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Meeting at the White House the State Tax Initiative and the UC Regents

On March 27th, I made a presentation at the White House on how to control tuitin increases at American research universities. My first major point was that any attempt to contain tuition at public universities has to deal with state budget cuts for higher ed. I was told that the administration is aware of this issue, and they have been meeting with the presidents of several public universities to come up with a way to motivate states to stabilize higher ed funding.

My second major point was that while President Obama has been stressing affordability and access, he also has to focus on the quality of instruction. To make this point, I discussed how universities have been increasing the sizes of their classes and their dependence on under-supported non-tenure-track faculty to drive down the costs of instruction; meanwhile, the cost of administration, athletics, and construction has continued to increase. As I argue in my forthcoming book, the only way to control costs in higher education is to focus on providing quality instruction and research, but there are no incentives to make universities concentrate on their core missions.

One possible way of changing how universities spend their funds is to rank and rate universities based, in part, on the percentage of their budget that they spend on direct instructional costs (faculty salaries and benefits). I suggested to the administration that they add to their new College Scorecard statistics on how much of a university’s budget is spent on direct instructional costs and what percentage of their student credit hours are taught by full-time faculty. If universities had to report on these factors, they would need to commit more attention and funding to their core mission.

We also discussed President Obama’s fight to stop student loan interest rates from doubling this summer. I mentioned that in California, we are trying to freeze tuition by increasing the taxes on the wealthy, but we still need the federal government to combine the current emphasis on access and affordability with a focus on educational quality. Moreover, in the case of the UC system, it is clear that we have to force the governor and the legislature to dedicate new tax revenue to higher education. In fact, at the recent Regents meeting, several of the regents said that they do not think they can support the governor’s tax initiative if it does not dedicate funds directly to the UC in order to prevent another tuition increase. I have been meeting with people from the governor’s office and key legislators to push for a major increase in UC funding, but so far, no one has committed to guaranteeing UC funding and tying the higher education budget to the new tax initiative. We all need to work together now to push the governor and the legislature to provide enough funding to roll back recent tuition increases.

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Model House Escape Walkthrough

Model House Escape Walkthrough
Model House Escape Solution



Here is the full walkthrough solution with step-by-step instructions on how to solve the model house escape point-and-click room escape game.  Tips and hints with detailed explanations provided.
Model House Escape is the 482nd escape game from 123bee.com. When I decided to buy a new house, I took the guidance of the retailer. He took me to a model house which is away from the city. When I enter the house, a big slam at the back of me, the door gets locked automatically. Help me to escape from this model house before something happens miserably…

Model House Escape Walkthrough Starts Here:

You start in the twin-bed bedroom

Open the bottom drawer to take the driller
Take the knife from the bed on the right
Open the locker with the puzzle.  The puzzle is easy to solve.  You need to build a continuous line from the green to the red light.

Take the golden piece from inside.

Go right to the brown-yellow bedroom

Zoom in on the teddy on the floor.
Unzip the heart and take the battery
Open the violin case on the bed, then take the pliers
Open the brown compartment above the bed, then take the box and paper.

Go right to the brown-peach bedroom

Open the cupboard above the bed and take the stone
Open the top drawer on the left.   The puzzle is simple.  Notice the square in the center.  Turn each circle so that the square (in pink quadrant) points to the center.

Take the yellow piece.


Go right to the kitchen

Open the cupboard on the right at the bottom and take the red wire
Open the drawer just left of the stove, then take the handle and metal drill bit.
Zoom in on the drill and add the drill bit.  Take the drill
Open the top left-ish cupboard and take another stone.
Open the top right-ish cupboard and take the tongs hammer.
Open the drawer on the left and take the magnesium stick.

Zoom in on the stove
Add the magnesium stick on the left plate
Use the knife on the magnesium to make a spark
Add the paper to see the code 258:

Go left to the peach-brown bedroom.
Zoom in on the drawer to the right of the bed.
Insert the 2 stones
The drawer will open

Take the orange piece

Go left, left to the 2-bed bedroom.

Zoom in on the hanging-frame
Use the tongs hammer to take the nail out
Take the nail

Zoom in on the briefcase on the bed
Open the briefcase with the code 258
Take the black piece from inside.

Zoom in on the red wire then use the pliers to cut a piece off. Take the piece.

Zoom in on the battery
Add the nail
Add the red wire
Now you will have an electron magnet:

Take the magnet.

Zoom in on the box in your inventory.
Use the drill on it
Use the magnet on it.

Take the piece from the magnet

Zoom in on the red handle
Add the small metal piece
Now you have a screwdriver.  Take the screwdriver.

Zoom in on the black piece.  Add the other pieces.

Take the key.


Go to the brown-yellow bedroom
Zoom in on the picture with the 2 eyes.
Use the screwdriver to remove the screws in the corner
Use the key on the star-hole

Take the boss paper
Read the paper to see the word BOSS.

Zoom in on the top part of the white door.
You will see the letters BOSS and 8055 as the mirror image

Open the door with the code 8055.
(Hint: if it does not open you either did not look at the paper with the word BOSS or you did not look at the top-part of the door with the mirror image)



Well done on a great escape
Hope you enjoyed my walkthrough

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Max 2 White House Hero 2017

Max 2: White House Hero (2017)

Available link for download