Latest news with #communitycollege
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Beyond The Gates Recap: Doug Finds His Manhood and Stands Up to Joey
Beyond The Gates Recap: Doug Finds His Manhood and Stands Up to Joey originally appeared on Daytime Confidential. On today's Beyond The Gates recap: Chelsea and Kat's Digs: Chelsea and Madison are basking in the afterglow of their afternoon delight. Madison notices Chelsea getting on her phone and wonders why that's her first inclination. Chelsea says she has to continue to feed the beast, but Madison thinks she is just looking for a dopamine hit. Chelsea says this is her work and Madison recognizes her pride in what she does, which is the same way she feels about her occupation. Madison says sometimes the most important connections happen when you put the phone down. With that, she makes her exit. Martin and Smitty's Home: Samantha asks Smitty, 'what's gay sex like' which leads him to do a spit take. She says it's for the community college course she's taking, and the first assignment is human sexuality. Smitty wonders how she got permission, and she says Martin signed off on it. Smitty thinks if he signed the papers, he can answer the questions. They both wonder why he's not home yet. Smitty and Samantha chat a bit about her being a spokesperson for Kat and Chelsea's purse line. She wants to help them out so later on she can model for their fitness line. Smitty pulls his daughter close and they embrace. Fairmont Country Club - Hallway: Martin grabs the nosy waiter by the lapel and demands to know who he is. The waiter continues to play games, but Martin knows they have a connection. He hands the waiter a bill and tells him to say, 'let's see what color's your money.' When he says it in an angry voice, Martin flashes back to that dreaded night. With that, the nosy waiter heads back to work. Fairmont Country Club – Lobby: Ashley storms in demanding to know why Naomi hasn't answered her calls. She can't believe she let Derek go through with the proposal. Naomi doesn't know what she was supposed to do when Derek approached her. She wanted to make sure he got something nice. Ashley can't believe she would help Derek when Naomi had to know a proposal wasn't what she wanted. Naomi wants to take their discussion inside the dining room and cancels her appointment with her client. Just then, Martin walks up and Ashley heads into the dining room. Martin and Naomi quickly catch up. She asks if he's ok and says she is always in his corner. A distraught Martin sends Naomi end to talk with Ashley. Before he can exit, the nosy waiter walks in. Fairmont Country Club – Bar: Ashley and Naomi down tequila shots and order more. Ashley apologizes for being extra. Naomi apologizes because she had her doubts about Derek's proposal. Ashley says he was so destroyed when she turned him down. Naomi thinks Derek will figure it out but wonders why she wasn't ready to seal the deal with Derek. Naomi reminds Ashley how she was there for her when she and Jacob had their issues. Ashely says it's not the same because they were meant to be together. Naomi thinks Ashley is making excuses and wants her to be honest. She asks her friend if there is someone else. Orphey Gene's: Jacob arrives, and Derek says the proposal was a bust. He says Ashley wants to marry him just not now. Jacob says at least she didn't say never. Derek counters Ashley thought the proposal was a test and Jacob wonders if she was right. Derek is coming to his senses and hates that he pushed Ashley. Jacob inquires and he says he was simply looking for some stability in his life. That being said, he wonders what is holding his beloved back. Andre tells Jacob and Derek he saw Ashley at Uptown because he thought they would be popping bottles in celebration. He assures Derek, she loves him, but he wonders why he was told no. With that, Derek hits the trail. Dani's Place: Andre arrives and kisses Dani. He says they need to talk and tells her about running into Chelsea and Kat. Andre worries his arrival gave their situation away. Dani is a wee