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Graduate students tackle real-world policy problems with Applied Policy Seminar

Monday, May 7, 2012

Could your organization use the analytic, problem-solving, and communication skills of top-notch MPP students? Join the distinguished list of clients to take part in the Applied Policy Seminar (APS).

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"NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" broadcast includes NPC research

Friday, May 4, 2012

A new study by the Ford School-based National Poverty Center on the financial assistance college-age adults receive from their baby-boomer parents swept across the national airwaves Thursday, receiving mention on "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" and Fox News Radio.

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NPC: Three in five young adults receive financial support from parents

Thursday, May 3, 2012

A new study by the Ford School-based National Poverty Center headlined a USA Today article on the financial assistance college-age adults receive from their baby-boomer parents.

The study, lead authored by postdoctoral fellow Patrick Wightman, found that 62 percent of young adults receive financial help from their parents. Eighty-two percent of high income-earning parents provided some assistance, while 47 percent of lower-income parents did as well. Both groups transferred about the same share of their overall income to their children, about 10 percent.

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How much money parents give to college-age kids: U-M study

Thursday, May 3, 2012

More than 60 percent of young adults between the ages of 19 and 22 received some financial help from mom and dad, according to a new University of Michigan study. The average amount they received—including help with college tuition, rent, and transportation—was roughly $7,500 a year.

The study is the first to use nationally representative data to calculate parental assistance to young adults and to analyze how help varies by family and individual characteristics. It is based on data from 2,098 interviews conducted between 2005 and 2009, with young men and women and their families, part of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Transition to Adulthood Study at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR).

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MJPA's ninth volume features five Ford School authors

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

The Michigan Journal of Public Affairs has published its Spring 2012 volume, featuring six articles that address state, national and international policy topics. This marks the ninth edition since the student-run journal was founded by Ford School graduate students in 2003.

"The Michigan Journal of Public Affairs is dedicated to publishing innovative public policy related articles from a wide range of policy professionals and graduate students," said Brendan Egan (MPP '12), one of two editors in chief in 2012 along with Eamonn Scanlon (MPP '12). "This year's articles range from archival research to stakeholder analysis to econometric modeling."

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Dynarski: Complexity of paying for college discourages potential students

Thursday, April 26, 2012

The Wall Street Journal quoted Susan M. Dynarski in a recent article about the barriers to education attainment in the U.S. and how that will impact the U.S. economy in the long term. According to the article, the current generation of Americans will accrue less formal education than their parents, breaking a longstanding trend.

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Spring edition of the Ford School's magazine, State & Hill, explores American electoral politics, tsunami recovery in Japan, Marina Whitman's forthcoming memoir, and more

Thursday, April 26, 2012

In this issue of the Ford School's magazine, State & Hill, readers will learn about American electoral politics through the eyes of the Ford School: faculty studying campaign financing and gerrymandering, students interning in Washington, DC, and alums running for office or working on campaigns. Click through the magazine below to read an interview with Marina Whitman about her forthcoming memoir (with a passage from her book), a story about an MPP's work with the tsunami recovery effort in Japan, an examination of the impact of divorce on health insurance for women, and Barry Rabe's reflection on Gerald Ford as "The Global President."

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Battle of the Super PACs: Campaign financing impacts American electoral politics

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Much of America is mesmerized by the recent and remarkable torrent of money flowing into the 2012 elections by organizations with buoyant names like Restore Our Future and Make Us Great Again. These contributions have dramatically overshadowed expenditures by the candidates and political parties that have traditionally run campaigns. It wasn't always so, explains Ford School Professor Richard L. Hall, who has written extensively on the influence of money in politics and policy.

Prior to the rise of Super PACs, Political Action Committees (PACs) "could contribute such small sums of money to candidates that it was hard to imagine these contributions had much of an impact at all," says Hall. "The better hypothesis was not that PAC contributions were buying something from members, but that they were signaling something to them."

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Down to earth: Marina Whitman talks life and work in "The Martian's Daughter."

Thursday, April 26, 2012

In The Martian's Daughter: A Memoir, economist Marina Whitman talks candidly about her life, her work, and stepping outside of her famous father's shadow

In the fall of 1970, Marina von Neumann Whitman, unnerved by a tight deadline, burst into the office of Paul McCracken, then chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). McCracken had invited the rising young economist to join his staff for a year—in a position that would set the stage for a series of increasingly prominent government appointments. Faced with a routine finance report and a conflicting personal obligation (her brother's wedding), Whitman sought reassurance from her mentor that she was up to the job—an unfounded insecurity that belied her professional achievement.

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Gerrymandering, then and now

Thursday, April 26, 2012

It was the summer of 1971 when the first mandated round of redistricting was taking place across the nation. A series of Supreme Court decisions in the '60s had directed states to create new legislative districts every ten years to reflect population shifts revealed in decennial census counts. The goal was honorable enough: one person, one vote; but so little instruction was offered on how to accomplish the task that it practically invited abuse.

A group of faculty and graduate students led by Ford School instructor and U-M research professor Steve Pollock spent the summer experimenting. The challenge they addressed: could linear programming help craft districts with population equity and contiguity, as well as objective qualities like compactness or competitiveness?

