Higher Education

Since college has become so frighteningly expensive, many consider that the solution might be to just lop off a year and offer a bachelor’s degree in three years. An article in yesterday’s Republican (Massachusetts) explains: Who says college has to be a four (or more) year experience? The drive for more colleges to offer the […]

Time had a piece earlier this week about whether a college degree has less value now. As the article explains: The devaluation of a college degree is no secret on campus. An annual survey by the Higher Education Research Institute has long asked freshmen what they think their highest academic degree will be. In 1972, […]

The situation regarding many colleges’ endowments may not be quite as bad as expected. Despite dramatically bad news about many endowments (Stanford University, for instance, had 26 percent investment decline this year) things are looking up. Relatively. A survey of college finances indicates that college endowments decreased 19 percent in 2009. This would ordinarily be […]

A proposal by the U.S. Department of Education aimed to prevent for-profit colleges from overcharging on tuition is running into trouble. From Inside Higher Ed: Included in the department’s first draft of revised rules to guard against the abuse of federal financial aid funds, the proposal suggests two possible methods aimed at ensuring that students […]

The Los Angeles Times has an interesting piece today about the continuing funding troubles at the University of California. Earlier this week the school’s president, Mark Yudof, went to the state legislature to try and convince the body that his school needed more money from the state. From the LA Times article: The state university, […]

In addition to helping students get the scores they need to get into college, Princeton Review now also owns a college. Yesterday the standardized test preparation company concluded its takeover of Penn Foster Education Group, a for-profit online career school based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Princeton Review paid $170 million in cash for Penn Foster, which […]

In an update to the case of SUNY-Cobleskill and the (possible) whistleblower dean, George Leef argued yesterday in the conservative John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy’s Clarion Call that lowering academic standards was nothing new in higher education: SUNY-Cobleskill wouldn’t be the first college to lower its standards and make it easier for […]

From the Oregonian comes news that an anonymous donor recently decided to give money to the Oregon prison system so that inmates could complete college: “At a time when public agencies and Oregonians are reeling from the effects of the current economic environment,” [Max Williams, director of the Oregon Department of Corrections] said, “it is […]

Part of the appeal of online courses is that students can take them when they have free time. This is part of the appeal of for-profit colleges. “Your degree. On your terms,” is the slogan of the University of Phoenix; the school emphasizes that it has “course schedules that fit your life.” Online schools generally […]

The Washington Post has an interesting piece about homeless college students in DC: Lots of college students have special tricks to help them get through these next few weeks of finals. Red Bull, coffee amped up with espresso shots, secret study spots . . . Ronnell Wilson has learned that this is the time to […]