freaked, but Andre thinks going public may be the right thing to do. Dani says she has to worry about ending up in the gossip rags and doesn't want to do anything else to rock their family. She thinks Nicole will be especially impacted but Andre thinks it's all about her and possibly Bill. Dani says Bill has nothing to say about her life since he chose to leave her for a child. Andre says he's not trying to be difficult. Dani appreciates his efforts but says she is tired of being played by men. Andre can't believe she is lumping him in with Bill, but she wonders why she shouldn't. Dani says she was fooled before and does not want to be fooled again. She asks if Andre is certain there isn't a younger woman around who might be tickling his fancy. Andre says since they started their thing, he hasn't focused on anyone but her. Dani sort of believes him and Andre thinks they should share their happiness with the world. She agrees and they seal it with a kiss. Just then, Chelsea arrives, and Dani says Andre is just leaving. Before Dani can say anything, Chelsea tells her mother she thinks she's in love. Chelsea tells her mother all about her new love interest. When she drops the name, Dani is not surprised as she knew there was a connection between her daughter and Bill's doctor. That being said, she does worry Chelsea is rushing into things so quickly. Joey's Gambling Pit: Vanessa wonders how Joey is doing, and they talk about their repeat sex on the poker table. Just then, Doug arrives on the scene. Joey pours Doug a drink. He asks what he walked in on, and Joey says Vanessa was putting the screws to him about laundering his money. Doug asks Joey to leave him alone with his wife. Vanessa tries to intercede, but Doug says THE MEN ARE TALKING! (Oh Lord). Joey pushes back but eventually relents and leaves Doug and Vanessa alone for a few minutes. Vanessa asks if Doug has lost his mind. Doug says he can't believe his wife is making back room deals with the likes of Joey. Vanessa counters Doug created this situation, and she is only trying to clean it up. She thinks her husband has some nerve asking questions of her after he has been lying for months. Vanessa thinks everything makes sense now and Doug admits he has a problem. Martin and Smitty's Home: Martin returns home, and Samantha hugs him. Smitty walks in and they briefly discuss dinner with Vernon. Samantha heads upstairs to work on her human sexuality paper which briefly freaks out Martin. Smitty asks Martin what's wrong, but he deflects. He asks about Smitty's interview with Marcel Malone. Smitty says he dug into Malone's past and found he was a bit shady back in the day. When he asks Martin about the situation, he flashes back to that dreaded night. Smitty asks about the connection between Martin's dreams and Marcel Malone. Martin says they are no longer dreams as he is hallucinating during the day. Smitty asks more questions and Martin tries to deflect. He demands to know what his husband is hiding that very minute. Martin says he can handle his own business, but Smitty is unmoved and wants him to get real help. Martin agrees but not until things clear up at work. Smitty says he has to make time or Smitty will drag him to therapy himself. Orphey Gene's: Andre arrives and tells Derek he heard about the proposal debacle from Ashley. Derek gets all kinds of snarky as his girlfriend seems to confide in Andre quite a bit. Previous Beyond The Gates Recap: Endings Joey walks back in and Doug says they need 20% commission, and they will be splitting it down the middle. Joey agrees and Doug asks for specifics about the deal. Ashley downs another shot of tequila and tells Naomi there is no one else tempting her. Jacob side eyes Andre when he says he's on Derek and Ashley's side. Dani pushes Chelsea and says she should bring Madison over so the whole family can meet her. Chelsea bites back and says she should also bring her new boyfriend. Keep checking back for the latest Beyond The Gates recaps! This story was originally reported by Daytime Confidential on Jun 18, 2025, where it first appeared.
