Higher Education

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a review of The Lowering of Higher Education in America, a controversial new book by retired Rutgers sociology professor Jackson Toby. According to the review Toby argues in his new book that: Students have been misled about the value of their degrees. Yes, a bachelor of arts degree commands […]

Chnages in financial aid over the last decade in American’s exclusive colleges resulted in more aid for students from relatively wealthy families. According to an article in Inside Higher Ed: A period of dramatic shifts in the aid policies of some of the most elite private colleges in the United States has had only the […]

In other news from the annual meeting of the American Economic Association, apparently, despite extensive rhetoric about education and the workforce, American colleges don’t do a terribly good job preparing students for employment. According to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education: American colleges are only “moderately responsive” to changes in the labor markets, […]

It’s not the university’s fault, really. Malcolm Grant, provost of University College London protests that his school is not responsible for the extreme views of alum Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian man who tried to detonate plastic explosives while traveling on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day. Abdulmutallab studied Engineering and Business Finance […]

Paging Larry Summers…. According to a study presented today at a meeting of the American Economic Association, more female faculty in engineering departments cause more undergraduate women to major in engineering. An article in Inside Higher Ed explains: The study found… one area where there was a correlation between increased representation of women on the […]

Florida students who are members of the state’s scholarship program will now have to pay for dropped classes. According to an article in the Miami Herald: A new state law requires students with Bright Futures scholarships to repay their award money if they withdraw from a class after the drop and add period — typically […]

Student loans are troublesome for a variety of reasons. The thing about student loans that worries everyone, even here at the College Guide, is the difficulty students will have paying them back later on. But for at least a decade, one could count on the loans being relatively easy to obtain. Anyone could get a […]

With the economy in freefall the connection between a college degree and a job is looking a little less clear. So now some colleges are looking to make their schools more “relevant.” Welcome to Thomas College, “Home of the Guaranteed Job!” According to an article in the New York Times: The shift in attitudes is […]

Apparently going to college lowers the risk of a heart attack. From the San Francisco Examiner comes news that: A new study published in the journal Heart finds that there is a strong correlation between education and heart attack risk. Those who have eight years of schooling or less are up to 31 percent more […]

The University of Chicago created a minor scandal last month when the school’s dean of admissions, James Nondorf, sent a letter out to all applicants trying to lighten their mood. According to an article in the New York Times the letter read, in part: “Dear University of Chicago, It fills me up with that gooey […]