Ray Dalio gives 3 financial recommendations for millennials

Ray Dalio gives 3 financial recommendations for millennials

By Jacob Wolinsky.
Founder, Chairman and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Bridgewater Associates Ray Dalio talks to Julia La Roche in 2018 of Yahoo Finance about the value of savings and investing.

These are Ray Dalio Gives 3 Financial Recommendations For Millennials.
Well I want to talk about my generation the millennials. We were really coming of age during the crisis. So how would you advise us to prepare. And what I mean is what would you tell our generation. We feel scarred from the crisis. First of all I think. One of the problems is that the experience that you had is the last experience is the one that's going to stick in your mind.

And probably will not be the one that's going to get you so that the next experience will be very very different. I know my my parents went through the Great Depression and then they missed out on the boom because they're always thinking about that. And so I think I think that what they need to do is see all of those crisis's. That's why you can see inflationary ones and see all of those and once you get that perspective I would say three things to your generation. OK. Three recommendations. The first recommendation. Is to is to think about your savings and how much money do you have for savings and the best way to think about that is to think how much money do I spend each month. And how much money do I have saved so that I can. How many months are my going to be OK without that and to savings. Right. And calculate it because savings in that is freedom and security. And think about what that is. So that's that's the first one. How much do I have for that.

The second thing is how do I save. Well what should I put my savings in. And when thinking about what you should put your savings in. Realize that the least risky investment that you think from volatility is the least risk investment. It which is cash is the worst investment over a period of time. And you could judge that by judging the rate of inflation in relationship to the after tax income you're going to earn. So if you have an inflation rate that's two or three percent and you're earning 1 percent and you have to pay taxes on that one percent or the 1 or 2 percent that you're going to get. You're going to get taxed essentially at two percent a year. And that's going to be a problem. So you have to move into assets that are other assets that are going to do better over a period of time. And when you do that the most important thing I can convey to you is to diversify well because I can guarantee you that one of those assets and you won't be able to pick the right one will be disastrous in your lifetime that you will lose half of that savings if you're in the wrong one and you won't know what the right one is. And so pick different countries pick different asset classes and I could probably take too long explaining how you might do that. But but. So that would be the second thing to learn from. First thing is think about how to save be cautious about debt when you're thinking about debt. Think about is that debt going to help my savings or is it going to produce an income.

Sometimes debt like buying a house or buying an apartment or buying an asset, it produces forced savings. Forced savings is a good thing. Or if you're taking on debt and you're thinking am I going to have that debt in an asset that asset debt or produce more income than the asset than the cost of your debt. If you're using debt for consumption that's not a good thing to do. OK you're giving up that that safety. So I want. So number one is think about how much you save and think about whether that should be how you borrow. Number two make sure that you think about the diversification of that not in cash. And number three. Do the opposite of what your instincts are. If you're going to play the game. It has to be the opposite of what your instincts in the crowd says because the market reflects the crowd. So you want to buy when no one wants to buy and you want to sell when no one wants to sell. Right. So and that's emotionally difficult and probably not going to play that game well because it takes a lot of resources to play with it. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year to try to play that game. Well and it's a tough game to play well. So I would caution you about the market timing game but I would say that if you're going to do it do it in the ways that are uncomfortable because they're opposite your instincts.

That's really good advice right. One more thing that really resonates with me in the book was if in the next downturn the implications could be the impact on pension obligations health care. Is my generation are going to be on the hook for that. Yeah. So we pay a lot of attention to debt. And we should. But pension obligations and healthcare obligations are just like debt.

August 11, 2020

Warren Buffett shares advice on becoming successful.

Warren Buffett shares advice on becoming successful.

Billionaire Warren Buffett just turned 89—here are 6 pieces of wisdom from the investing legend.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO and self-made billionaire Warren Buffett turned 89 on Friday, August 30. He’s also celebrating his 13th wedding anniversary with his wife, Astrid.

In honor of the Oracle of Omaha’s big day, CNBC Make It rounded up seven of his best pieces of life advice.

Marry the right person.
Buffett made his fortune through smart investing, but if you ask him about the most important decision he ever made, it would have nothing to do with money. The biggest decision of your life, Buffett says, is who you choose to marry.
“You want to associate with people who are the kind of person you’d like to be. You’ll move in that direction,” he said during a 2017 conversation with Bill Gates. “And the most important person by far in that respect is your spouse. I can’t overemphasize how important that is.”
It’s advice he’s been giving for years. As he said at the 2009 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting: “Marry the right person. I’m serious about that. It will make more difference in your life. It will change your aspirations, all kinds of things.”

Invest in yourself.
“By far the best investment you can make is in yourself,” Buffett told Yahoo Finance editor-in-chief Andy Serwer earlier this year.
First, “learn to communicate better both in writing and in person.” Honing that skill can increase your value by at least 50%, he said in a Facebook video posted in 2018.
Next, take care of your body and mind — especially when you’re young. “If I gave you a car, and it’d be the only car you get the rest of your life, you would take care of it like you can’t believe. Any scratch, you’d fix that moment, you’d read the owner’s manual, you’d keep a garage and do all these things,” he said. “You get exactly one mind and one body in this world, and you can’t start taking care of it when you’re 50. By that time, you’ll rust it out if you haven’t done anything.”
By far the best investment you can make is in yourself.

Associate yourself with ‘high-grade people’
Who you associate with matters, Buffett told author Gillian Zoe Segal in an interview for her 2015 book, “Getting There: A Book of Mentors.” “One of the best things you can do in life is to surround yourself with people who are better than you are,” he said.
If you’re around what he calls “high-grade people,” you’ll start acting more like them. Conversely, “If you hang around with people who behave worse than you, pretty soon you’ll start being pulled in that direction. That’s just the way it seems to work.”

Work for people you respect.
“Try to work for whomever you admire most,” Buffett told Segal. “It won’t necessarily be the job that you’ll have 10 years later, but you’ll have the opportunity to pick up so much as you go along.”
While salary is an important factor when thinking about your career, “You don’t want to take a job just for the money,” said Buffett.
He once accepted a job with his mentor and hero, Benjamin Graham, without even asking about the salary. “I found that out at the end of the month when I got my paycheck,” he said.

Ignore the noise.
Investing can get emotional, and it doesn’t help that you can see how you’re doing throughout the day by checking a stock ticker or turning on the news.
But no one can be certain which way the financial markets are going to move. The best strategy, even when the market seems to be tanking, is to keep a level head and stay the course, Buffett says.
“I don’t pay any attention to what economists say, frankly,” he said in 2016. “If you look at the whole history of [economists], they don’t make a lot of money buying and selling stocks, but people who buy and sell stocks listen to them. I have a little trouble with that.”

Success isn’t measured by money.
Buffett is consistently one of the richest people in the world, but he doesn’t use wealth as a measure of success. For him, it all boils down to if the people you’re closest to love you.
“Being given unconditional love is the greatest benefit you can ever get,” Buffett told MBA students in a 2008 talk.
“The incredible thing about love is that you can’t get rid of it. If you try to give it away, you end up with twice as much, but if you try to hold onto it, it disappears. It is an extraordinary situation, where the people who just absolutely push it out, get it back tenfold.”

August 04, 2020

How did Warren Buffett get started in business?

How did Warren Buffett get started in business?

By BRENT RADCLIFFE.
Warren Buffett may have been born with business in his blood. He purchased his first stock when he was 11 years old and worked in his family’s grocery store in Omaha.
His father, Howard Buffett, owned a small brokerage, and Warren would spend his days watching what investors were doing and listening to what they said. As a teenager, he took odd jobs, from washing cars to delivering newspapers, using his savings to purchase several pinball machines that he placed in local businesses.

His entrepreneurial successes as a youth did not immediately translate into a desire to attend college. His father pressed him to continue his education, with Buffett reluctantly agreeing to attend the University of Pennsylvania. He then transferred to the University of Nebraska, where he graduated with a degree in business in three years.

After being rejected by the Harvard Business School, he enrolled in graduate studies at Columbia Business School. While there, he studied under Benjamin Graham – who became a lifelong friend – and David Dodd, both well-known securities analysts. It was through Graham's class in securities analysis that Buffett learned the fundamentals of value investing. He once stated in an interview that Graham's book, The Intelligent Investor, had changed his life and set him on the path of professional analysis to the investment markets. Along with Security Analysis, co-written by Graham and Dodd it provided him the proper intellectual framework and a road map for investing.

Benjamin Graham and The Intelligent Investor.
Graham is often called the "Dean of Wall Street" and the father of value investing, as one of the most important early proponents of financial security analysis. He championed the idea that the investor should look at the market as though it were an actual entity and potential business partner – Graham called this entity "Mr. Market" – that sometimes asks for too much or too little money to be bought out.

It would be difficult to summarize all of Graham's theories in full. At its core, value investing is about identifying stocks that have been undervalued by the majority of stock market participants. He believed that stock prices were frequently wrong due to irrational and excessive price fluctuations (both upside and downside). Intelligent investors, said Graham, need to be firm in their principles and not follow the crowd.
Graham wrote The Intelligent Investor in 1949 as a guide for the common investor. The book championed the idea of buying low-risk securities in a highly diversified, mathematical way. Graham favored fundamental analysis, capitalizing on the difference between a stock's purchase price and its intrinsic value.

Entering the Investment Field.
Before working for Benjamin Graham, Warren had been an investment salesman – a job that he liked doing, except when the stocks he suggested dropped in value and lost money for his clients. To minimize the potential of having irate clients, Warren started a partnership with his close friends and family. The partnership had unique restrictions attached to it. Warren himself would invest only $100 and, through re-invested management fees, would grow his stake in the partnership. Warren would take half of the partnership’s gains over 4% and would repay the partnership a quarter of any loss incurred. Furthermore, money could only be added or withdrawn from the partnership on December 31st, and partners would have no input about the investments in the partnership.

By 1959, Warren had opened a total of seven partnerships and had a 9.5% stake in more than a million dollars of partnership assets. Three years later by the time he was 30, Warren was a millionaire and merged all of his partnerships into a single entity.
It was at this point that Buffett’s sights turned to directly investing in businesses. He made a $1 million investment in a windmill manufacturing company, and the next year in a bottling company. Buffett used the value-investing techniques he learned in school, as well as his knack for understanding the general business environment, to find bargains on the stock market.

Buying Berkshire Hathaway.
In 1962, Warren saw an opportunity to invest in a New England textile company called Berkshire Hathaway and bought some of its stock. Warren began to aggressively buy shares after a dispute with its management convinced him that the company needed a change in leadership..  Ironically, the purchase of Berkshire Hathaway is one of Warren’s major regrets.
Understanding the beauty of owning insurance companies – clients pay premiums today to possibly receive payments decades later – Warren used Berkshire Hathaway as a holding company to buy National Indemnity Company (the first of many insurance companies he would buy) and used its substantial cash flow to finance further acquisitions.

As a value investor, Warren is a sort of jack-of-all-trades when it comes to industry knowledge. Berkshire Hathaway is a great example. Buffett saw a company that was cheap and bought it, regardless of the fact that he wasn’t an expert in textile manufacturing. Gradually, Buffett shifted Berkshire’s focus away from its traditional endeavors, instead using it as a holding company to invest in other businesses. Over the decades, Warren has bought, held and sold companies in a variety of different industries.

Some of Berkshire Hathaway’s most well-known subsidiaries include, but are not limited to, GEICO (yes, that little Gecko belongs to Warren Buffett), Dairy Queen, NetJets, Benjamin Moore & Co., and Fruit of the Loom.  Again, these are only a handful of companies of which Berkshire Hathaway has a majority share.
The company also has interests in many other companies, including American Express Co. (AXP), Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST), DirectTV (DTV), General Electric Co. (GE), General Motors Co. (GM), Coca-Cola Co. (KO), International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), Proctor & Gamble Co. (PG) and Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC).

Berkshire Woes and Rewards.
Business for Buffett hasn’t always been rosy, though. In 1975, Buffett and his business partner, Charlie Munger, were investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for fraud. The two maintained that they had done nothing wrong and that the purchase of Wesco Financial Corporation only looked suspicious because of their complex system of businesses.
Further trouble came with a large investment in Salomon Inc. In 1991, news broke of a trader breaking Treasury bidding rules on multiple occasions, and only through intense negotiations with the Treasury did Buffett manage to stave off a ban on buying Treasury notes and subsequent bankruptcy for the firm.
In more recent years, Buffett has acted as a financier and facilitator of major transactions. During the Great Recession, Warren invested and lent money to companies that were facing financial disaster. Roughly 10 years later, the effects of these transactions are surfacing and they’re enormous.

A loan to Mars Inc. resulted in a $680 million profit.
Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), of which Berkshire Hathaway bought almost 120 million shares during the Great Recession, is up more than 7 times from its 2009.
American Express Co. (AXP) is up about five times since Warren’s investment in 200813
Bank of America Corp. (BAC) pays $300 million a year and Berkshire Hathaway has the option to buy additional shares at around $7 each – less than half of what it trades at today.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) paid out $500 million in dividends a year and a $500 million redemption bonus when they repurchased the shares.