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Why Free Community College Is Missing The Mark In Massachusetts
Massachusetts is now a couple years into its experiment in rolling back the clock on college policy—and not in a good way. At a time when higher education policy nationwide is shifting to focus on the value students receive from their education, Massachusetts and its relatively new free community college law—MassEducate—is instead focused squarely on access to college. On that dimension, the Commonwealth seems to be succeeding. According to figures, enrollment rose 14 percent this year—roughly 9,500 new students. That's on the heels of an 8.7 percent rise in students the year prior. These increases follow a decade-plus of enrollment declines. But it's less clear if the enrolling students will benefit from their educations. With surging numbers of students, fears are mounting that community colleges don't have the faculty and staff in place to support their diverse needs. That's only increasing the cry for more resources to an underperforming system in which roughly two-thirds of students don't graduate within six years—a number that has remained constant for years. Some are quick to point out that graduation rate may not be the best number to judge the success of a community college or even the wisdom of enrolling. Given that some students may gain the skills they require for better jobs and leave school early, the argument has its merits. But what the paltry graduation rate does is highlight the biggest problem with the MassEducate law: it's incentivizing the wrong thing. Instead of aiming only for enrollment regardless of outcome, a better policy wouldn't just subsidize student attendance. It would tie state resources to student outcomes. This doesn't mean linking funding to graduation rates. Other states have done this with meager results, as a litany of studies show that these sorts of output-based policies don't improve student performance in the labor market. Part of the reason is that improving grades or graduation rates can actually be easy problems to solve. An institution need only inflate grades or print diplomas. But becoming a diploma mill and graduating students regardless of what they've learned doesn't serve students or society. Funding should instead be tied to the labor market value students receive from enrolling—regardless of whether they earn a degree. Texas has adopted this approach for the Texas State Technical College and seen promising results, according to a white paper by The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP). Starting just over a decade ago, 100 percent of Texas State Technical College's state funding became determined by student earnings after leaving the school. In essence, the state provides the college a percentage of the additional direct and indirect state tax revenues that students generate as a result of their attendance. The outcomes for students have been clear. Former students' wages have increased by 45 percent over the eight years. Whereas wages for Texas State Technical College's exiting students ranked lower than the state average for two-year colleges prior to the policy, they now outpace first-year earnings for the state's schools. Before COVID, graduation rates were also consistently rising. The result isn't because the College has become more selective or is skimming its students. Fifty-six percent of its students now receive Pell Grants—federal aid for low-income students—which is the highest share in its history. The College is, however, sunsetting programs that aren't working for students and focusing its resources on those that have a positive return on investment for students. That means paying attention to the needs of regional employers. What's more, thanks to the incentives built in to state law, the college now puts much more effort into supporting its students' job searches. It's not just students who are benefiting. Thanks to the college's success, it's seen an increase in state funding—up 63 percent over eight years. Massachusetts could learn some lessons. Although research does suggest that Massachusetts community colleges boast a positive return on investment for students, not all programs at its community colleges do. For example, according to FREOPP's research, an associate degree in Fine and Studio Arts from Bristol Community College has a negative return on investment of $118,395. An associate degree from Greenfield Community College in Liberal Arts and Sciences, General Studies and Humanities nets out to a negative return of $48,056. Shifting who funds the enrollment at programs like these from students to taxpayers doesn't make much sense. As Massachusetts seeks to support learners entering community colleges under the MassEducate policy, it should make sure it isn't just helping students afford a community college, but that the programs have real value.
New York Times
10-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Let Us Praise Teachers, Not Devalue Them
To the Editor: Re 'Teachers Saved My Life. Why Do We Scorn Them?,' by John B. King Jr. (Opinion guest essay, June 1): As a retired secondary school teacher and school administrator who now serves as a community college trustee, I commend Mr. King for his personal reflection on how teachers became his lifeline as he navigated the awesome challenges of his young life. More than that, I applaud how he repaid those teachers a thousandfold by his lifetime as an educator who clearly sees how the Trump administration is trying to destroy public education with no concern for the irreparable damage its actions are taking on the lives of young people. While there is little hope that this administration will heed Mr. King's call for the federal government to protect and accelerate the transformative power of education, all of us whose lives have been positively changed by great teachers should make our voices heard in every possible forum to challenge the Trump agenda to dismantle public education. The future of our country depends on us. Peter SchmidtPhillipsburg, N.J. To the Editor: John B. King Jr. is not the first and certainly not the last person whose life has been saved by a teacher. That's what teachers do: expand our lives and our outlooks, and open new worlds. The dedicated nuns who taught me in our small Catholic school and the professors who opened new worlds of literature and mathematics may not have saved my life, but they certainly expanded it manyfold. And perhaps the best gift I received from them was a love of learning. The Trump administration knows well that an educated population is the death knell for the MAGA movement and must not be permitted to develop. Different viewpoints must not be tolerated, and controversial topics must not be taught, lest the people become aware and, God forbid, thoughtful. Education is no friend to dictators. