Jesse Singal

This is really, really weird: Many colleges now require criminal background checks of all new employees. But the University of Akron — in what some experts believe is a first — is not only requiring a criminal background check, but is stating that new employees must be willing to submit a DNA sample. The requirement […]

Stephen Spruiell, writing about public versus private student loans on CBS News Online: The public option has proven unpopular: Except for a credit-crunch-related spike last year, its market share has fallen steadily since its inception. Schools prefer private lenders because they tend to offer higher service levels with the goal of making students lifelong customers. […]

From the Times (U.K.) Higher Education magazine: It should be a time of pleasure gained from feeling one’s knowledge expand and the anticipation of a fulfilling academic career. But instead, most accounts of doctoral study are typified by a “passion for despair”, with the PhD cast as a period of gloom, loneliness and uncertainty. This […]

Looks like public universities in my home state of Massachusetts will be spared the spending-cut axe: Gov. Deval L. Patrick said today he will not cut local aid to cities and towns or money for higher education, but will impose $352 million in spending cuts across state agencies and prepare plans to lay off as […]

The United States will be providing $45 million to the government of Pakistan’s Government of Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission (HEC), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced yesterday. The funds will be primarily used in four different ways: * Expanding relationships between Pakistani universities and U.S. institutions through increasing additional academic exchanges * Increasing university and […]

Over at The New Republic‘s blog The Stash, a post from Zubin Jelvah on whether going to an elite school is worth it, cost-wise, includes a striking graph that I have decided to steal (click for full-sized version). It’s slightly hard to decipher at first, but the key feature here is the rapid rate at […]

One of the difficulties faced by graduates of community colleges looking to transfer into four-year programs is getting those schools to accept the credits they’ve earned. The State University of New York is on the case: Two weeks ago, the Special Joint Committee on Transfer and Articulation – whose members include representatives from the system’s […]

A Boulder Daily Camera op-ed makes the case for continuing to fund higher education in Colorado at adequate levels: Medicaid, prisons, higher education: All are on the table in the face of a state budget shortfall of billions of dollars. On Wednesday, Gov. Bill Ritter announced another $286 million cut from the state budget, including […]

The Motley Fool has up a very informative interview with two William & Mary professors who wrote a book on the rapidly rising cost of college that is coming out in 2010. One of them blames something called “cost disease”: That’s the real culprit behind the rising cost of college. You see, in a labor […]

This column by Richard Vedder, which argues that North Dakota should spend less on higher education, is somewhat of an interesting read, if only because that state is such an outlier in so many ways and because the author is such a staunch free-marketeer. Subsidizing universities means taking money from highly productive citizens in the […]