Most recently, Warren has partnered up with 3G Capital to merge J.H. Heinz Company and Kraft Foods to create the Kraft Heinz Food Company (KHC). The new company is the third largest food and beverage company in North America and fifth largest in the world, and boasts annual revenues of $28 billion. In 2017, he bought up a significant stake in Pilot Travel Centers, the owners of the Pilot Flying J chain of truck stops. He will become a majority owner over a six-year period.
Modesty and quiet living meant that it took Forbes some time to notice Warren and add him to the list of richest Americans, but when they finally did in 1985, he was already a billionaire. Early investors in Berkshire Hathaway could have bought in as low as $275 a share and by 2014 the stock price had reached $200,000, and was trading just under $300,000 earlier this year.

Comparing Buffett to Graham.
Buffett has referred to himself as "85% Graham." Like his mentor, he has focused on company fundamentals and a "stay the course" approach – an approach that enabled both men to build huge personal nest eggs. Seeking a seeks a strong return on investment (ROI), Buffett typically looks for stocks that are valued accurately and offer robust returns for investors.
However, Buffett invests using a more qualitative and concentrated approach than Graham did. Graham preferred to find undervalued, average companies and diversify his holdings among them; Buffett favors quality businesses that already have reasonable valuations (though their stock should still be worth something more) and the ability for large growth.

Other differences lie in how to set intrinsic value, when to take a chance and how deeply to dive into a company that has potential. Graham relied on quantitative methods to a far greater extent than Buffett, who spends his time actually visiting companies, talking with management and understanding the corporate's particular business model. As a result, Graham was more able to and more comfortable investing in lots of smaller companies than Buffett. Consider a baseball analogy: Graham was concerned about swinging at good pitches and getting on base; Buffett prefers to wait for pitches that allow him to score a home run. Many have credited Buffett with having a natural gift for timing that cannot be replicated, whereas Graham's method is friendlier to the average investor.

Buffett Fun Facts.
Buffett only began making large-scale charitable donations at age 75.
Buffett has made some interesting observations about income taxes. Specifically, he's questioned why his effective capital gains tax rate of around 20% is a lower income tax rate than that of his secretary – or for that matter, than that paid by most middle-class hourly or salaried workers. As one of the two or three richest men in the world, having long ago established a mass of wealth that virtually no amount of future taxation can seriously dent, Mr. Buffett offers his opinion from a state of relative financial security that is pretty much without parallel. Even if, for example, every future dollar Warren Buffett earns is taxed at the rate of 99%, it is doubtful that it would affect his standard of living.

Buffett has described The Intelligent Investor as the best book on investing that he has ever read, with Security Analysis a close second. Other favorite reading matter includes:
Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits by Philip A. Fisher, which advises potential investors to not only examine a company's financial statements but to evaluate its management. Fisher focuses on investing in innovative companies, and Buffett has long held him in high regard.
The Outsiders by William N. Thorndike profiles eight CEOs and their blueprints for success. Among the profiled is Thomas Murphy, friend to Warren Buffett and director for Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett has praised Murphy, calling him "overall the best business manager I've ever met."
Stress Test by former Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy F. Geithner, chronicles the financial crisis of 2008-9 from a gritty, first-person perspective. Buffett has called it a must-read for managers, a textbook for how to stay level under unimaginable pressure.
Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street by John Brooks is a collection of articles published in The New Yorker in the 1960s. Each tackles famous failures in the business world, depicting them as cautionary tales. Buffett lent his copy of it to Bill Gates, who reportedly has yet to return it.

The Bottom Line.
Warren Buffett’s investments haven't always been successful, but they were well-thought-out and followed value principles. By keeping an eye out for new opportunities and sticking to a consistent strategy, Buffett and the textile company he acquired long ago are considered by many to be one of the most successful investing stories of all time. But you don't have to be a genius "to invest successfully over a lifetime," the man himself claims. "What's needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework."

August 04, 2020

Ten Ways to Create Shareholder Value (part 3).

Ten Ways to Create Shareholder Value (part 3).

by Alfred Rappaport.

Principle 8.

Reward middle managers and frontline employees for delivering superior performance on the key value drivers that they influence directly.
Although sales growth, operating margins, and capital expenditures are useful financial indicators for tracking operating-unit SVA, they are too broad to provide much day-to-day guidance for middle managers and frontline employees, who need to know what specific actions they should take to increase SVA. For more specific measures, companies can develop leading indicators of value, which are quantifiable, easily communicated current accomplishments that frontline employees can influence directly and that significantly affect the long-term value of the business in a positive way. Examples might include time to market for new product launches, employee turnover rate, customer retention rate, and the timely opening of new stores or manufacturing facilities.

My own experience suggests that most businesses can focus on three to five leading indicators and capture an important part of their long-term value-creation potential. The process of identifying leading indicators can be challenging, but improving leading-indicator performance is the foundation for achieving superior SVA, which in turn serves to increase long-term shareholder returns.

Principle 9.

Require senior executives to bear the risks of ownership just as shareholders do.
For the most part, option grants have not successfully aligned the long-term interests of senior executives and shareholders because the former routinely cash out vested options. The ability to sell shares early may in fact motivate them to focus on near-term earnings results rather than on long-term value in order to boost the current stock price.

To better align these interests, many companies have adopted stock ownership guidelines for senior management. Minimum ownership is usually expressed as a multiple of base salary, which is then converted to a specified number of shares. For example, eBay’s guidelines require the CEO to own stock in the company equivalent to five times annual base salary. For other executives, the corresponding number is three times salary. Top managers are further required to retain a percentage of shares resulting from the exercise of stock options until they amass the stipulated number of shares.
But in most cases, stock ownership plans fail to expose executives to the same levels of risk that shareholders bear. One reason is that some companies forgive stock purchase loans when shares underperform, claiming that the arrangement no longer provides an incentive for top management. Such companies, just as those that reprice options, risk institutionalizing a pay delivery system that subverts the spirit and objectives of the incentive compensation program. Another reason is that outright grants of restricted stock, which are essentially options with an exercise price of $0, typically count as shares toward satisfaction of minimum ownership levels. Stock grants motivate key executives to stay with the company until the restrictions lapse, typically within three or four years, and they can cash in their shares. These grants create a strong incentive for CEOs and other top managers to play it safe, protect existing value, and avoid getting fired. Not surprisingly, restricted stock plans are commonly referred to as “pay for pulse,” rather than pay for performance.

In an effort to deflect the criticism that restricted stock plans are a giveaway, many companies offer performance shares that require not only that the executive remain on the payroll but also that the company achieve predetermined performance goals tied to EPS growth, revenue targets, or return-on-capital-employed thresholds. While performance shares do demand performance, it’s generally not the right kind of performance for delivering long-term value because the metrics are usually not closely linked to value.

Companies need to balance the benefits of requiring senior executives to hold continuing ownership stakes and the resulting restrictions on their liquidity and diversification.

Companies seeking to better align the interests of executives and shareholders need to find a proper balance between the benefits of requiring senior executives to have meaningful and continuing ownership stakes and the resulting restrictions on their liquidity and diversification. Without equity-based incentives, executives may become excessively risk averse to avoid failure and possible dismissal. If they own too much equity, however, they may also eschew risk to preserve the value of their largely undiversified portfolios. Extending the period before executives can unload shares from the exercise of options and not counting restricted stock grants as shares toward minimum ownership levels would certainly help equalize executives’ and shareholders’ risks.

Principle 10.

Provide investors with value-relevant information.
The final principle governs investor communications, such as a company’s financial reports. Better disclosure not only offers an antidote to short-term earnings obsession but also serves to lessen investor uncertainty and so potentially reduce the cost of capital and increase the share price.

One way to do this, as described in my article “The Economics of Short-Term Performance Obsession” in the May–June 2005 issue of Financial Analysts Journal, is to prepare a corporate performance statement. (See the exhibit “The Corporate Performance Statement” for a template.) This statement:

separates out cash flows and accruals, providing a historical baseline for estimating a company’s cash flow prospects and enabling analysts to evaluate how reasonable accrual estimates are;
classifies accruals with long cash-conversion cycles into medium and high levels of uncertainty;
provides a range and the most likely estimate for each accrual rather than traditional single-point estimates that ignore the wide variability of possible outcomes;
excludes arbitrary, value-irrelevant accruals, such as depreciation and amortization; and
details assumptions and risks for each line item while presenting key performance indicators that drive the company’s value.

Could such specific disclosure prove too costly? The reality is that executives in well-managed companies already use the type of information contained in a corporate performance statement. Indeed, the absence of such information should cause shareholders to question whether management has a comprehensive grasp of the business and whether the board is properly exercising its oversight responsibility. In the present unforgiving climate for accounting shenanigans, value-driven companies have an unprecedented opportunity to create value simply by improving the form and content of corporate reports.

The Rewards—and the Risks.
The crucial question, of course, is whether following these ten principles serves the long-term interests of shareholders. For most companies, the answer is a resounding yes. Just eliminating the practice of delaying or forgoing value-creating investments to meet quarterly earnings targets can make a significant difference. Further, exiting the earnings-management game of accelerating revenues into the current period and deferring expenses to future periods reduces the risk that, over time, a company will be unable to meet market expectations and trigger a meltdown in its stock. But the real payoff comes in the difference that a true shareholder-value orientation makes to a company’s long-term growth strategy.

For most organizations, value-creating growth is the strategic challenge, and to succeed, companies must be good at developing new, potentially disruptive businesses. Here’s why. The bulk of the typical company’s share price reflects expectations for the growth of current businesses. If companies meet those expectations, shareholders will earn only a normal return. But to deliver superior long-term returns—that is, to grow the share price faster than competitors’ share prices—management must either repeatedly exceed market expectations for its current businesses or develop new value-creating businesses. It’s almost impossible to repeatedly beat expectations for current businesses, because if you do, investors simply raise the bar. So the only reasonable way to deliver superior long-term returns is to focus on new business opportunities. (Of course, if a company’s stock price already reflects expectations with regard to new businesses—which it may do if management has a track record of delivering such value-creating growth—then the task of generating superior returns becomes daunting; it’s all managers can do to meet the expectations that exist.)

Value-creating growth is the strategic challenge, and to succeed, companies must be good at developing new, potentially disruptive businesses.

Companies focused on short-term performance measures are doomed to fail in delivering on a value-creating growth strategy because they are forced to concentrate on existing businesses rather than on developing new ones for the longer term. When managers spend too much time on core businesses, they end up with no new opportunities in the pipeline. And when they get into trouble—as they inevitably do—they have little choice but to try to pull a rabbit out of the hat. The dynamic of this failure has been very accurately described by Clay Christensen and Michael Raynor in their book The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (Harvard Business School Press, 2003). With a little adaptation, it plays out like this:

Despite a slowdown in growth and margin erosion in the company’s maturing core business, management continues to focus on developing it at the expense of launching new growth businesses.
Eventually, investments in the core can no longer produce the growth that investors expect, and the stock price takes a hit.
To revitalize the stock price, management announces a targeted growth rate that is well beyond what the core can deliver, thus introducing a larger growth gap.
Confronted with this gap, the company limits funding to projects that promise very large, very fast growth. Accordingly, the company refuses to fund new growth businesses that could ultimately fuel the company’s expansion but couldn’t get big enough fast enough.
Managers then respond with overly optimistic projections to gain funding for initiatives in large existing markets that are potentially capable of generating sufficient revenue quickly enough to satisfy investor expectations.
To meet the planned timetable for rollout, the company puts a sizable cost structure in place before realizing any revenues.
As revenue increases fall short and losses persist, the market again hammers the stock price and a new CEO is brought in to shore it up.
Seeing that the new growth business pipeline is virtually empty, the incoming CEO tries to quickly stem losses by approving only expenditures that bolster the mature core.
The company has now come full circle and has lost substantial shareholder value.
Companies that take shareholder value seriously avoid this self-reinforcing pattern of behavior. Because they do not dwell on the market’s near-term expectations, they don’t wait for the core to deteriorate before they invest in new growth opportunities. They are, therefore, more likely to become first movers in a market and erect formidable barriers to entry through scale or learning economies, positive network effects, or reputational advantages. Their management teams are forward-looking and sensitive to strategic opportunities. Over time, they get better than their competitors at seizing opportunities to achieve competitive advantage.
Although applying the ten principles will improve long-term prospects for many companies, a few will still experience problems if investors remain fixated on near-term earnings, because in certain situations a weak stock price can actually affect operating performance. The risk is particularly acute for companies such as high-tech start-ups, which depend heavily on a healthy stock price to finance growth and send positive signals to employees, customers, and suppliers. When share prices are depressed, selling new shares either prohibitively dilutes current shareholders’ stakes or, in some cases, makes the company unattractive to prospective investors. As a consequence, management may have to defer or scrap its value-creating growth plans. Then, as investors become aware of the situation, the stock price continues to slide, possibly leading to a takeover at a fire-sale price or to bankruptcy.

Severely capital-constrained companies can also be vulnerable, especially if labor markets are tight, customers are few, or suppliers are particularly powerful. A low share price means that these organizations cannot offer credible prospects of large stock-option or restricted-stock gains, which makes it difficult to attract and retain the talent whose knowledge, ideas, and skills have increasingly become a dominant source of value. From the perspective of customers, a low valuation raises doubts about the company’s competitive and financial strength as well as its ability to continue producing high-quality, leading-edge products and reliable postsale support. Suppliers and distributors may also react by offering less favorable contractual terms, or, if they sense an unacceptable probability of financial distress, they may simply refuse to do business with the company. In all cases, the company’s woes are compounded when lenders consider the performance risks arising from a weak stock price and demand higher interest rates and more restrictive loan terms.