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
08-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
The Quiet Unraveling of the Man Who Almost Killed Trump
In 2022, Thomas Crooks was a soft-spoken community college student who made speeches like this one for class. In 2022, Thomas Crooks was a soft-spoken community college student who made speeches like this one for class. Less than two years later, he mounted a roof and fired eight bullets toward Donald J. Trump. Less than two years later, he mounted a roof and fired eight bullets toward Donald J. Trump. Photograph: Kristian Thacker for The New York Times. Supported by Thomas Crooks was acting strangely. Sometimes he danced around his bedroom late into the night. Other times, he talked to himself with his hands waving around. These unusual behaviors intensified last summer, after he graduated with high honors from a community college. He also visited a shooting range, grew out his thin brown hair and searched online for 'major depressive disorder' and 'depression crisis.' His father noticed the shift — mental health problems ran in the family. On the afternoon of July 13, Mr. Crooks told his parents he was heading to the range and left home with a rifle. Hours later, he mounted a roof at a presidential campaign rally in western Pennsylvania and tried to assassinate Donald J. Trump. That scene has been etched into American history. After a bullet grazed Mr. Trump's ear, he lifted his blood-streaked face, pumped his fist and shouted the words: 'Fight! Fight! Fight!' Mr. Trump has said that God saved him in order to save America, and the White House recently unveiled a statue in the Oval Office commemorating the moment. The near miss revealed alarming security lapses that allowed an amateur marksman barely out of his teens to fire at a former president less than 500 feet away. And it galvanized support for Mr. Trump, inspiring voters who saw him as a righteous hero triumphing in the face of smear campaigns, relentless prosecutions and even an attempt on his life. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CBS News
23-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Trump shooter Thomas Crooks' emails reveal a student dreaming of a bright future. And contemplating a violent attack.
Thomas Matthew Crooks had a lot on his mind in January 2024. The 20-year-old who, six months later, would open fire at President Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally — striking his ear and killing an audience member — was busy polishing his applications to transfer from community college to a four-year engineering program. Crooks was gathering transcripts and asking friends to review his personal statement. He was also designing a bomb. He ordered more than two gallons of nitromethane from an online speciality fuel retailer using an encrypted email account, documents obtained by CBS News show. Twelve days later Crooks' purchase hadn't shipped and he wanted to know why. "Hello, my name is Thomas. I placed an order on your website on January 19. I have not received any updates of the order shipping out yet and I was wondering if you still have it and when I can expect it to come," Crooks emailed the retailer, Hyperfuels, at 7:44 a.m. on Jan. 31, 2024. Email obtained by CBS News Crooks used his community college email account to inquire about shipping, one of the few operational missteps that has allowed for a rare look into the dark side of this ambitious young student. Two weeks after the nitromethane email, on Feb. 13, 2024, Crooks' focus returned to his academic future, planning a video call he labeled, "Proofread my Pitt personal essay with friends prior to class." A student who went "above and beyond" Very little is known about how or why Thomas Crooks set out to shoot then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. Now, emails, essays and other documents reviewed by CBS News are offering a fresh glimpse into the mind of a young man who was simultaneously planning two irreconcilable futures. In one, Crooks continues his engineering studies, for which he was lauded by professors for his work ethic, progress and class contributions. In the other, he hurtles toward an act that he must have known would end in either prison or — as it did on July 13, 2024 — his death. He was a meticulous and motivated student, attending community college after scoring 1530 on the SATs, records show. He told an adviser he was starting at the school to save money before transferring. Thomas Matthew Crooks at his high school graduation Bethel Park School District via AP In the hundreds of college emails obtained by CBS News, Crooks rarely veers into personal territory, with a few exceptions. When an upcoming assignment required the presence of five adults, he asked the professor if it would be OK if he only brought two or three. Crooks said that other than his sister and parents, he did "not have access to any other adults." Crooks wrote a passage on why his favorite season is fall in an essay submitted on Jan. 30, the day before he contacted Hyperfuels. The essay, penned in various colors, mused