For legions of new college graduates struggling to find good jobs in a weak labor market, “boot camps” are a faster and cheaper alternative to traditional grad school.
Kevin Carey
Kevin Carey directs the education policy program at New America.
Kevin is on Bluesky @kevincarey1.bsky.social and X @kevincarey1.
Posted inEducation, Higher Education
Tar Heel Scandal and the Myth of the University
The great lie of American higher education is the idea of the university. We all believe these places exist. Not just in the physical sense-there they are-but as coherent organizations that operate with something resembling identifiable cultures, values, systems, and ideas of themselves. Our whole system of rationing, financing, and credentialing higher education depends on […]
Posted inMagazine, September/October 2013
America’s Best Community Colleges 2013
To see the 2013 Community Colleges Rankings, click here. On July 13, 1946, Harry Truman did something that no president had done before: he created a commission to chart the future of American higher education. Historically, college and university matters had largely been left up to the states. Even the famous Morrill Land-Grant Acts had […]
Posted inEducation, Higher Education, January/February 2013, Magazine
The Next Affirmative Action
Want to help minority college students? Make the entire higher education system more accountable.
Posted inEconomy, Education, Higher Education, Magazine, September/October 2012
The Siege of Academe
For years, Silicon Valley has failed to breach the walls of higher education with disruptive technology. But the tide of battle is changing. A report from the front lines.
Posted inEconomy, Education, Higher Education, July/August 2012, Magazine
The Assets Between Your Ears
The new movement to give college credit for the things you already know.
Posted inEducation, Higher Education
Stanford’s Credential Problem
A couple of weeks ago, while discussing the announcement of the Harvard / MIT edX initiative, I included a brief recap of what’s been happening over the last six months in the land of Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which began as follows: Throughout the fall 2011 semester, a group of well-known Stanford professors had […]
Posted inEducation, Higher Education
The X Factor
Recently, Harvard University jumped on the accelerating online education train. The creation of edX in partnership with MIT marks the latest development in what’s shaping up to be a fascinating contest between the nation’s leading research universities and its most ambitious private-sector entrepreneurs for domination of virtual higher education. Things began heating up last December. […]
Posted inPolitics
Everyone Should Learn Statistics
I spent the last two days on jury duty in the District of Columbia. (Whatever the broader shortcomings of DC municipal government, their process for hauling you into the jury pool every two years works with uncanny efficiency; watch this space for jury-related blog posts in early May 2014.) It was a DUI case, and, […]
Posted inEducation, Higher Education
Plumbers Need Post-Secondary Education, Too
In a post titled, “We Need Both Plumbers and English Majors,” Kevin Drum suggests that Rick Santorum may have a point in criticizing the Obama administration’s focus on helping more people earn post-secondary credentials: The detracking movement did a lot to undermine vocational education, and people like Bill Gates and others have since been influential […]