Clearly, if a company is vulnerable in these respects, then responsible managers cannot afford to ignore market pressures for short-term performance, and adoption of the ten principles needs to be somewhat tempered. But the reality is that these extreme conditions do not apply to most established, publicly traded companies. Few rely on equity issues to finance growth. Most generate enough cash to pay their top employees well without resorting to equity incentives. Most also have a large universe of customers and suppliers to deal with, and there are plenty of banks after their business.

It’s time, therefore, for boards and CEOs to step up and seize the moment. The sooner you make your firm a level 10 company, the more you and your shareholders stand to gain. And what better moment than now for institutional investors to act on behalf of the shareholders and beneficiaries they represent and insist that long-term shareholder value become the governing principle for all the companies in their portfolios?

July 25, 2020

How Bitcoin Disrupts the Finance Industry

How Bitcoin Disrupts the Finance Industry .

Cryptocurrencies and their underlying blockchain technology are being touted as the next-big-thing after the creation of the internet. One area where these technologies are likely to have a major impact is the financial sector. The blockchain, as a form of distributed ledger technology (DLT), has the potential to transform well-established financial institutions and bring lower costs, faster execution of transactions, improved transparency, auditability of operations, and other benefits. Cryptocurrencies hold the promise of a new native digital asset class without a central authority.

So what do these technological developments mean for the various players in the sector and end users? “Blockchains have the potential to displace any business activity built on transactions occurring on traditional corporate databases, which is what underlies nearly every financial service function. Any financial operation that has low transparency and limited traceability is vulnerable to disruption by blockchain applications. DLT is therefore both a great opportunity and also a disruptive threat,” according to Bruce Weber, dean of Lerner College and business administration professor, and Andrew Novocin, professor of electrical and computer engineering, both at the University of Delaware.

Earlier this year, Weber, Novocin, and graduate student Jonathan Wood conducted a literature review on cryptocurrencies and DLT for the SWIFT Institute. Based on this review, the SWIFT institute recently issued a grant to conduct new research on DLT and cryptocurrencies in the financial sector. Weber and Novocin noted that just as disruptors like Amazon, Google, Facebook and Uber built software platforms and thriving businesses thanks to the connectivity provided by internet standards, next-generation startups will build new services and businesses with blockchains. “Many pundits expect blockchain, as a distributed technology, to become the foundation for new services and applications that have completely different rules from those running on hierarchical and controlled databases. Cryptocurrencies are an early example but many others will follow,” they added.

Kartik Hosanagar, a Wharton professor of marketing and operations, information and decisions, pointed out that the financial services sector is full of intermediaries such as banks that help create trust among transacting parties like lenders and borrowers. Blockchain, he said, is a mechanism to create trust without centralized control. “The power of eliminating intermediaries is the ability to lower transaction costs and take back control from powerful financial intermediaries.”

Regarding cryptocurrencies, Hosanagar pointed out that most of the value today is tied to speculative buying rather than actual use cases. But having a currency without a central authority offers “certain unique kinds of protections especially in countries with troubled central banks.” For example, Venezuela’s currency is rapidly losing value. For people who stored their savings in crypto, there was greater protection against such rapid currency devaluations. “Of course, cryptocurrencies have their own instabilities, but they aren’t tied to actions by central banks and that’s particularly relevant in countries and economies where citizens don’t trust their governments and central banks,” he said.

“Any financial operation that has low transparency and limited traceability is vulnerable to disruption by blockchain applications.”–Bruce Weber and Andrew Novocin

Hosanagar expects the first wave of applications to be rolled out in “private” blockchains where a central authority such as a financial institution and its partners are the only ones with the permission to participate (as opposed to public, permissionless blockchains where participants are anonymous and there is no central authority). Applications in the private blockchains, he said, will be more secure and will offer some of the benefits of decentralized ledgers but will not be radically different from the way things work at present. However, over time, he expects smart contracts (self-executing contracts when requirements are met) to be offered on public blockchain networks like Ethereum. “When securities are traded, intermediaries provide trust, and they charge commissions. Blockchains can help provide such trust in a low-cost manner. But trade of securities is governed by securities laws. Smart contracts offer a way to ensure compliance with the laws. They have great potential because of their ability to reduce costs while being compliant,” says Hosanagar.

According to Weber and Novocin, one area ripe for transformation is reaching consensus on important benchmark rates and prices. At present, they point out, different proprietary indexes are used to determine interest rates and the price of many mainstream assets. Blockchain can transform this. “Think of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and the recent scandals involving manipulation of benchmark values when they are controlled by a single entity that may not be capable of detecting false or fraudulent data. Blockchain could provide greater transparency around the process of creating agreed upon reference prices, and allow more people to participate in the consensus process.”

Weber and Novocin expect that in some areas intermediaries will find their roles reduced as blockchain allows for automation through greater transparency and traceability. In other areas, intermediaries will find themselves well-placed to take advantage of changing needs of their clients, as firms will need help to manage the shift to new standards as well as the greater complexity of open and traceable blockchain infrastructure. Intermediaries in areas that could potentially be disrupted, they said, “should get involved with projects seeking to set the standards, so that they can stay informed and position themselves to profit from becoming the leaders in the operations of the new markets that will emerge.”

Kevin Werbach, Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics, and author of a forthcoming book The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust,  said that it’s usually not helpful to focus on what aspects of a major existing market will be “transformed” or “disrupted” by new technologies. Important technologies, he said, are far more likely to be integrated into the system than replace it. According to Werbach, while some firms will fail to make the transition and some new ones will take hold, “over the long-run, virtually every historic innovation that eliminated some forms of intermediation also created new forms.”

Blockchain will reduce the massive duplication of information that creates delays, conflicts and confusion in many aspects of financial services, Werbach added. For example, when a syndicate of lenders participates in a loan, having one shared ledger means they don’t all need to keep track of it independently. International payments and corporate stock records are other examples where there are huge inefficiencies due to duplicate record-keeping and intermediaries. “End users won’t see the changes in the deep plumbing of financial services, but it will allow new service providers to emerge and new products to be offered,” said Werbach.

Bumps Along the Way

Angela Walch, professor of law at St. Mary’s University School of Law and a research fellow at the Centre for Blockchain Technologies at University College London, offered another perspective. She said there is a lot of excitement about blockchain as a distributed ledger technology for the financial sector because many believe that it offers a better, more efficient and more resilient form of recordkeeping. However, making use of the blockchain is not as simple as just buying new software and running it. “Blockchain technology is, at core, group recordkeeping. To reap its full benefits, one needs all the relevant members of the group to join the system. This requires collaboration with and across businesses, which is a potentially big hurdle, and may be the hurdle that most limits adoption.”

Governance is the biggest challenge in decentralized organizations, said Weber and Novocin. Members participating in a blockchain-supported financial function may have misaligned incentives, and can end up in gridlock, or with a chaotic outcome. They cite the example of the ‘DAO Hack,’ which was the first prominent smart contract project on the Ethereum network to suffer a large loss of funds. The Ethereum community voted to conduct a hard fork (a radical change to the protocol that makes previously invalid blocks/transactions valid or vice-versa) — reversing the transactions after the hack and essentially refunding the DAO investors. This was in effect a breach of Ethereum’s immutability and it left a sizeable minority of the community bitterly dissatisfied. This group viewed the Ethereum community as forsaking its commitment to immutable, permanent records. They refused to acknowledge the hard fork, and maintained the original Ethereum blockchain, now known as Ethereum Classic (whereas the forked version supported by the Ethereum Foundation is simply Ethereum).

“The power of eliminating intermediaries is the ability to lower transaction costs and take back control from powerful financial intermediaries.”–Kartik Hosanagar

“Distributed organizations serving an open community need to take care to design their governance systems, incentive structures and decision-making processes to create consensus without unduly slowing down the decision-making,” said Weber and Novocin. “Scenario planning or war gaming are worth exploring at the beginning of blockchain projects. Forward planning enables organizations to swiftly respond in a predictable way that is supportive of stakeholders. Publicizing these plans in advance can also build trust and user confidence.”

Cryptocurrency Risks.

Werbach listed a variety of risks and vulnerabilities related to cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin has shown that the fundamental security of its proof-of-work system is sound, but it has major limitations such as limited scalability, massive energy usage and concentration of mining pools. There has been massive theft of cryptocurrencies from the centralized intermediaries that most people use to hold it, and massive fraud by promoters of initial coin offerings and other schemes. Manipulation is widespread on lightly-regulated cryptocurrency exchanges.

For example, roughly half of Bitcoin transactions are with Tether, a “stablecoin” that claims to be backed by U.S. dollars but has never been audited and is involved in highly suspicious behavior. Money laundering and other criminal activity is a serious problem if transactions do not require some check of real-world identities. “There are major efforts to address all of these risks and vulnerabilities. Some are technical, some are business opportunities, and some are regulatory questions. There must be recognition among cryptocurrency proponents that maturation of the industry will require cooperation in many cases with incumbents and regulators,” added Werbach.

Hosanagar cautions that while decentralization offers significant value — and a significant number of miners/validators must verify the transaction for it to be validated — it is still susceptible to collusion. If one or a few companies running lots of miners/validators in a small network collude, they can affect the sanctity of the network. The big risk with cryptocurrencies, he added, is that most activity as of today is ultimately tied to speculation. It’s important for cryptocurrencies to discover a “killer app soon so there is some underlying value created beyond speculation of its future value,” Hosanagar concludes.

The Way Ahead?

Given all these challenges, what is the current mindset in the financial sector towards adopting these new technologies? And, importantly, should one push for wide acceptance and deployment, or is there need for them to stabilize first?

According to Werbach, “It’s not an either-or” choice. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in general, he noted, are immature currently. However, there are some areas where they are already able to be deployed effectively. The best way to work through today’s problems, is “to build working systems and see where difficulties arise,” Werbach said. Looking ahead, integration with law, regulation and governance will be critical. Blockchain and cryptocurrencies represent a new form of trust, he added. They will only succeed if they become sufficiently trustworthy, beyond the basic security of the distributed ledgers. “Law, regulation and governance are three major mechanisms to produce trustworthy systems that scale up to society-wide adoption. We need to find ways to address the legitimate concerns of governments without overly restricting the innovations that blockchain technology enables. I’m optimistic about that process over time.”

“We need to find ways to address the legitimate concerns of governments without overly restricting the innovations that blockchain technology enables.”–Kevin Werbach

Walch noted that while there are claims that some consortia are putting ‘blockchain’ systems into production, in many cases it appears that what they are calling a blockchain bears little to no resemblance to the original blockchain technology behind Bitcoin. In many instances, she said, existing shared databases are being called ‘blockchain’ for marketing purposes. “If people do use something they call DLT or blockchain technology in important financial systems, my hope is that they make the decision based on actual capabilities of the tech rather than its widely hyped and generally overstated capabilities,” Walch said. “Permissioned blockchains, which are the variation most likely to be used for financial systems recordkeeping, are very different from public blockchains like Bitcoin or Ethereum. I hope that a more modest and accurate understanding of the actual characteristics of permissioned blockchains sinks in before they are widely adopted.”

Regarding cryptocurrencies or cryptoassets, Walch said that the financial sector’s interest is “less about recordkeeping and more about a new financial asset that it can make money off of.” She pointed out that at present there is no clarity on how power and accountability work in these systems. The ongoing operation of crypto systems and the value they embed and support is reliant on the competence of, and ethical behavior by, unaccountable software developers and validators. “The financial sector believes it understands and can manage the risks of cryptoassets, but I am less certain and worry that hubris and greed are driving the push to create cryptoassets as a real asset class. This has been a bad mixture in the past,” says Walch. “I think it would be more responsible to let cryptosystems exist on their own for a while longer to let more of the kinks get worked out — if they can be; I’m not sure the governance ones can — rather than to rapidly integrate them into the financial system as we seem to be doing.”

“I … worry that hubris and greed are driving the push to create cryptoassets as a real asset class.”–Angela Walch

Conversely, Weber and Novocin feel that the financial industry is cautious about the new DLT technology. According to them, to build confidence in new blockchain systems there needs to be transparency around how the processes work and what the benefits are, and in order to secure adoption, they need to be straightforward to use. “Pundits have drawn parallels to the open source Linux operating system. Although only a few individuals use Linux directly, it quietly runs the vast majority of servers and cloud processors across the world. Similarly, early adoption of blockchain will likely happen in the background of business processes. Companies should get involved now, even if it is just to experiment with the concepts. By gaining familiarity with these new tools, they will be ready as the space continues to develop.”

Weber and Novocin expect that in the next few years, many more businesses will implement private blockchains to improve the transparency and traceability of their financial operations, supply chains, inventory management systems and other internal business systems. Clearer standards will be adopted and a few high-profile projects will emerge. Meanwhile, they said, R&D will continue among the many decentralized blockchain projects to invent more scalable public ledgers whether it be blockchain, Tangle, Hashgraph or something new. “Work is needed on better and more efficient consensus models, whether it be a new form of proof-of-stake or proof-of-work, or something else. There are many established groups, startups, companies and research teams that organizations can join, partner with, or support in order to contribute to research and expand their capabilities.”




