Daniel Luzer

Let’s start hitting those science books, girls. Economist Lawrence Summers will be returning to Harvard to teach at the John F. Kennedy School of Government as Charles W. Eliot University Professor. This was the same position he held before going to Washington to serve as assistant to the president for Economic Policy and director of […]

In the May/June issue last year the Washington Monthly published an article by Jamie Merisotis and Stan Jones. The piece, “Degrees of Speed,” argued that one of the biggest problems with community colleges had to do with the speed at which students can complete programs. Scheduling classes is complicated and time consuming and causes students […]

The latest issue of the Washington Monthly is now live. Earlier this week the magazine released a special issue looking at what President Obama should say in this year’s State of the Union speech. Featuring ten memos to Obama from journalists, scholars, and White House veterans, the special features is well worth reading in advance […]

Arkansas is the latest state with a group that, oddly, is working to make it possible to carry guns on college campuses. According to an article by Rob Moritz in the Arkansas News: Steve D. Jones, chairman of Arkansas Carry, made the comment to the Arkansas News Bureau after being told by the director of […]

The liberal arts are important. Very important, says incoming Grinnell College President Raynard Kington. According to an article by Scott Jaschik in Inside Higher Education: While some liberal arts colleges are adding more business or career-oriented majors, Kington doesn’t favor such an approach for Grinnell. He noted that the college has debated the idea many […]

In one of his last acts as New York State’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo announced that he was creating a national center to “help students and their families better understand their student loan options.” Cuomo was sworn in as the Empire State’s 56th governor early in the morning on January 1. According to an article […]

Oddly, it appears that low funding for public higher education my actually be pushing people into for-profit schools. According to an article by John Lauerman in the San Francisco Chronicle: As state budget cuts lock students out of community college classrooms or force them to stand in class, for-profit colleges are attracting hundreds of thousands […]

David Noble (right), a professor at Canada’s York University, is dead. The academic was 65 years old. Noble was notable for his strident opposition to distance learning, arguing that such endeavors were impersonal and undermined the quality of higher education. A critic of what he called the corporatization of the university, Noble’s concerns grew out […]

Back in August an alumna of Missouri’s all-female Stephens College had a lucrative little challenge for the school: lose weight and I’ll give you some money. The graduate still weighed 117 pounds, the same weight she had when she was studying at Stephens. While she kept her weight the same, she had apparently managed to […]

Maybe college, ah, isn’t really worth it. Or at least the full bachelor’s degree isn’t worth it in terms of increased earnings. According to an article by Michael Vasquez at the Miami Herald State employment data that track the earnings of recent graduates show those who earned a career-focused associate’s degree or postsecondary certificate from […]