Daniel Luzer

With the White House summit on community colleges last week, America is all interested in community colleges, at least for awhile. “We’re upgrading our undervalued community colleges, President Obama said today. “So we can link students looking for work with businesses that are looking to hire.” Community colleges, Obama insists, are essential to increasing the […]

Apparently in the wake of the success of The Social Network, the movie about Facebook’s early days, filmmaker Wes Jones is now working on a movie about Karl Rove’s time in college. Yup, Karl Rove. According to an article by Steven Zeitchik in the Los Angeles Times: “College Republicans,” [is a]…comedy-drama about a young Karl […]

Building really impressive structures on campus is one way for colleges to increase their influence and name-recognition. The University of Cincinnati built its prestige, in part, on a 1996 building by a famous architect. Nice idea. Poor execution. According to an article by Lawrence Biemiller in the Chronicle of Higher Education: The problem here is […]

Apparently in reaction to the tragic, bizarre suicide of Rutgers student Tyler Clementi last month, many colleges are now trying to create campaigns to address anti-gay bullying on campus. The University of Wisconsin at Madison has decided to call its campaign Stop the Silence. According to Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin: This is an issue of […]

The near-impoverished Fisk University, which is attempting to sell its extensive Georgia O’Keeffe art collection to raise money, has a new plan. According to an article by Jennifer Brooks in The Tennessean, the new plan will make it very difficult for the university to ever sell the art and will result in a schedule in […]

It looks like U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings matter a lot. One college will now rate candidates for tenure-track academic positions based on the U.S. News ranking of their undergraduate institutions. Really. According to a piece by Scott Jaschik at Inside Higher Ed: In what may be a new (and is certainly an […]

Bill Gates is giving American colleges more money in a effort to improve online education. According to an article by Steven Bertoni in Forbes: The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation pledged $20 million in grants for businesses and universities to develop online programs to better train students in the basic skills they’ll need to thrive […]

A new study by the American Institutes for Research indicates that college dropouts cost the American taxpayer billions of dollars. Well, sort of. According to the report: We focus on the high costs associated with the large number of students who do not return for a second year at the college where they first enroll. […]

With the vast proliferation of open-admissions colleges, it’s not really difficult for high school students to get accepted to college. The trouble is that a lot of them can’t really succeed there and end up dropping out after a semester or two. According to an article by Catherine Gewertz in Education Week, however, the secret […]

With Senator Tom Harkin’s committee hearings on for-profit schools coinciding with the Department of Education’s rules on gainful employment, many policymakers are now concerned with the debt levels at for-profit schools. This is an important development, but it’s probably not enough. According to an op-ed piece in the New York Times by Jeremy Dehn, who […]