Bitcoin (Currency),Bitcoin,Finance (Industry),Industry (Organization Sector),Brad Templeton,Singularity University,Innovation,Internet,Web,Website,Google,Disruption,Technology,Technological,Money,Currency,Gold,Big Think,BigThink,BigThink.com,Education,Educational,Lifelong Learning,EDU

July 16, 2020

How the Blockchain Will Impact the Financial Sector

How the Blockchain Will Impact the Financial Sector.

Cryptocurrencies and their underlying blockchain technology are being touted as the next-big-thing after the creation of the internet. One area where these technologies are likely to have a major impact is the financial sector. The blockchain, as a form of distributed ledger technology (DLT), has the potential to transform well-established financial institutions and bring lower costs, faster execution of transactions, improved transparency, auditability of operations, and other benefits. Cryptocurrencies hold the promise of a new native digital asset class without a central authority.

So what do these technological developments mean for the various players in the sector and end users? “Blockchains have the potential to displace any business activity built on transactions occurring on traditional corporate databases, which is what underlies nearly every financial service function. Any financial operation that has low transparency and limited traceability is vulnerable to disruption by blockchain applications. DLT is therefore both a great opportunity and also a disruptive threat,” according to Bruce Weber, dean of Lerner College and business administration professor, and Andrew Novocin, professor of electrical and computer engineering, both at the University of Delaware.

Earlier this year, Weber, Novocin, and graduate student Jonathan Wood conducted a literature review on cryptocurrencies and DLT for the SWIFT Institute. Based on this review, the SWIFT institute recently issued a grant to conduct new research on DLT and cryptocurrencies in the financial sector. Weber and Novocin noted that just as disruptors like Amazon, Google, Facebook and Uber built software platforms and thriving businesses thanks to the connectivity provided by internet standards, next-generation startups will build new services and businesses with blockchains. “Many pundits expect blockchain, as a distributed technology, to become the foundation for new services and applications that have completely different rules from those running on hierarchical and controlled databases. Cryptocurrencies are an early example but many others will follow,” they added.

Kartik Hosanagar, a Wharton professor of marketing and operations, information and decisions, pointed out that the financial services sector is full of intermediaries such as banks that help create trust among transacting parties like lenders and borrowers. Blockchain, he said, is a mechanism to create trust without centralized control. “The power of eliminating intermediaries is the ability to lower transaction costs and take back control from powerful financial intermediaries.”

Regarding cryptocurrencies, Hosanagar pointed out that most of the value today is tied to speculative buying rather than actual use cases. But having a currency without a central authority offers “certain unique kinds of protections especially in countries with troubled central banks.” For example, Venezuela’s currency is rapidly losing value. For people who stored their savings in crypto, there was greater protection against such rapid currency devaluations. “Of course, cryptocurrencies have their own instabilities, but they aren’t tied to actions by central banks and that’s particularly relevant in countries and economies where citizens don’t trust their governments and central banks,” he said.

“Any financial operation that has low transparency and limited traceability is vulnerable to disruption by blockchain applications.”–Bruce Weber and Andrew Novocin

Hosanagar expects the first wave of applications to be rolled out in “private” blockchains where a central authority such as a financial institution and its partners are the only ones with the permission to participate (as opposed to public, permissionless blockchains where participants are anonymous and there is no central authority). Applications in the private blockchains, he said, will be more secure and will offer some of the benefits of decentralized ledgers but will not be radically different from the way things work at present. However, over time, he expects smart contracts (self-executing contracts when requirements are met) to be offered on public blockchain networks like Ethereum. “When securities are traded, intermediaries provide trust, and they charge commissions. Blockchains can help provide such trust in a low-cost manner. But trade of securities is governed by securities laws. Smart contracts offer a way to ensure compliance with the laws. They have great potential because of their ability to reduce costs while being compliant,” says Hosanagar.

According to Weber and Novocin, one area ripe for transformation is reaching consensus on important benchmark rates and prices. At present, they point out, different proprietary indexes are used to determine interest rates and the price of many mainstream assets. Blockchain can transform this. “Think of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and the recent scandals involving manipulation of benchmark values when they are controlled by a single entity that may not be capable of detecting false or fraudulent data. Blockchain could provide greater transparency around the process of creating agreed upon reference prices, and allow more people to participate in the consensus process.”

Weber and Novocin expect that in some areas intermediaries will find their roles reduced as blockchain allows for automation through greater transparency and traceability. In other areas, intermediaries will find themselves well-placed to take advantage of changing needs of their clients, as firms will need help to manage the shift to new standards as well as the greater complexity of open and traceable blockchain infrastructure. Intermediaries in areas that could potentially be disrupted, they said, “should get involved with projects seeking to set the standards, so that they can stay informed and position themselves to profit from becoming the leaders in the operations of the new markets that will emerge.”

Kevin Werbach, Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics, and author of a forthcoming book The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust,  said that it’s usually not helpful to focus on what aspects of a major existing market will be “transformed” or “disrupted” by new technologies. Important technologies, he said, are far more likely to be integrated into the system than replace it. According to Werbach, while some firms will fail to make the transition and some new ones will take hold, “over the long-run, virtually every historic innovation that eliminated some forms of intermediation also created new forms.”


Blockchain will reduce the massive duplication of information that creates delays, conflicts and confusion in many aspects of financial services, Werbach added. For example, when a syndicate of lenders participates in a loan, having one shared ledger means they don’t all need to keep track of it independently. International payments and corporate stock records are other examples where there are huge inefficiencies due to duplicate record-keeping and intermediaries. “End users won’t see the changes in the deep plumbing of financial services, but it will allow new service providers to emerge and new products to be offered,” said Werbach.

Bumps Along the Way

Angela Walch, professor of law at St. Mary’s University School of Law and a research fellow at the Centre for Blockchain Technologies at University College London, offered another perspective. She said there is a lot of excitement about blockchain as a distributed ledger technology for the financial sector because many believe that it offers a better, more efficient and more resilient form of recordkeeping. However, making use of the blockchain is not as simple as just buying new software and running it. “Blockchain technology is, at core, group recordkeeping. To reap its full benefits, one needs all the relevant members of the group to join the system. This requires collaboration with and across businesses, which is a potentially big hurdle, and may be the hurdle that most limits adoption.”

Governance is the biggest challenge in decentralized organizations, said Weber and Novocin. Members participating in a blockchain-supported financial function may have misaligned incentives, and can end up in gridlock, or with a chaotic outcome. They cite the example of the ‘DAO Hack,’ which was the first prominent smart contract project on the Ethereum network to suffer a large loss of funds. The Ethereum community voted to conduct a hard fork (a radical change to the protocol that makes previously invalid blocks/transactions valid or vice-versa) — reversing the transactions after the hack and essentially refunding the DAO investors. This was in effect a breach of Ethereum’s immutability and it left a sizeable minority of the community bitterly dissatisfied. This group viewed the Ethereum community as forsaking its commitment to immutable, permanent records. They refused to acknowledge the hard fork, and maintained the original Ethereum blockchain, now known as Ethereum Classic (whereas the forked version supported by the Ethereum Foundation is simply Ethereum).

“The power of eliminating intermediaries is the ability to lower transaction costs and take back control from powerful financial intermediaries.”–Kartik Hosanagar

“Distributed organizations serving an open community need to take care to design their governance systems, incentive structures and decision-making processes to create consensus without unduly slowing down the decision-making,” said Weber and Novocin. “Scenario planning or war gaming are worth exploring at the beginning of blockchain projects. Forward planning enables organizations to swiftly respond in a predictable way that is supportive of stakeholders. Publicizing these plans in advance can also build trust and user confidence.”

Cryptocurrency Risks.

Werbach listed a variety of risks and vulnerabilities related to cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin has shown that the fundamental security of its proof-of-work system is sound, but it has major limitations such as limited scalability, massive energy usage and concentration of mining pools. There has been massive theft of cryptocurrencies from the centralized intermediaries that most people use to hold it, and massive fraud by promoters of initial coin offerings and other schemes. Manipulation is widespread on lightly-regulated cryptocurrency exchanges.

For example, roughly half of Bitcoin transactions are with Tether, a “stablecoin” that claims to be backed by U.S. dollars but has never been audited and is involved in highly suspicious behavior. Money laundering and other criminal activity is a serious problem if transactions do not require some check of real-world identities. “There are major efforts to address all of these risks and vulnerabilities. Some are technical, some are business opportunities, and some are regulatory questions. There must be recognition among cryptocurrency proponents that maturation of the industry will require cooperation in many cases with incumbents and regulators,” added Werbach.

Hosanagar cautions that while decentralization offers significant value — and a significant number of miners/validators must verify the transaction for it to be validated — it is still susceptible to collusion. If one or a few companies running lots of miners/validators in a small network collude, they can affect the sanctity of the network. The big risk with cryptocurrencies, he added, is that most activity as of today is ultimately tied to speculation. It’s important for cryptocurrencies to discover a “killer app soon so there is some underlying value created beyond speculation of its future value,” Hosanagar concludes.

The Way Ahead?

Given all these challenges, what is the current mindset in the financial sector towards adopting these new technologies? And, importantly, should one push for wide acceptance and deployment, or is there need for them to stabilize first?

According to Werbach, “It’s not an either-or” choice. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in general, he noted, are immature currently. However, there are some areas where they are already able to be deployed effectively. The best way to work through today’s problems, is “to build working systems and see where difficulties arise,” Werbach said. Looking ahead, integration with law, regulation and governance will be critical. Blockchain and cryptocurrencies represent a new form of trust, he added. They will only succeed if they become sufficiently trustworthy, beyond the basic security of the distributed ledgers. “Law, regulation and governance are three major mechanisms to produce trustworthy systems that scale up to society-wide adoption. We need to find ways to address the legitimate concerns of governments without overly restricting the innovations that blockchain technology enables. I’m optimistic about that process over time.”

“We need to find ways to address the legitimate concerns of governments without overly restricting the innovations that blockchain technology enables.”–Kevin Werbach

Walch noted that while there are claims that some consortia are putting ‘blockchain’ systems into production, in many cases it appears that what they are calling a blockchain bears little to no resemblance to the original blockchain technology behind Bitcoin. In many instances, she said, existing shared databases are being called ‘blockchain’ for marketing purposes. “If people do use something they call DLT or blockchain technology in important financial systems, my hope is that they make the decision based on actual capabilities of the tech rather than its widely hyped and generally overstated capabilities,” Walch said. “Permissioned blockchains, which are the variation most likely to be used for financial systems recordkeeping, are very different from public blockchains like Bitcoin or Ethereum. I hope that a more modest and accurate understanding of the actual characteristics of permissioned blockchains sinks in before they are widely adopted.”

Regarding cryptocurrencies or cryptoassets, Walch said that the financial sector’s interest is “less about recordkeeping and more about a new financial asset that it can make money off of.” She pointed out that at present there is no clarity on how power and accountability work in these systems. The ongoing operation of crypto systems and the value they embed and support is reliant on the competence of, and ethical behavior by, unaccountable software developers and validators. “The financial sector believes it understands and can manage the risks of cryptoassets, but I am less certain and worry that hubris and greed are driving the push to create cryptoassets as a real asset class. This has been a bad mixture in the past,” says Walch. “I think it would be more responsible to let cryptosystems exist on their own for a while longer to let more of the kinks get worked out — if they can be; I’m not sure the governance ones can — rather than to rapidly integrate them into the financial system as we seem to be doing.”

“I … worry that hubris and greed are driving the push to create cryptoassets as a real asset class.”–Angela Walch

Conversely, Weber and Novocin feel that the financial industry is cautious about the new DLT technology. According to them, to build confidence in new blockchain systems there needs to be transparency around how the processes work and what the benefits are, and in order to secure adoption, they need to be straightforward to use. “Pundits have drawn parallels to the open source Linux operating system. Although only a few individuals use Linux directly, it quietly runs the vast majority of servers and cloud processors across the world. Similarly, early adoption of blockchain will likely happen in the background of business processes. Companies should get involved now, even if it is just to experiment with the concepts. By gaining familiarity with these new tools, they will be ready as the space continues to develop.”

Weber and Novocin expect that in the next few years, many more businesses will implement private blockchains to improve the transparency and traceability of their financial operations, supply chains, inventory management systems and other internal business systems. Clearer standards will be adopted and a few high-profile projects will emerge. Meanwhile, they said, R&D will continue among the many decentralized blockchain projects to invent more scalable public ledgers whether it be blockchain, Tangle, Hashgraph or something new. “Work is needed on better and more efficient consensus models, whether it be a new form of proof-of-stake or proof-of-work, or something else. There are many established groups, startups, companies and research teams that organizations can join, partner with, or support in order to contribute to research and expand their capabilities.”




Bitcoin (Currency),Bitcoin,Finance (Industry),Industry (Organization Sector),Brad Templeton,Singularity University,Innovation,Internet,Web,Website,Google,Disruption,Technology,Technological,Money,Currency,Gold,Big Think,BigThink,BigThink.com,Education,Educational,Lifelong Learning,EDU

July 16, 2020

How to Stop Being Broke

How to Stop Being Broke.

If you're sick of being broke, it's time to take control of your finances! Whether you need to work on your spending habits, learn how to save, or find ways to earn more money, you can find a way to stop being broke. Follow these steps to start working towards financial freedom and better peace of mind.

