Skip to content

Spring Fund Drive

The on-air portion of our fund drive has ended, but there's still time to help close the gap in our overall goal by March 31st. If you've yet to donate, please give now! If you've already supported or are a sustaining donor to KBCS, thank you so much!

$110,000 Goal

95.66%

Drive ends: March 31, 2024

Please enable your javascript to have a better view of the website. Click here to learn more about it.
index.php

Taking the Racism Out of Teaching English Writing

 

KBCS highlights a progressive approach to teaching college writing classes. A method of teaching college level writing titled Anti-racist Writing Assessment Ecology was adopted by 62 faculty at 30 out of the 34 Washington community college and technical colleges (at the time we were working on this story).  The methodology is meant to address and minimize what some educators are considering a culturally colonized education environment.

Dr. Asao Inoue is a Professor of Rhetoric and Composition in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts at Arizona State University. He developed the Anti-racist Writing Assessment Ecology and wrote the book, Writing Assessment, Social Justice, and The Advancement of Opportunity. Dr. Inoue talked about the approach and what inspired him to create it.

(more…)

Rosa Clemente

Community organizer and independent journalist, Rosa Clemente  was a keynote speaker at the Washington State Faculty of Color Conference earlier this month.

Parts 1 & 2 – Rosa Clemente explains what people of color face in academia

Part 3 & 4 – Rosa Clemente speaks about the history of the US/Puerto Rico relationship and how this plays out in the aftermath of hurricanes Irma and Maria.

(more…)

How Local College Students Pay for School

Student loan debt hangs over borrowers with no chance of reprieve. Many try to avoid loans like the plague, but find it’s not always possible due to the rising costs of higher education. KBCS reporter David Joseph talks with students about how they pay for college.

(more…)

New York’s Plan to Make College Free

YES! Magazine’s Susan Gleason speaks with investigative reporter Jay Gabriel about details associated with New York state’s new kind of scholarship program that aims to make college free. Find out the unique way New York is giving students a hand paying for college.

(more…)

Homeless but not Hopeless; Riding the Bus to a Better Future

The bus is a means to a better life for Al Brown. Brown is homeless but not hopeless. He has been homeless for years but that has not determined his outlook on life. Brown is a college student who depends on the bus to move him towards a better future. Whitney Henry-Lester brings us Al’s dispatch alongside Seattle PI photographer, Grant Hindsley. Grant spent the day with Al and captured his commute in photos.

Click here for more What’s the Flux?: Commuter Dispatch stories.

College Affordability In Spotlight Under The Dome In Boise & Olympia

By Tom Banse

Parents with kids soon heading to a state college or university have reason to pay attention to the legislature this coming month. College affordability is the common purpose, but Washington state and Idaho lawmakers have different ideas for how to get there.

Idaho Governor Butch Otter proposes a “tuition lock”… that is to freeze university tuition for incoming freshmen so they would pay the same rate for four academic years. Meanwhile, a measure introduced in the Washington state Senate on Thursday, January 21, seeks to make community and technical college free for any Washingtonian without a college degree. But State Senate Republican Leader Mark Schoesler hesitates to endorse it.

He said, “Show me how they’re going to pay for it.”

This version doesn’t identify a funding source.

Washington isn’t the first to entertain the idea of free tuition at community college. Oregon’s Legislature approved a limited program to start this coming fall quarter and President Obama is championing the idea at the national level.

Oregon’s tuition waiver – called Oregon Promise – applies to a subset of community college students. In the first year of the program, eligibility for free tuition (fees still apply) is restricted to Oregon students who graduate from high school in spring/summer 2016 with a GPA of 2.5 or better and who then enroll in community college within the following six months.

Current high school seniors have to be pretty organized to take advantage. They have to apply for the Oregon Promise program by March 1, 2016. They also have to fill out the federal application for financial aid. The state program is a “last-dollar” program, meaning it covers whatever is left of the tuition bill after other student aid and scholarships are applied.

In Idaho a citizen initiative campaign that sought to reduce student tuition costs shut down this week. The movement, which campaigned under the banner StopTuitionHikes.com, proposed to reduce tuition by 22 percent by raising state cigarette and tobacco taxes, including a $1.50 per pack hike on cigarettes. Chief petitioner Bill Moran complained on Facebook that his campaign was “undermined” by the governor’s office and health advocates who have designs on tobacco tax revenue to pay for expanded low-income health insurance.

Last year Washington state got the distinction of being the only state to actually cut public university tuition lately. The Washington Legislature reduced tuition at the state’s four-year colleges and universities by 15 to 20 percent over two years and by 5 percent for two-year schools. That tuition cut was a legislative priority for Republicans, but passed with wide bipartisan support.