Higher Education

In preparation for next year’s renewal of the Workforce Investment Act, the federal job training law, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Vocational and Adult Education is soliciting comments from citizens. Yesterday about 50 people came to Washington, most urging congress to consider greater alignment between the work and education programs. According to an […]

Many higher education critics have attacked colleges’ early decision programs for being elitist. The early decision process generally requires a student to enroll in his top school, if admitted. Because of this the practice tends to favor those with money, students and families who don’t need to consider different financial aid offers. At least in […]

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has announced new information about its investigation into gender bias at American colleges. According to the Associated Press: The probe by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is focusing on whether some colleges favor men by admitting them at higher rates than women, or by offering them more generous […]

One longstanding discussion in higher education has to do with the risk inherent in obtaining a humanities PhD. Unlike the situation in more, well, practical disciplines (engineering, math, the hard sciences) the jobs for people with academic degrees in the humanities just aren’t there. As Thomas H. Benton wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education […]

Earlier this week New York University announced that it had received a $1 million gift from actor and NYU alum Alec Baldwin. The money will be used to establish the Alec Baldwin Drama Scholarship Fund for students attending NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. The Alec Baldwin scholars must demonstrate “an unwavering work ethic, development […]

As Barack Obama said when campaigning for the White House, his own daughters probably should have no special consideration given for their race when applying for college and “we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed.” […]

The “value” of a college diploma has always been a little vague, at least in part because the investment and the potential return on investment are so far removed. But, from the Wall Street Journal comes news that with the economy being what it is, many parents and students are now considering the value of […]

Two students at the University of Wisconsin have popularized a rap song about “coasties,” a school term for students who come from out of state (East Coast, West Coast). According to the Associated Press the students, Quincy Harrison and Cliff Grefe (known as Quincy and Beef, respectively), “wanted to have fun with a cultural icon […]

There’s an interesting piece over at Center for College Affordability and Productivity about for-profit colleges and the student loan default rate. As numerous people have written lately, students attending for-profit colleges have much higher student loan default rates than other students. As Daniel Bennett writes, however: The most important cause of this [default rate]-the market-funded […]

In recent years the success of community college has been measured by people interested in the idea by the ability of community colleges to transfer students into four-year institutions. Community college students always have the ability to transfer but most community colleges don’t do a terribly good job helping them with that. This is true […]