Higher Education

Inside Higher Ed has a good rundown on some of the state-level higher education budget issues I’ve been blogging about: Already wounded by budget reductions that came in July and before, college leaders are now scrambling to squeeze even more from coffers, daunted by the real expectation that there are further cuts still to come. […]

From The Chronicle: New U.S. Census data show that the number of young adults attending college hit an all-time high in October 2008, driven by growth in attendance at community colleges, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center released [yesterday]. The findings bolster the notion that more Americans, including young adults, are turning […]

I can’t say I have ever played FarmVille, an extremely popular—and addictive—online farming game. And that’s probably a good thing. As the New York Times reported yesterday: “It is clear this obsession with FarmVille is an issue, especially since it is taking away time from studying and schoolwork,” Danielle Susi wrote this month in The […]

From The Chronicle: The Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law is unveiling a new online game on Thursday called Gender Bias Bingo. The game is intended for women, although men who have overheard biased statements or have faced bias because they are fathers can also play. An […]

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 […]