Part 1 Getting into the Right Mindset.
1. Set goals. If you want to change your financial situation, you need to get specific about want you want to accomplish. Think about exactly what you want your finances to look like and what you can do to achieve those goals.
Setting short-term goals in addition to long-term goals can help keep you motivated by providing you with a sense of accomplishment.
Create a budget for non-essential items and hold yourself accountable for it each month. If you go over-budget one month, tell yourself that your budget for the next month is reduced as a result.
2. Stop comparing yourself to others. If you're spending beyond your means because you feel that you need to keep up with your friends or show others that you can afford a certain lifestyle, you're not doing yourself any favors. Stop worrying about what others can afford and think about how you can live within your means.
Stop equating your self-worth with your ability to buy things. This kind of thinking will make you extremely unhappy in the long run and will probably get you stuck in debt forever.
3. Track your expenses. To understand exactly where all your money is going, keep careful track of every dollar you spend. You can do this with a pen and paper or electronically if you use a card for everything, but make sure to account for everything. This simple habit will help you spend more wisely.
Try categorizing your expenses and adding them up on a monthly basis. For example, you could create categories for food, housing, transportation, utilities, insurance, entertainment, and clothing. Then calculate what percentage of your income you are spending on each category. You might realize that your expenses in some of these categories are way too high.
To understand how much you can afford to spend each day, subtract your fixed expenses from your monthly income and divide the remaining amount by 31.
4. Make a plan for getting out of debt. If you are broke because you have credit card debt, a car payment, or student loans, think about what you can do to pay off these debts faster.
Making even a few extra payments each year can help you pay off your debts much faster.
5. Start saving. This may seem impossible if you are always broke, but planning for the future will help you get out of this cycle. Start small by just putting $50 in an emergency fund each month.
Don't forget to save for retirement! Take advantage of the 401k offerings at your company or open an IRA account.

Part 2 Avoiding Money Traps.
1. Avoid lending to others. While you may want to help out your loved ones who are in need, you really shouldn't be lending money if you can't afford to pay your own bills.
2. Avoid payday loans. While they may seem like a good solution if you're strapped for cash, the interest rates are ridiculously high, so they will only get you further into debt.
3. Understand how much it will really cost. Before you take out any kind of loan or finance any purchase, be sure to calculate what your monthly payments will be, how long it will take you to repay the debt, and how much you will be paying in interest.
In some cases, paying interest may be worth it. For example, most people cannot afford to purchase a house without taking out a mortgage, but depending on the price of the house and the average cost of rent in your area, you might still be saving a significant amount of money by choosing to buy with a mortgage instead of renting.
Be especially wary of high interest rates for depreciating assets like vehicles. If you decide to sell your vehicle after you have owned it for several years, it may be worth less than what you owe on it. This can also happen with real estate when the market conditions are poor.
4. Avoid impulse buys. If you always have a plan for what you will buy, you will have a much easier time managing your finances.
If you have a hard time controlling your purchases when you go to the mall, try to avoid going to the mall at all.
Write out a list when you go shopping so you will always know exactly what you need to buy.
5. Use credit cards wisely. If you have a harder time keeping track of your expenses and sticking to your budget when you use a credit card, stop using it.
Paying with cash instead of a credit card will allow you to visualize how much of your available funds you are spending on a given purchase.
If you are able to stick to your budget when using a credit card, look for one that has no annual fee and will reward you with cash back or other incentives. Just make sure you always pay your bill on time or these incentives will not be worth the price you are paying in interest.

Part 3 Spending Less.
1. Assess your daily or weekly spending habits. Once you have a solid grasp on what you are spending your money on, you can start cutting out expensive habits.
2. Buy used items. You can save on everything from your next car to furnishings for your home by buying gently used items.
You can sometimes find really great clothes that have barely been worn at thrift shops for a fraction of the price.
3. Look for monthly expenses that can be cut. If you pay for monthly memberships or subscriptions, carefully assess how much they cost, how much you use them, and whether you could give them up.
Make sure you're not paying for services that you never use. For example, if you have premium cable channels that you never watch, you can cancel them without feeling like you are making any sacrifices. The same goes for your cell phone bill if you are paying for more data than you ever use.
4. Compare items or brands when shopping. If you're on a tight budget, you want to make sure you're always getting the best deal on absolutely everything. Take some time to compare prices for items you purchase regularly and for large purchases.
If you've had the same auto insurance carrier or cable company for a long time, there might be better deals out there, so be sure to comparison shop regularly.
Shopping for necessities online can be cheaper in some instances, but make sure you take shipping charges into account.
Use coupons to save some extra cash. Keep in mind that many retailers accept competitors' coupons.
5. Ask for a better deal. You can always ask your service providers for better deals, especially if you've been a loyal customer. The worst they can say is no.
Try this with your cable and internet providers, insurance companies, and cell phone carriers.
6. Spend less on entertainment or at restaurants. Whether it's dining out or going to amusement parks, entertainment can eat up a big chunk of your budget. Look for less expensive ways to have fun.
Learn to cook at home and keep the fridge well stocked with ingredients for things that you know you can cook from scratch when you come home late and don't have much time to whip up a grand meal.
Instead of going out to eat with friends, invite them over for a potluck.
7. Do more yourself. It may be convenient to use a laundry service or to have someone else shovel your driveway, but if you're physically capable of doing these things yourself. Think about the money you can save.
If you're not very handy, try to teach yourself to do more around the house. If you need a simple repair done, you may be able to watch a video online or take a class at a local home improvement store to learn how to do it yourself.
8. Save money on energy. Go green around the house to save money on your utility bills each month.
Sealing up air gaps can reduce your heating and cooling bills. If you own your home, investing in a properly insulated attic can make a huge difference.
Turning your heat down just a few degrees in the winter can make a big difference in your energy bills as well. A programmable thermostat will let you automate the temperature of your house so you won't spend money on heating the place to a comfortable level when you're not at home.
9. Avoid bank and credit card fees. Choose your bank and credit card providers wisely in order to avoid unnecessary fees.
Make sure to only use the ATM at your bank if you will get charged for using outside ATMs.
10. Aim to have a few no-spend days a month. After a while, it becomes a game: "How can I run my life today without writing anything down in my little blue book?" "How ingenious can I be to make do with the things, food, and resources I already have at my disposal?" See how often you can turn this into a habit.

Part 4 Earning More.
1. Get a better job. If spending less is just not enough, it may be time to get a better job that will allow you to make more money. Start by updating your resume, searching for listings online, and networking with other professionals in your field.
Don't forget to look for advancement opportunities within your company.
2. Do something else on the side. Using your skills to provide freelance or consulting services is a great way to earn additional income. If this won't work with your profession, get a part-time job or find creative ways to make some extra cash on the side.
You can make some extra money by performing jobs like mowing lawns, cleaning houses, or even walking dogs for people in your neighborhood.
3. Sell stuff you don't need. You probably have at least a few possessions that you no longer need or want, and you can turn those items into extra cash by selling them to people who do want them.
If you have lots of unwanted items, try having a yard sale.

Community Q&A.

Question : My family barely has any money. My dad has his own company, but it hasn't gotten any business in a long time. I have some money saved up, and I was think of leaving a little in my dad's wallet. What do you think?
Answer : Definitely do. Work as much as you can and give and much as you can. Also putting your family's money in a good, interest-bearing account can help a lot.

Tips.

To always have money in the bank to pay regular bills, add them up for the past year and divide by 52. Round up to the next 25, 50, or 100 dollars. Remember to add in quarterly or annual bills, too.
Buy clothes that can be used for several different occasions instead of only one-time events.
Use coupons on items whenever you can.
Start a Christmas Club account, but put in more than you expect to spend on gifts. The excess is great for a mini-vacation or special purchase.
Get a jar to collect your spare change. When it's full, take it to the bank. (Don't take it to one of those coin counters, as they charge for counting your change.)
Take it a day at a time. Start small, set goals, reward yourself (not with any type of shopping, of course) and enjoy playing the game.

July 02, 2020

How to Find Great Companies to Invest In

How to Find Great Companies to Invest In.

Smart investors put their money in reputable companies and investigate new companies thoroughly before committing their money. By carefully considering the qualities of the companies you invest in and incorporating your own knowledge of the market, you can make informed decisions in the hopes of choosing stocks of good quality and value. Be aware, however, this is no small task. Mutual fund companies and the like dedicate entire teams of experts whose full-time jobs are to research and understand how to invest in companies. Be sure you have the time and inclination to do this yourself, as well as the willingness to take the risks of doing so.

Method 1 Buying What You Know.
1. Stay within your circle of competence. If you have a field of expertise, you may be best able to identify quality within that area. Experience can provide you with the insights you need to make more informed choices. For example, if you work in retail, you may be better positioned to determine if you should invest in companies like Walmart, Target, or Best Buy, than you are in evaluating the latest bio-tech company.
Having competence in a certain area doesn't have to come from workplace experience. If you're a techie who spends his time buying and reading about the latest gadgets, you can draw on the information you obtain to help you make decisions on how to invest in the technology sector.
2. Focus on a few industries or markets. These can be either your direct area of competence or other areas that you are interested in investing in. The important thing is to realize that you can't keep track of everything going on in the global economy. Large financial institutions have whole departments for doing this so don't think you can do it on your own. Instead, narrow your focus to include only a few key industries or markets.
This doesn't mean you should avoid focusing on individual companies. You should always investigate every company you plan to invest in individually.
3. Stay up to date on news within that industry. Examples of quality sources for this are online finance websites like Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal. They'll give you up-to-date information on many of the goings-on in various sectors of the economy and the World. Again, focus your energy on a few key areas and become knowledgeable on the happenings in them. Look for things like trends, mergers, acquisitions, relevant legislation changes, and any global events that may affect your chosen market.
4. Plan ahead. Identify a company that you think stands to benefit from some change or trend in the market. Look ahead for when this change will take place and move around your money to prepare to invest in the company. For example, if you think that a new product being released by your favorite tech company is going to be a huge success, you may choose to invest in the company before the rest of the world realizes this and drives up the stock price.

Method 2 Investing in Companies with Competitive Advantages.
1. Understand competitive advantages. There are some companies that manage to be consistently profitable and successful in their industry over many years. These companies have succeeded in building a "moat" around them to keep their competitors away. This distance from their competitors is also known as a competitive advantage. Competitive advantages allow these companies to make money and retain customers more easily than others. In turn, these companies are able to provide greater value and return to their shareholders.
An investment in one of these companies allows you to participate in their competitive advantage. While they may not grow as quickly as smaller companies, they often can be less likely to fail in economic downturns and can provide consistent growth throughout the years to come.
Blue-chip stocks are examples of large, successful companies with competitive advantages. These companies have provided consistent growth or dividends over many years and are listed on large stock indexes.
2. Invest in trusted brands. Think Harley Davidson, Coke, BMW. These are brand names etched in the public mind as the best in their class. These companies can raise their prices on the strength of their brands, resulting in deeper profits.These companies are so well-known and essential that they are unlikely to lose a significant amount of customers to competitors.
3. Find companies with high switching costs. When was the last time you switched banks? Or cell phone providers? These services retain customers because switching between them is more time-consuming than it's worth. Companies that have high switching costs can be expected to hold on to their customers longer than companies that don't.
4. Search for economies of scale. Companies that are able to make products and sell them at much lower prices than their competition automatically attract customers -- lots of them -- as long as quality is not compromised. In a crowded market, this is generally the result of economies of scale, a phenomenon where a large company is able to experience lower production costs solely due to its size. Walmart and and Dell have perfected this concept to a science.
5. Invest in legal monopolies. Some companies are granted legal (if temporary) monopolies by the government. Large pharmaceutical companies and manufacturing companies with patents are able to bring a truly unique product to market. Companies that own copyrights, drilling rights, mining rights, and other forms of protected property are often the sole producer or service provider in their area. Thus, these companies can raise prices without fear of losing customers, resulting in higher profits.
Be sure to check how long the company's patent or usage rights are in effect. Some of these are temporary and when they go, there's a chance the company's profit will go with them.
6. Look for opportunities for easy growth. Some companies are easily scalable. That is, their products or services with the potential to network or add more users over time. Adobe has become the de facto standard in publishing; Microsoft's Excel has done the same in spreadsheets. eBay is a great example of a user network. Each additional user to the network costs the company virtually nothing. The additional revenues that come in as the network expands go straight to the bottom line.
For a more current example, consider Netflix. As a streaming service, they make more money for each subscriber, even as their costs remain virtually the same. That way, as they gain more users they will continue to grow in profitability, assuming they don't choose to increase costs significantly.