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Sharing Ford School lessons across the aisle

Thursday, April 26, 2012

When Anne Kaiser (MPP/MA '95) presents a bill on the floor of the Maryland House of Delegates, skeptical colleagues rarely catch her off-guard. She prides herself on knowing every question before she gets it—a practice she developed in Richard L. Hall's politics of policymaking class.

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Internships shape recent BA student's career in campaigns

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Up by 6 a.m. scanning newspapers and listening to TV news anchors, Brian Wanglin's mornings haven't changed much from his days as an intern. And he couldn't be happier.

"I knew that after college I wanted to work on campaigns," said Wanglin (BA '11), now working for a Washington, DC consulting firm that specializes in campaigns. His responsibilities include media monitoring and rapid response, i.e., addressing critical media stories and opponents' attacks.

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A different perspective

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Katharine D'Hondt (BA '12) wants to help you find a job. Not you, specifically, unless you've just graduated and have an interest in federal service. An intern in the U-M's Michigan in Washington Program (MIW) in fall 2011, D'Hondt's research paper examined the role economic forces may play in whether recent college graduates decide to enter the workforce or pursue graduate education.

"I was with the Partnership for Public Service (PPS), which is an NGO dealing with federal government hiring reform," D'Hondt explains. "I just love that I was able to help people my age understand what the federal government is doing and understand that there's a role for them there."

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Starting over

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Japan has known earthquakes—the Great Kanto quake of 1923, the Great Hanshin quake of 1995, the Fukui quake of 1948, and hundreds of others—but Japan had never known an earthquake like the 9.0 Tohoku quake that struck just off the northeast coast last March. It was the fifth largest earthquake in recorded history, and the largest ever to hit the Land of the Rising Sun. The damage it left behind—mostly triggered by the massive tsunami that followed—was catastrophic.

The tremors shook southeastern Russia and the Northern Mariana Islands. Houses and buildings crumbled in Jayapura, Indonesia; Kailua Kona, Hawaii; and Pisco, Peru. A hemisphere away, vast portions of the Sulzberger Ice Shelf—two times the size of Manhattan—sheared into the sea. At the headquarters of the nonprofit Association for Aid and Relief (AAR) in Tokyo—230 miles from the epicenter—computers toppled and pictures crashed to the floor. But for Ford School master's of public policy student Yohei Chiba (MPP '12), the Tohoku earthquake hit home.

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Staging a comeback

Thursday, April 26, 2012

"I believe Detroit is too big to fail. We must bail out Main Street, and so we need an all-hands-on-deck approach to help us turn the city around," said an impassioned community activist at a Detroit Financial Review Board meeting in March. The governor-appointed review board had just declared a financial state of emergency, while city and state officials played tug-o-war over a consent agreement that might—or might not—keep Detroit from bankruptcy.

Few would disagree that, even in economic distress, the city is worth saving. The question is how. If Detroit is to change its fate from casualty to comeback, what are some of the long-term policy solutions that might bolster revitalization?

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Barry Rabe on Gerald Ford: The global president

Thursday, April 26, 2012

The University of Michigan invited Professor Barry Rabe to address the 89th Honors Convocation of the University, an event that celebrates and recognizes outstanding academic achievement by undergraduates. The theme of this year's Convocation: "Making a Difference in the World: Do We Need to Travel to Understand Global Affairs?" Rabe was named a Thurnau Professor in 2011 in recognition of his teaching excellence and commitment to enhancing undergraduate academic opportunities. Here is the speech he delivered to a crowd of 3,300 at Hill Auditorium on March 18, 2012.

Some 12 years ago, this marvelous auditorium was similarly packed. There was another celebration—and a bit of tension. Standing where I am today was Dr. Henry Kissinger. Then, as now, a controversial figure. One of the most influential 20th century Secretaries of State. As he began, so did heckling. A rather unflattering banner was unfurled from the balcony. (I can only hope that history does not repeat itself today.)

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An unhealthy split

Thursday, April 26, 2012

The stress of a divorce can be tough on anyone, but a recent study by Ford School doctoral student Bridget Lavelle suggests the split presents a specific health challenge to women: staying insured.

Lavelle reviewed 11 years of U.S. Census Bureau data and discovered that women face a substantial risk of becoming uninsured following a divorce. Middle-class women previously covered through their ex-spouse's employer are most at risk.

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Chamberlin: "It's everybody's job to keep city hall paying attention"

Monday, April 23, 2012

The city manager of Alexandria, Va., has instituted a new ethics initiative following a series of criminal charges against city workers in 2011, The Alexandria Times reported Monday. The eight incidents, which included charges of forgery, embezzlement, and drunk driving, led city manager Rashad Young to create an ethics committee of city employees, a whistleblower hotline, and mandatory training and retraining, among other reforms.

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Danziger supports study's formula for gauging "the 1 percent"

Monday, April 23, 2012

Sheldon Danziger, director of the National Poverty Center and professor of public policy, was cited in a New York Times op-ed addressing the use of research in framing the public debate over income inequality in America.

A new study by economists Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley and Thomas Piketty of the School of Economics in Paris looked at individuals' "market income"—total pre-tax income, not including any transfer payments from government, like unemployment or Social Security—to track the concentration of the nation's wealth.

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AAAS selects five faculty members as fellows, including Elisabeth Gerber

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Five U-M faculty members have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a prestigious society that recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions in scholarly and professional fields.

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