Red Cross: How We Spent Sandy Money Is a ‘Trade Secret’ | ProPublica

The charity is fighting our public records request for information on how it raised and spent money after the superstorm.

Just how badly does the American Red Cross want to keep secret how it raised and spent over $300 million after Hurricane Sandy?

The charity has hired a fancy law firm to fight a public request we filed with New York state, arguing that information about its Sandy activities is a “trade secret.”

The Red Cross’ “trade secret” argument has persuaded the state to redact some material, though it’s not clear yet how much since the documents haven’t yet been released.

As we’ve reported, the Red Cross releases few details about how it spends money after big disasters. That makes it difficult to figure out whether donor dollars are well spent.

Number of PhDs receiving federal aid more than tripled from 2007 to 2010 | Daily Caller

At some point, the question must be asked:  Is that useless degree worth it?? GE.

… According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, between 2007 and 2010, the percentage of people with a graduate degree who were on food stamps or were receiving another kind of federal aid more than doubled, reaching 360,000… In 2007, 9,776 people with PhD’s were receiving some kind of aid. In 2010, that number had more than tripled to 33,655. For people with master’s degrees, the number spiked from 101,683 to 293,029. Austin Nichols of the Urban Institute crunched those numbers for The Chronicle using census data…. via The Daily Caller.

Also see here:

The government’s college money pit | Jeff Jacoby

Year in, year out, Washington bestows tuition aid on students and their families. Year in, year out, the cost of tuition surges, galloping well ahead of inflation. And year in, year out, politicians vie to outdo each other in promising still more public subsidies that will keep higher education within reach of all. Does it never occur to them that there might be a cause-and-effect relationship between the skyrocketing aid and the skyrocketing price of a college education? That all those grants and loans and tax credits aren’t containing the fire, but fanning it?

Apparently not…

via The government’s college money pit :: Jeff Jacoby.