Method 3 Evaluating Company Performance and Valuation.
1. Check the quality of management. How competent is the management running the company? More importantly, how focused are they toward the company, customers, investors, and employees? In this age of rampant corporate greed, it's always a great idea to research the management of any company you're thinking of investing in. Newspaper and magazine articles are good places to get this information.
This doesn't just mean that management has provided good financial results recently. Rather, look for indications of other important qualities like responsiveness, adaptability, capacity for innovation, and organizational ability.
2. Watch for management changes. A good leader can successfully turn around a company that many consider to be a lost cause. Watch the news and financial reports for changes in management positions, especially CEOs. If you believe in the new CEO of a company, based on your research, you may choose to invest in that company. Here, you're essentially putting your faith in the person, not the company.
3. Avoid overvalued stocks. Even a great company can be overvalued. Learn to interpret financial statements and pick stocks with fundamental analysis to find companies the market has overvalued. Know that these companies may be some of the most buzzed-about and invested in companies around, but they are still overvalued and may experience drastic declines in price once their day in the spotlight is over.
One way to determine if a stock is overpriced is to examine its price-earnings-ratio. The price to earnings ratio can usually be found in the company's stock summary on financial websites. Generally, PE ratios are between 20-25, but this varies by industry.
To evaluate a company's PE ratio, search online for the average PE ratio in the company's industry. If the P/E ratio is over the industry average, the company could be overpriced in view of its earnings.
4. Buy undervalued stocks. Undervalued stocks are those that are trading at a lower value than their financial information would indicate. These may be companies that have only started to do well recently. In these cases, the market has not yet caught up with their newfound success. To identify stocks with room to grow in value, you can also use the price-earnings ratio mentioned above and look for companies with low PE ratios compared to the industry average.
You can also look for companies with a price-to-book-value of less than 2. The price-to-book ratio is the price of the company divided by the total value of its assets minus its liabilities and intangible assets. A low ratio may indicate that the company is relatively cheap.

FAQ.

Question : How can I know a company's management?
Answer : A company's stock prospectus will list its management personnel. For suggestions on researching company management, go here: Investopedia.com/articles/02/062602.asp.

Tips.
Start thinking about everyday companies in terms of this new framework.
Learn the basics of reading financial statements. Check the profitability of companies you're interested in. Check their debt position. See if they have been growing steadily.
Visit the company’s website and other financial websites that will give you insight into the stock.
While it may be advantageous to invest in companies you know, do not limit yourself to just one or two sectors of the economy. Try to research companies in a variety of sectors. Doing so further diversifies your portfolio to better insulate it from a downturn in a single sector or company.

Warnings.
Be aware of stock tips: Whether they come from someone you see on TV or someone you meet in person, these are more often not well-researched or are even based on someone's grandiose theory about getting rich quick. They may also be provided by salesmen paid to inflate a stock's price to allow a company to raise as much capital as possible.
Jumping into buying stocks in a company without doing thorough research can be a quick way to lose your money.
Investing always carries risk. Even if you do everything right, there's no guarantee that you'll make money.

April 07, 2020

College acceptance for students with dyslex

FAQ College acceptance for students with dyslex

THE BEST AND WORST COLLEGES FOR DYSLEXIA – Dyslexic Advantage

There is no single ‘best’ college for dyslexia, but rather colleges that may make better (or worse) fits for an individual student. Do you have personal experience with a college as a dyslexic student? If so, please take this brief survey and we’ll share the results here. You can also send your reviews of colleges by email. All sources will be confidential on this site. Graduates were in the past 5 years unless otherwise specified.

We are compiling resources from people we have spoken to, web, and text-based resources that included interviews of dyslexic students who attended college. Books we recommend include Dyslexia at College, The Human Side of Dyslexia, and Colleges That Change Lives. Also the list of colleges that don’t require an SAT or ACT can be found at Fair Test.

College-Bound Students: Once you are enrolled in college, don’t forget to apply here for the Dyslexic Advantage Karina Eide Memorial Scholarship! Only dyslexic students are eligible and there is no minimum GPA! Here is the start of a very partial list. We will be adding more specific information as it comes in. These are statements about individuals from students. They do not reflect any statements by Dyslexic Advantage, the organization. Are you a current college student or graduated in the past 5 years?  If you’ve filled out this college survey, we’ll gif you with a 1 year subscription to our Premium magazine!

ALABAMA
Auburn University – Center for Special Services “I owe a lot to the Center for Special Services…my professors were supportive.” Books on tape, reader, Dragon dictation, note taker, extended time.

ARIZONA
University of Arizona – SALT CENTER – Strategic Alternative Learning Techniques Center

ARKANSAS
University of the Ozarks – Jones Learning Center “My coordinator and tutor were my lifeline..” Taped textbooks, help in math, reading, writing, copies of lecture notes, private test taking. Dictated papers to tutor. Helped with flashcards

AUSTRALIA
MacQuire University Accessibility    (Math and Human Resources) BEST: free learning support, good test-taking accommodations, “for exams and tests 1hr plus long you can get good provisions.” WORST: teachers resist providing accommodations, “it most depends who you get as your learning support staff, that makes its easier or hard to get approval. also, anything under 30mins good luck getting help. and some subject stuff dont understand what Dyslexic is even is. meaning less like to help you.”

Swinburne University of Technology AccessAbility Services  (Bachelor of Computer Science majoring in Cybersecurity) Victoria. BEST : Free Learning Support Services, Faculty Accessible and Supportive, small classes, peer mentors, helpful disability resource, good test taking accommodations. WORST: Audio resources are late or difficult to acquire. TIPS: No matter what the work is, do it as soon as you get it. Never leave it till the last second and always ask for help when you get stuck. Peers will help you heaps if you need it! You can help them too!

Tafe Ultimo Disability and Accessibility  (Community Services) BEST: free learning support, good system for asking for accommodations, good accessibility – audio available in a timely fashion, good test taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, peer mentors, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive. The TAFE have a tremendous amount of support and reasonable adjustment possibilities because my dyslexia is now legally classified by the NSW State Government as a neurological disability. I didn’t know this support was available until I enquired with the Tafe career counsellor who is a psychologist. She helped me tremendously and referred me through their process and my fees are waivered. They have offered so much support right down to getting me an ergonomic chair if I need it. And their kind, reassuring attitude and acknowledgement of my dyslexia challenges has been amazing. TIPS: Make an appointment with the career counsellor to discuss what courses and support are suitable for your dyslexia.

CALIFORNIA
Butte College – Disabled Student Programs   BEST: Free learning support services. Many trade school options that do not require English 101 or algebra. WORST: Difficult process for asking for accommodations, teachers resist providing accommodations, audio resources are late or difficult to acquire, no visible dyslexia programs on campus. TIPS: Don’t go. Keep looking. It’s not worth the aggravation to fight for accommodations and understanding

Chico State University – Accessibility Resource Center  (Mathematics) BEST: Good system to ask for accommodations, good test-taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, faculty are accessible and supportive. WORST: Teachers resist providing accommodations. I had more than two teachers try to deny me accommodations. TIPS: Know your rights!

Cal State Long Beach  (Film) BEST: free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good accessibility – audio available in a timely fashion, good test taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful disability office, peer mentors, faculty are accessible and supportive. TIPS: Start with Steven Benson dyslexic department. Maintain a current IEP PRIOR TO APPLICATION

Holy Names University Disability Support  (Educational Therapy) BEST: free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good accessibility – audio available in a timely fashion, good test taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive. WORST: No visible dyslexia programs on campus, negative culture for learning differences. “I mark ‘negative culture’ as some staff members are working toward gaining knowledge of ADA. That said, this learning community is very diverse and inclusive. TIPS: Be proactive in asking for the support you need. Make friends with the librarians; they can be your strongest advocates.

Mills College Support Services  Oakland. . (Biology) BEST: good test-taking accommodations, faculty are accessible and supportive, small classes, dyslexia-friendly environment.

Monterey Institute of International Studies “I took all my papers to the Writing Center to be edited. My writing improved.” Tape recorder, oral testing, skimming reading, visual presentations.

Palomar College Disability Resource Center   (Visual Arts AA)  BEST: free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, helpful resource office, good test-taking accommodations. WORST: no visible dyslexia programs on campus, teachers resist providing accommodations, “There is no dyslexic focused teaching methods incorporated in the general education classes. If you are particularly struggling they don’t know what to do to help you. You can have all the time you want, but if you’re not getting it you’re just out of luck.” TIPS: “You’re going to need a private tutor that specializes in dyslexia for the subject/s that are your most difficult.”

Pitzer College – Academic Support Services “Mine was the last year without a math requirement.” Didn’t use the Learning Center on a regular basis. If poor grades, spoke to professor or went to the learning center. After failing statistics 2x, successfully petitioned to have a statistics waiver to graduate.

San Francisco State University – Disability Resource Center

Stanford University- Schwab Learning Center  – There have been recent upheavals in the Schwab Learning Center due to department changes. We will update you if we have any new information from current students.

University of California – Berkeley – Disabled Students’ Program Berkeley Extension: Occasionally I’d get a bad teacher who said they didn’t believe in accommodations like extra time, but the DSP backed me up and I was ever prevented from getting what I needed.

University of Santa Cruz  Disability Resource Center Once I tell teachers, they’re understanding.  Note taking, tape recorder, assistance with writing, and computer for personal use. Dyslexia support group (newsletter and events)

University of Southern California (USC) Korschak Center

University of the Pacific – Services for Students with Disabilities Stockton, CA   (Music Major) BEST: Good test-taking accommodations WORST: Negative culture for learning differences. “I would pick a different college, the culture is not conducive for visual or alternate learners”

CANADA
University of Manitoba Accessibility Winnipeg, Manitoba.  (Law). BEST: Good test taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly environment, helpful resource office, faculty are accessible and supportive, good accessibility – audio available in a timely fashion, good system to ask for accommodations, free learning support. WORST: no visible dyslexia programs on campus. TIPS: Very supportive university.

University of Toronto – Accessibility Services  (Arts & Sciences) WORST: Difficult process for asking for accommodations, teachers resist providing accommodations, audio resources are late or difficult to acquire, hard to obtain regular test-taking accommodations, no visible dyslexia programs on campus, negative culture for learning differences. ADVICE: “Accessibility is a horror show for dyslexics. Worse than awful exam accommodations and rules; zero differentiation for learners with different learning styles; less than ZERO support for students who are gifted but do not read and write in normative ways; horrible communication with students’ one hour per week drop in hours for services; even the equity studies and women’s studies profs who should know better are s— on access issues; 6 week wait MINIMUM for assistive tech in start of program – most crucial time to have supports; OVERLOAD with assessment and no action on accomodation as if assessment itself is the job of accessilbity services; punitive behavior of disability counsellors when students miss a deadline; refusal of exam accommodations even if prof is late with posting exam schedule; scribes known to students (totally inappropriate); scribes switching off half way through test or exam; scribe demanding student indicate punctuation or would not scribe (totally different part of the brain); university uses volunteer notetakers even though the ministry of education provides funding to pay them; if no notetakers volunteer to take notes the student goes without; notetakers can hand write notes which can’t be read by text to speech software; there is no library of audio or pdf’d textbooks or readers so each student needs to have materials scanned each time fresh and WAIT up to six weeks putting them at a distinct disadvantage. Open book exams are not accessible to students who do not read and write in normative ways; cheat sheets for exams are not accessible for students who do not read and write in normative ways and yet are marked. It is basically a s— show unless you fit a tiny, narrow definition of what is disabled. The lack of imagination is ASTOUNDING at the #1 university in Canada. Worse than useless. ADVICE: DO NOT DO IT.

COLORADO
Pikes Community College Accessibility Services  (Pre-engineering) BEST: Good system to ask for accommodations, good test taking accommodations WORST: No visible dyslexia programs on campus, no learning support or only expensive learning support program.

Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design “Didn’t need accommodations for all my classes because this is art school. The disability person was friendly and helpful. The typography class had assignments with hand-drawn fonts, but I have fine motor issues and a little tremor. It wasn’t a huge deal, but it was helpful that she contacted the teacher separately.”

CONNECTICUT
Central Connecticut State University Disability Services –  (History)
BEST: small classes. WORST: Not much understanding about the problem. No visible dyslexia program on campus.

University of Connecticut – Center for Students with Disabilities

Yale University Resource Office on Disabilities

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (DC)
American University  (Masters Anthropology) BEST: small classes, good accessibility , free learning support. “AU has a focus on diversity and this includes learning disabilities. Most professors were accommodating and pleased to do so. As an older student, I had the financial resources and knowledge to come prepared with online reader programs (learning ally, audible, natural reader, vBookz, etc.) On a rare occasion, readings were not available in PDF form or audible book form, and in those incidences, keeping up was difficult. Overall, it was a supportive environment.” WORST: there is no disability resource office, audio resources are late or difficult to acquire, difficult process for asking for accommodations. “To my knowledge, AU did not have a specific dyslexia resource office, but did have learning disability office. I find that as a dyslexic student, many schools often lump all needs into “disabled” without resources for individual needs. Additionally, access to online PDF readers and audible books were available after many “hoops”, but still available. It would be easier if those were available readily to all students, regardless of diagnosis and paperwork.”

FLORIDA
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University- Disability Support  (Aerospace Engineering) BEST: Good system to ask for accommodations, audio available in a timely fashion, good test-taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly environment, helpful office, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive. Students with accommodations get priority for registering for classes. Good counselling services available if you are stressed, with a therapy dog on duty in the counselling center. Students with accommodations get free tutoring if needed.” TIPS: The professors are very helpful, so take advantage of their office hours to get extra help from them if you need it.