on his love for football and his two favorite holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving. He waxed poetic about the fall weather and asked, "who doesn't love the changing color of the leaves?" Crooks took his classwork seriously, routinely contacting professors to protest if he wasn't satisfied with his grades. After taking a math exam in which he errantly mislabeled a variable, Crooks asked if he could get the point back. The teacher agreed to give him 75% credit for the question. "Sounds good," Crooks replied. "That should be enough to get me an A." Crooks did A-level work in most of his courses, according to his transcript. Emails show professors were often impressed by his dedication. "Thanks again for your contribution to the class this term — wouldn't've been the same without you!" wrote an English professor in December 2022. One project in particular wowed professors in the engineering department. Crooks, whose mother is visually impaired, designed and 3D-printed a unique chessboard. The prototype included Braille labeling along the rows and columns, and alternating "raised squares with peg-holes to prevent the pieces from being knocked over," as Crooks described it. Former engineering professor Todd Landree recalls the small department's staff marveling at the project. "It was above and beyond what anybody expected," Landree said. Patricia Thompson, who taught the class, said she still thinks about Crooks' project. She also described it as "above and beyond" expectations. "It's sad that he had so much promise and he chose to do this. It's just very difficult to understand where it came from," Thompson said. A skeptic of government's "lofty promises" Crooks was focused on engineering and computing while at the community college, but a handful of written assignments show hints of a deep skepticism of the federal government and corporations. A prompt asking students to consider whether engineers involved in NASA's 1986 Challenger disaster acted ethically yielded a skeptical reply. Crooks blamed NASA's administrators, who in pushing for the ill-fated launch "were trying to live up to the lofty promises they made to Congress which they were never going to be able to fulfill," he wrote. For a 2022 English assignment, Crooks wrote about George Orwell's essay, "Shooting an Elephant." Crooks called the essay "a powerful allegory warning against adopting imperialistic policies." "The writing maintains its significance as the themes in it apply to every form of tyrannical government many of which still exist today, and continue to send young men, much like Orwell, to carry out the 'dirty work of Empire,' Crooks wrote. Crooks wrote about Mr. Trump at least once. The essay was called "Why Nuclear Energy is the Key to a Cleaner Future," and Crooks briefly touched on the proliferation of nuclear weapons, criticizing a decision Mr. Trump made during his first term. "To prevent hostile nations from acquiring nuclear technology, America and its allies can stop sales of the technology to those nations and can enter into mutually beneficial agreements like the Iran deal, which effectively halted that nations (sic) nuclear program until President Trump withdrew from it," Crooks wrote. His writing also, at least once, focused in part on then-President Biden. Crooks reviewed a 2021 opinion column that ran in The Washington Post, concluding that it persuasively argued against Mr. Biden's support for tuition-free community college. "Liberals also tend to be in favor of free community college and, in fact, free college in general," Crooks wrote. "So it is very interesting to see an author try to convince the other side using their pre-exisiting (sic) political concerns rather than trying to impress their own on to them" While Crooks showed an advanced ability to reason and persuade, he often struggled with spelling and grammar errors. Several essays and work assignments were returned to him asking him to make corrections to his work. A grand jury with a dead suspect The nitromethane purchase invoice lists a separate email account from a Belgium-based service that offers end-to-end encryption. FBI Pittsburgh Special Agent in Charge Kevin Rojek told reporters in August that Crooks had researched "nitromethane, and other materials consistent with the manufacturing of explosive devices." Rojek indicated agents accessed multiple overseas-based encrypted email accounts used by Crooks, who did not use explosives during his attack. A Hyperfuels employee, asked about Crooks' purchase last year, said the company was "aware of the whole situation." The company's president did not respond to phone or text messages. Crooks' transcript and certain other academic records were first made public by America First Legal, a nonprofit founded by Stephen Miller, a longtime aide to Mr. Trump who is now White House deputy chief of staff. Pennsylvania lawyer Wally Zimolong pursued the records on America First Legal's behalf, winning an open records fight that paved the way for their release last year. Among his discoveries was the little-known federal grand jury that subpoenaed the community college and received Crooks' emails and essays. Zimolong provided CBS News with records related to the grand jury's subpoena and Crooks' transcripts. A letter from a Justice Department official to the college on July 24, 2024, confirmed the subpoena related to "an active FBI criminal investigation." Federal grand juries are typically empaneled to determine probable cause to indict a person for a crime, but Crooks — the only known suspect — had been dead for 11 days at that point. "I think it raises a lot of important questions. Were they investigating anyone else? Are they still investigating?" Zimolong asked. He said it adds to the mystery surrounding the young man who seemed determined to continue with college until the day he climbed onto the roof of a building in Butler, Pennsylvania, and began firing. "A year later we still don't know enough," Zimolong said.
