan (ICL) that would form a core element of a tertiary education entitlement, as proposed in the February 2015 Mitchell Institute paper Financing tertiary education in Australia – the reform imperative and rethinking student entitlements by Mitchell Professorial Fellow Peter Noonan and Mitchell Policy Analyst Sarah Pilcher. This report, Feasibility and design of a tertiary education entitlement in Australia: Modelling and costing a universal income contingent loan, models the costs of a single income contingent loans scheme for higher education and vocational education and training (VET) students. It seeks to quantify the largely hidden subsidies involved in income contingent loans through unpaid debt and the difference between the rate at which debt is indexed and the costs to government of borrowing to finance student debt.  Feasibility and design of a tertiary education entitlement in Australia: Modelling and costing a universal income contingent loan has been prepared by Dr Timothy Higgins and Professor Bruce Chapman, two of Australia’s leading experts on the design of income contingent loans. Background Feasibility and design of a tertiary education entitlement in Australia presents the outcomes of various financial modelling of the potential costs of applying an income contingent loan scheme to include all tertiary education students in Australia. The modelling maps students’ projected incomes by qualification level, finding significant variation in lifetime incomes across VET and higher education qualifications. At present, there are a range of different income contingent loan schemes operating in Australia’s higher education and VET sectors. Under such schemes, students are not required to pay the upfront cost of their course. Instead, they are able to take out a loan with the government and repay the loan through the taxation system once they enter the workforce and their incomes reach a certain threshold. But these loans are not available to all students. In the VET system, those studying for Certificate III and most Certificate IV VET courses, for example, early childhood education, aged care, and hospitality, do not have access to an income contingent loan. These students must pay the cost of their course upfront – a potential barrier as fees for many of these courses are increasing.   The Mitchell Institute will draw on the Higgins and Chapman report to finalise its proposal for an integrated tertiary education funding system in Australia

Allied Health Regional Workforce Analysis: Bay Area Region

Analyzes the racial/ethnic composition of workers in twenty-two health occupations and graduates of healthcare education programs in the Bay Area. Examines disparities by race/ethnicity in the types of occupations held, educational attainment, and wages

Allied Health Regional Workforce Analysis: Central California

Analyzes the racial/ethnic compositions of workers in twenty-two health occupations and graduates of healthcare education programs in the Central Valley. Examines disparities by race/ethnicity in occupations held, educational attainment, and wages

OLIGODENDROCYTE 2PHATAL REVEALS DYNAMICS OF MYELIN DEGENERATION AND REPAIR

Oligodendrocytes are responsible for producing myelin in the central nervous system. This lipid-rich coating along axons helps to increase action potential velocity, provide metabolic support to axons, and facilitate fine-tuning of neuronal circuitry. Demyelination and/or myelin dysfunction is widespread in neurodegenerative diseases and aging. Despite this, we know very little about how individual oligodendrocytes, or the myelin sheaths they produce, degenerate. Myelin repair, carried out by resident oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs), is known to occur following myelin damage in certain contexts. We sought to investigate the cellular dynamics of oligodendrocyte degeneration and repair by developing a non-inflammatory demyelination model, combining intravital imaging with a single-cell ablation technique called 2Phatal. Oligodendrocyte 2Phatal activated a stereotyped degeneration cascade which triggered remyelination by local OPCs. Remyelination efficiency was dependent on initial myelin patterns and dynamic imaging revealed rapid repair with near-seamless transitions between myelin loss and remyelination, a process we call synchronous remyelination. A subset of highly branched OPCs executed this remyelination, pointing towards demyelination-associated morphological signatures of fate. Age-related demyelination mirrored the degenerative cascade observed with 2Phatal; however, remyelination in aging was defective due to failed oligodendrogenesis. Thus, oligodendrocyte 2Phatal uncovered novel forms of rapid remyelination that restore myelin patterns in the adult but are absent in aging. We go on to demonstrate that the maturation state of oligodendrocytes determines the dynamics and mechanism of cell death. Premyelinating and newly formed oligodendrocytes degenerate more rapidly than mature oligodendrocytes, but faster than OPCs, following 2Phatal. Furthermore, they appear to utilize a caspase-dependent form of cell death, while mature oligodendrocytes do not. This new insight suggests that different cell death mechanisms are used by these two populations, necessitating distinct strategies to protect preestablished and new oligodendrocytes in human aging and/or disease

Media literacy in public schools

This study investigates media literacy curricula in upper-income and lower-income public schools. Twelve principals participated in a telephone survey by answering fifteen questions about their schools and districts

Human dignity as a criterion for science policy

3 pages.Debates the Bush administration's use of "human dignity" as a basis for federal policy governing scientific research

Allied Health Regional Workforce Analysis: San Diego Region

Analyzes the racial/ethnic compositions of workers in nineteen health occupations and graduates of healthcare education programs in the San Diego region. Examines disparities by race/ethnicity in occupations held, educational attainment, and wages

Tracking the Supply of Health Professions Education Programs in California

Maps the "education link" in California's supply chain for selected health professions, identifying institutions that train these professionals and reporting data on the number of graduates of these training programs

Allied Health Regional Workforce Analysis: Los Angeles

Analyzes the racial/ethnic compositions of workers in twenty health occupations and graduates of healthcare education programs in the Los Angeles area. Examines disparities by race/ethnicity in types of occupations held, educational attainment, and wages

Simple formulas for lattice paths avoiding certain periodic staircase boundaries

There is a strikingly simple classical formula for the number of lattice paths avoiding the line x = ky when k is a positive integer. We show that the natural generalization of this simple formula continues to hold when the line x = ky is replaced by certain periodic staircase boundaries--but only under special conditions. The simple formula fails in general, and it remains an open question to what extent our results can be further generalized.Comment: Accepted version (JCTA); proof of Corollary 7 expanded, and 2 new refs adde