Florida Southern College – Student Disability Services (Elementary Education) BEST: Free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, audio available in a timely fashion, good test-taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, peer mentors, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive. “FSC has an elementary school on campus (Roberts Academy) for dyslexic students grades 2-6 (adding 7 and 8 in the next two school years). It’s an Orton-Gillingham school!. All pre-service teachers spend a considerable amount of time in the classrooms at Roberts getting full exposure to dyslexia, what it is, what it isn’t, what works, what doesn’t work etc. Every subject is taught in a multi-sensory way. All teachers at Roberts have their Masters degrees and are level II OG trained. Pre-Service teachers at FSC also have the opportunity to take Orton-Gillingham classes that the college offers. They bring in an instructor from OG to teach the course. The first half of the course takes place during the first semester, the second half during the second semester. My DD has had many lightbulb moments at both Robert’s Academy and during the OG courses that she has taken. She wonders why these methods are not taught across the board in all schools. It just makes so much sense to her. (She never received any OG reading intervention during her K-12 education)” TIPS: 1. Visit the campus you are considering 2. Sit in on some classes in the course work of the degree you are considering pursuing 3. Talk to current students in those classes/degree with known learning disabilities about the course work, professors, and learning services support and get a feel for how well the learning institute supports LD students.

Full Sail University – Services for Students with Disabilities  (Masters, Instructional Design) WORST: No visible dyslexia program on campus. In many ways the FSU program was very engaging. However, this program is one class in four weeks for 12 months. The pace is very fast for digesting content. For an adult training program, the program ignored how to train adults with learning disabilities. Considering the writing component of the courses feedback from professors was typically relevant, but a large percent of grades relied on peer reflection/feedback. Often peers posted sloppy discussion posts that were difficult to give feedback on. Additionally, reflection posts included responding to peers projects. Often peers rushed through the reflection and didn’t provide constructive feedback; yet this was an important component for the course grade. I’m a 45 year old mother of a 4 and 12 year old and was a high school history teacher for 14 years. The writing process tends to be slow for me and trying to respond to posts was challenging at times. After 6 months into the program I was drained as a writer and my head was mush. Exhaustion and stress lead to anxiety and that downward spiral Dyslexics can struggle with. TIPS: Take breaks every couple of months especially if you have other obligations like family or employment. Tell every professor you have you’re dyslexic and speak to your strengths and weaknesses as a student. I’m not sure if that will make a difference for some professors, but Dyslexics need to start educating those in academic positions. Even though I was considered a Highly Qualified Teacher, I taught for 14 years before I realized I’m dyslexic. The majority of educators need to be educated on teaching dyslexics.

Stetson University Disability Resources  (English) BEST: good system to ask for accommodations, good accessibility – audio available in a trimly fashion, good test taking accommodations, helpful office, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive. WORST: No visible dyslexia programs on campus TIPS: Get help early and don’t be afraid to ask for more if you need it. Let your professors know too as most will be happy to help you out.

University of Miami – Office of Disability Services Alumni (attended in the late 60’s): An international university with vast diversity, where high academic standards are expected but individuality is paramount

University of Tampa Disability Services  Alumni – graduated more than 5 years ago). (Government and World Affairs and Communications). BEST: good system to ask for accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful resource office, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive. “When I attend University of Tampa, my accommodation were granted as long as my file was updated to date illustrating that I am dyslexic. When taking test, I had quite room, and I had unlimited amount of extended time to take my test. I was chosen to be my class speaker of the December 2007. You had to apply by writing your speech and tell the University why you should be class speaker. I was the first dyslexic and epileptic class speaker at University of Tampa.” WORST: “The most difficult was the cost of re-certificating myself as a dyslexic. Those test are $1500 dollars. That is a lot of money. You have to do those test every 3-5 years. I am not going to stop being dyslexic. That would be great, if I became amazing writing, but that not going to happen. I had to borrow that money. What if someone who is dyslexic does not have the money? Then what? They lose their accommodation? That needs to change in general in the college system.” TIPS: “Go to a University with small classes. When I went to University of Tampa thhe average class was 15 people. I believe it is 20-25 now, which is still small. When you have small classes you become close to your professors. I am still friends some of my professors. Go visit the disabilities office, I love that UT disability office is called the Academic Center of Excellent. It gave me positive feeling when going to talk about my services. Especially after being under the umbrella of special ed all your life. It very negative for a dyslexic person.”

IDAHO
Idaho State University – Disability Services  (Journalism & Sports Management) BEST: Free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, audio available in a timely fashion, good test-taking accommodations, helpful office, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive. “The disability services office blew our socks off with how helpful they were. More than just complying with the law, they go above and beyond including 1:1 help with TTS software, offers of free use of technology just to try it out, help with role playing with professors, frequent contact in the summer before freshman year to build relationships, and a “got your back” attitude. This office is why we chose this university. To sweeten the pot, it is very inexpensive for both tuition and housing and is located in a beautiful spot close to the Tetons.”

ILLINOIS
Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville   (Psychology). BEST: free learning support services. Helpful office. WORST: teachers resist providing accommodations, hard to obtain regular test-taking accommodations, negative culture for learning differences, difficult process for asking for accommodations TIPS: “on’t. the teachers do not understand the what “learning difference” means and all classes are taught in an analytic, sequential way. you will be treated as a burden on the same level as a student with any serious impairment.”

INDIANA
Hanover College  (Business & Economics  > 5 years ago) BEST: free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good test taking accommodations, peer mentors, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive. Strong support in liberal arts environment. Excellent free learning center. Fully accommodated my nephew. Professors very available and supportive. WORST: There is no disability resource office. TIPS: Apply with request for accommodations. Meet with admissions & Learning Center teams.

Indiana State University – Center for Student Success  Free tutoring, mentoring, advising. Works with Disability Student Services. “Indiana had a strong LD program…Help was always there in college.” Personal tutor after sports practice. Extra time on tests, tape recorder for lectures, preparation tests to study before a test, and a reader who was a grad student who also paraphrased to check for understanding

University of Notre Dame Disability Services  (Neuroscience and Art History) BEST: free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good accessibility – audio available in timely fashion, good test taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, peer mentors, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive TIPS: It is great!

IOWA
Iowa State University – Student Disability Resources  (Elementary Education) BEST: Free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, audio available in a timely fashion, good test-taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, peer mentors, faculty are accessible and supportive WORST: The only problem I had was with one adviser in the school of education not understanding what dyslexia is. TIPS: “Look for a school that is going to work with you. When you go on college visits go to the disability office and see what the atmosphere is and what accommodation they have.”

Loras College Lynch Learning Center  (Sports Management & PR > 5 years ago) BEST: free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good test taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, faculty are accessible and supportive. TIPS: Utilize the system they gave to you, Norte Dame even asked Loras for help with their program.

University of Iowa –UI Reach and Student Disabilities Service

IRELAND
University of Limerick Disability Services
(Technology Education)
BEST: good test taking accommodations, faculty are accessible and supportive.
WORST: difficult process for asking for accommodations, teachers resist providing accommodations, no visible dyslexia programs on campus. Don’t try Learning like everyone else, own your dyslexia because only you can truly understand your mind

KANSAS
University of Kansas Student Access Services (Psychology – alumni > 5 years ago) BEST: None. WORST: No visible dyslexia program on campus. TIPS: Seek assistance right from the start.

LOUISIANA
Nicolls State University – Student Access Center  (History) BEST: Good system to ask for accommodations, audio available in a timely fashion, good test-taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, good offices, faculty accessible and supportive

MASSACHUSETTS
Boston University – Disability Services “I surrounded myself with classmates who were willing to help explain the questions…sadly there are many ‘old style’ professors who don’t believe in learning difference.”

Calvin College – Center for Student Success  (Social Work) BEST: Free learning support services, good system to ask for accommodations, audio available in a timely fashion, good test taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive TIPS: “Go see SAS and they will match you with an advisor specifically for your Dyslexia.”

Curry College – Disability Services : (Environmental Sciences, but they discontinued the major) BEST: Good system to ask for accommodations, good accessibility – audio available in a timely fashion, helpful office, small classes. WORST: No learning support or only expensive learning support, no visible dyslexia programs on campus. We paid for my disability services….an extra $10,000 per year…is this legal? But while they were nice, it was just a glorified place to get organized. This was supposed to be a school at the top of disability services…but they were not. I got all my help and tutoring from the free resources available to all kids. TIPS: Just look for good services….all colleges have them these days so you don’t have to pay extra.

Harvard University – University Disability Services Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Student Disability Services “I’ve known at least a dozen MIT grads who have been out for some years now. They all have said that MIT was a good school for dyslexics.”

Williams College – Disability Support Services Worcester Polytechnic Institute Disability Support  (Civil Engineering) BEST: free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good accessibility – audio available in a timely fashion, helpful office, peer mentors, faculty are accessible and supportive. Echo360 records the class for those with accommodations to be able to review on their computers. Allows lectures to be recorded when Echo360 not available in that classroom. TIPS: Register with the Office of Disability Services before enrolling. Have weekly meeting with staff to check in. Don’t be afraid to ask Professors for help. They really care and want you to succeed!

Worcester Polytechnic Institute Disability Services  (Civil Engineering) Free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good accessibility – audio available in timely fashion, good test taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful resource office, faculty are accessible and supportive, small classes, peer mentors. Echo 360 films class for replay by dyslexic students. Also audio recording, teacher’s notes, professors are eager to help. TIPS: Embrace your differences and seek accommodations. Don’t be shy. They want to help. Also SAT is not required.

MICHIGAN
University of Michigan -Services for Students with Disabilities “The Center for Student with Disabilities gave me lots of ideas including asking for extended time on tests and testing in a quiet room without distractions.” Taping lectures, reduced course load.

MINNESOTA
University of Minnesota Disability Resources Center  (Plant Science & Food Systems) BEST: Free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good test-taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly environment, helpful office, faculty are accessible and supportive WORST: Audio resources are late or difficult to acquire ADVICE: “The U of M is a wonderful school for dyslexic students. This university is very supportive of students with dyslexia and many of the professors understand what it is and that students are not “faking it”.

MISSOURI
Westminster College Learning Differences (Security / Political Science / Finance) BEST: Good system to ask for accommodations, good accessibility – audio available in timely fashion, good test taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, faculty are accessible and supportive, small classes. The Learning Support is excellent and well-worth the added fee. The Learning Support team advise, tutor, teach classes on learning skills and strategies, help with writing, acquire audiobooks and materials etc, work with professors if needed, provide quiet test-taking. My son has made the Dean’s List with a 3.7. I don’t think this would be possible without the support and skills provided to him by this team of professionals TIPS: I wish they had more technology available for students–like Read Write Gold or something like that.

NEVADA
University of Southern Nevada   (Culinary Arts Hospitality) BEST: free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good test taking accommodations, helpful office, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive. Excellent note providing services. Email within 24 hours always! TIPS: Go to the disability office wayyyyy before starting school there.

NEW YORK
Concordia College New York – Connection Program Bronxville, NY. BEST: Good test-taking accommodations. WORST: No learning support or expensive program, difficult process for asking for accommodations, teachers resist accommodations, audio resources are late or difficult to acquire, no visible dyslexia programs on campus, negative culture for learning differences.

Cornell University Student Disability Services  BEST: Good system to ask for accommodations, good accessibility – audio available in a timely fashion, good test taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, faculty accessible and supportive. TIPS: Disability Office staff are top notch

Hudson Valley Community College Center for Access  (Individual Studies) BEST: Free learning support services, good system to ask for accommodations, good test taking accommodations, faculty are accessible and supportive. This program is not the best for providing students accessibility options, but they are not the worst either. I’d say they are just average. I’ve attended other schools and most of the others have provided more assertive technology options to their students, but again they could be worse. There are enough supports on campus between those provided through the Accessibility office as well as the general supports offered through the departments and the library, etc. WORST: No visible dyslexia programs on campus. Usually there is at least one or more teachers that don’t seem thrilled about having to accommodate students. Also, sometimes I have to miss parts of my classes to use my accommodations for testing. TIPS: Good time management skills are a must; Advocating for your needs is a must; Disclosing and using your accommodations consistently will be tremendously helpful;

Marymount Manhattan College – Disability Services  (Fashion Design) WORST:Only expensive learning support program, difficult process for asking for accommodations, teachers resit providing accommodations, audio resources are late or difficult to acquire, hard to obtain regular test-taking accommodations, no visible dyslexia programs on campus, negative culture for learning differences. TIPS: “Observe or talk to Learning Specialist. Ask them if they use any form of UDL or assistive technology.”

New York University Moses Center  (Nutrition) BEST: free learning support services. WORST: Difficult process for asking for accommodations, audio resources are late or difficult to acquire, hard to obtain regular test-taking accommodations, no visible dyslexia programs on campus. Test taking rooms can have 12 other people in them which is very distracting. Computers available to use for exams in the testing center do not work well. Some computers will crash while your in the middle of an exam.

Sarah Lawrence University – Office of Disability Services  (Creative Writing, Film, Ancient History) BEST: Free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good test taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive. Many of the classes are visually oriented. For example, many history classes utilize film and art as a basis for historical evidence. Creativity is the key to SLC. Creativity is promoted as part of critical thinking and analysis. Classes are mainly seminar based and small and you meet with the professor on a bi-weekly basis to discuss and develop an individual project (conference work) for the class in addition to the work common to everyone. This allows one to follow their passions within the class content and develop close a working relationship with your professors. Every semester you take three 5 credit classes, each with an individual conference project. Prior to registering for classes, every student interviews the professors teaching the class that they are interested in. In the interview, one can determine how that professor teaches, how are students assessed (ie not many classes have tests, but some do), how much reading is involved, how much writing, etc. TIPS: Talk to the professors openly, keeping communications flowing.

State University at Buffalo – Equity, Diversity, Inclusion  (Dance and Business) BEST: Free learning support services, good system to ask for accommodations, good test-taking accommodations, faculty are accessible and supportive. WORST: Audio resources are late or difficult to acquire. PDF files for textbooks, need to send in information in at the end of the prior semester to receive accommodations for the next semester in order to get books in a timely manner. Even after doing so don’t receive books during the first week of classes. Only receive PDF files after sending a reminder and often a week or two into the semester, four weeks at the latest. Once receive files, accommodations are very good and work well. Have had a problem with text center and professor not sending tests in on time. Make sure to have verbal or written confirmation that you can take exams early if original exam time is when the test center is closed. TIPS: Don’t be afraid to send reminders and/or have meetings to get the accommodations you need. If youre confused ask, because won’t always be very direct in how to do things. Know the hours of the test center when making exam requests and be as specific as possible.

Syracuse University Office of Disability Services

BEST: Good system to ask for accommodations.
“The Learning Center has improved, but sometimes I don’t get the tapes until the week before the test.” Most professors are supportive. Some have made special exams for me. Extended time, reader for exams books on tape, taped lectures, tutoring, note taker, computer for exams, typed written assignments. Counselor. Consultant helps with writing.

NORTH CAROLINA
Guilford College – Accessibility Resource Center  (Psychology, alumni 15+ years ago) BEST: good system to ask for accommodations, audio available in a timely fashion, good test taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, peer mentors, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive. Everything about the program was good. TIPS: Get help as soon as you get there Be sure you have been tested and identified before you go.

OHIO
Stark State College Disability Support  (Massage Therapy, switched to Dental Assisting) North Canton OH. BEST: Free learning support, small classes, A lot of the courses are more hands-on and less reading-only. WORST: Difficult process for asking for accommodations, teachers resist providing accommodations, audio resources are late or difficult to acquire, there is no disability resource office, hard to obtain regular test-taking accommodations, no visible dyslexia programs on campus. Another dyslexic girl in my class was the object of our teacher’s adamant dislike, mostly for being dyslexic and therefore not doing so well at the right/left part of our course. The teacher treated her like she was stupid, and I found the teachers in the dental assisting course tended towards condescending behaviors like that towards students with learning differences. However, other courses and classes were very open and friendly to learning differences, so it seems more teacher-specific than an overall problem. TIPS: Don’t go into Dental Assisting or another very strict program. They have a lack of empathy and help for dyslexic students. Massage Therapy and many other programs, however, are awesome for dyslexic students. Try to get a feel for whichever program you’re looking into.

Sinclair College Accessibility Services  (Architectural Technology). BEST: Free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good accessibility – audio available in a timely fashion, good test-taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly environment,  helpful disability resource office, small classes, faculty are accessible and support. Sinclair has an effective disability services program and the faculty are quite willing to provide the needed accommodations. This is a great school to go to if you want to succeed in college! TIPS: Sinclair welcomes people with disabilities of all types and has an effective program for providing needed accommodations. The keys to success are to go to class, do the homework, and study for the exams. The faculty and staff are willing to help when the student does their part.

Muskingum University – Disability Education Office   (Special Education & History – Alumni graduated 7 yrs ago) BEST: Good system to ask for accommodations, good test-taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive. Content tutors, not peer tutors. WORST: There was a large cost for the most comprehensive service but there were different levels. TIPS: Make sure you are studying.

OREGON
Mount Hood Community College Disability Services
(Elementary Education)
BEST: free learning support services, good test taking accommodations.
WORST: Difficult process for asking for accommodations, hard to obtain regular test-taking accommodations, no visible dyslexia programs on campus, negative culture for learning differences.
TIPS: Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Great advisors and teachers WANT to see you succeed. Be confident in who you are!

Southern Oregon University – Disability Resources (Technical Theatre) BEST: Free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, audio available in a timely fashion, good test-taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, peer mentors, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive “The UCam program is great. Doesn’t cost too much, and I get a weekly appointment with a learning coach. Much of what I need is done automatically (I get an email reminder, but accommodations are super easy to access). It’s also a public school, so very affordable.”

University of Oregon Accessible Education Center (Architecture major) WORST: Difficult process for asking for accommodations, teachers resist accommodations, Audio resources are late or difficult to acquire, negative culture for learning differences. Reduced course load – one class at a time worked for me. Approached professors independently, not involving Student Services. Extended time on tests. Test taking in their office. Essays instead of multiple choice. Project-related exams. Computer courses substituted for math and language requirements. Test files at my fraternity were very helpful.

PENNYSYLVANIA
Millersville University Office of Learning Services  (Music Major) BEST: Are learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good test-taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, peer mentors, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive, preferential housing  based on student request. WORST: No visible dyslexia programs on campus TIPS: “Speak openly to your counselors and the Student Service Center support staff and they are happy to help.”

Pennsylvania College of Technology  (IT)
BEST: Faculty are accessible and supportive, small classes, good test taking accommodations, audio available in a timely fashion, good system to ask for accommodations, free learning support. The disability service office is amazing and the schools policy for helping students with disabilities is very accommodating. They will provide all your text books in a PDF format after purchase, so you can have the computer read it to you. The library has computers with Kurzweil (an advanced PDF/ webpage reading Software) for use to anyone. They will allow you to take extra time on your tests and have a computer with Kurzweil on it available if you want the tests read to you. Disability services will do everything they can to help you get through this tough time in life. WORST: Most of the teachers’ teaching style makes it difficult for a dyslexic student to learn. But there are also many teachers who teach in a way that is it easyer for everyone to learn. The disability service office is small and often has a hard time keeping up with the amout of students they need to serve. TIPS: Get the disability accommodations process started before you start school, it will take longer once the school year starts. Schedule your tests/ meetings in advance.

University of Pittsburgh Disability Resources 100% extended time on exams, word processor for tests, audio record lectures.

RHODE ISLAND
Brown University Learning Support Specialist “It’s possible to graduate Brown with no distribution requirements. There’s also a credit / no credit grading option…” “I look for courses that do project work instead of tests.” “I’m glad I spoke to the Dean of Students who helps LD students.” Headphones in computer center.

Roger Williams University – Student Accessibility Services 9/10 STARS (Mechanical Engineering) BEST: Free learning support services, good system to ask for accommodations, good test taking accommodations, helpful office, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive WORST: No visible dyslexia programs on campus TIPS: “Be willing to work hard. Be prepared to be your own advocate. Be respectful when seeking accommodations from professors. Become proficient in technology.”

SOUTH CAROLINA
Clemson Student Accessibility  Graphic Communications Alum (> 5 years) BEST: Free learning support, Good testing taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful disability resource center, peer mentors, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive. Sign up for classes first so you get better times and teachers you feel are best. They used to let you take sign language if your major required a foreign language.

Coastal Carolina Accessibility and Disability  Communication BEST: free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good accessibility – audio available in a timely fashion, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, peer mentors, small classes, faculty accessible and supportive. TIPS: Get to know your professors and the staff at the accessibility/disability office. Making connections will help you learn now and they will always look out for you.

SWEDEN
Umea University Disability  (Human Computer Interaction) BEST: Free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, audio available in a timely fashion, good test-taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, peer mentors, faculty are accessible and supportive. It was a huge list for leaning disabilities and other disabilities that they gave me to see and the responsible person helped me to choose WORST: The facilities e.g. computers for text to speech and speech to text etc were only in Swedish. Probably they can make an English version for the international students. TIPS: Go for it and do not hesitate to discuss your disability and ask for help

TEXAS

El Paso Community College   (Ed in Admin K12) BEST: free learning support, good test taking accommodations, helpful resource office, “Professors do not do anything to address needs of students in class. Students are expected to take remedial classes in area of disability, instead of college giving more support in required classes. This only lengthens the time and expense of college degree. This is disheartening, and leads to students dropping out of college.” WORST: No visible dyslexia programs on campus.

Saint Edwards University Student Disability Service.  (Computer Sciences) BEST: good accessibility, small classes, helpful office, dyslexia-friendly environment, good test taking accommodations, good system to ask for accommodations, free learning support. WORST: no visible dyslexia program.  TIPS: “Have your accommodations clearly defined, meet with disability staff regularly, talk to your teachers in advance, and explain how you learn. What works, and what does not work. Ask for help if you need it.

Southern Methodist University – Altschuler Learning Enhancement Center “Thankfully someone awarded me a mentor…” Talked about book or paper – my mentor helped organize my thoughts. No foreign language requirement.

Texas A & M Office of Academic Enhancement    (Biomedical Sciences) BEST: good system to ask for accommodations, test-taking accommodations, helpful office TIPS:”Go and visit your 504 disability center the first week of school. They will help you set up everything you need.”Extra time on tests. Tests in the testing center away from others, covered overlays if requested.

Texas A & M Dental School – Accommodations through Office of Academic Enhancement  (graduated in the past 5 years) – Endodontics BEST: small classes WORST: No learning support. Only expensive learning support program. Teachers resist providing accommodations. Audio resources are late or difficult to acquire. They were very hesitant to give accommodations. Teachers did not know what to do. Several instances with teachers violating rights to confidentiality. TIPS: Do not let them put you down. Stand up and demand respect and accommodations.

Texas State Technical College Disability Services  (Business  – more than 5 years ago) BEST: Free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good test taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, peer mentors, small classes, faculty accessible and supportive. WORST: Understaffed! Shortage of housing due to Baylor University nearby. TIPS: Dont wait – get the enrollment package and career flyer.

UNITED KINGDOM
Coombeshead College / Academy BEST: Small classes. WORST: No visible dyslexia programs on campus. They should put up a notice of symptoms and give a free assessment.

Leeds College of Art   (MA Creative Practice) WORST: No learning support or only expensive support system. “The college where unable / unwilling to give me the support I needed. I got caught in a nightmare situation with the government willing to pay. But the college unwilling to allow a dyselixa specialist on the campus. I was not comfortable meeting in a cafe. My personal tutor was good in as much she helped me with spelling and over looked my poor grammar. But that was very much down to her.” TIPS: “Don’t find another college, I heard from students who’s personal tutors did not turn up for tutorials”

Stourbridge College Student Support  -West Midlands. . BEST: Free learning support services, small classes. The motor vehicle tutor is brilliant and work from work books and he makes learning fun and visual. WORST: No visible dyslexia programs on campus. There is no disability resources office. My son had to re sit his GCSEs maths last year. At first the kids had to go in and register and had no teacher then were sent home with a work book to teach themselves. My son didn’t get an echp but a plan was written out by the council on how best to support him. The tuition after that was patchy, When he took his maths exam he was sent out without being allowed extra time and when I questioned it the college lied and told me he had gone to the wrong room. I took this matter further to the principal . this year he has been taught no maths which I have questioned and the college said they don’t do this on a level 2 qualification only at the end of the term have they decided that in the summer they want these low ability students to cram and sit some kind of maths exam in the summer. TIPS: Make sure you/parent is aware of what provision is put in place and make sure you get it.

UTAH Utah Valley University Accessibility Services   (Behavioral Science – Psychology) BEST: free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good accessibility – audio available in a timely fashion, good test taking accommodations, helpful disability office. There is a good learning strategist on campus who is very helpful and understanding WORST: The testing center is a pain with scheduling. TIPS: Go straight to the accessibility office when you first visit the school and pick up the required paper work. Get your accommodations letters early.

VERMONT
Bennington College Accommodations and Support

Goddard College Access and Disability  (Creative Writing) BEST: free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, faculty are accessible and supportive.

Landmark College  (Psychology – Alumni 15+ years ago) BEST: Free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, audio available in a timely fashion, good test-taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office, peer mentors, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive BEST: No foreign language requirement. Help with organization (master notebook system) WORST: I wasn’t intellectually stimulated.

University of Vermont – Burlington (Environmental Science Conservation Biology) 10/10 STARS BEST: Free learning support, good system to ask for accommodations, good accessability – audio in a timely fashion, good test taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly environment, helpful disability resource office, small classes, faculty are accessible and supportive. TIPS: WONDERFUL SCHOOL. My dysability advisors were amazing. Whenever there was an issue with a professor my advisors were very very very supportive. I was always instantly repsonded from my emails and they fought for my rights consistently. I succedded because of UVM.

VIRGINIA
James Madison University My athletic advisors steered me through the chaos. Helped organizing classes, early registration, reduced course load, extended time.

WASHINGTON B
Bellevue College – Disability Resource Center I only took a few courses in Running Start. The head of the DRC is blind. The office is very supportive and it’s easy to submit your documentation and get the accommodations you need. I was told 25% of the student body has accommodations of some sort.

Evergreen State College “It’s possible to design an independent study program for all 4 years. I think that means you don’t have to take a foreign language in college, although you should have taken 2 years in high school. There aren’t any general education requirements.”

Marshall University Disability Services BEST: good system to ask for accommodations, good accessibility, audio available in a timely fashion, good test-taking accommodations, dyslexia-friendly, helpful office. “HELP program provides a counselor to assist in choosing classes, tutoring and testing accommodations. There is an additional fee for the program but well worth the money!


WISCONSIN
University of Wisconsin – McBurney Disability Center

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May 25, 2019