Higher Education

A couple weeks back, Harvard announced a new study group hosted by noted space cadet Peggy Noonan. The syllabus, combined with Noonan’s professional history, clearly indicated this class would be a train wreck. Those who follow and appreciate Noonan were quick to point this out, on this blog and elsewhere. Fortunately, a few enterprising souls […]

From the AP: INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana high school seniors who apply for admission this week to 38 colleges and universities in the state won’t have to pay admission application fees. The Indiana Commission of Higher Education says the fee waiver for Indiana residents is designed to encourage more high school seniors to apply for college. […]

Stanley Fish has a really good, informative blog post up about academic abstention. He begins: As recently as 1979, legal academics Virginia Nordin and Harry Edwards were able to say that “historically American courts have adhered fairly consistently to the doctrine of academic abstention in order to avoid excessive judicial oversight of academic institutions” (Higher […]

The very, very troubled Binghamton University basketball program just took another hit. The NCAA has banned it from doing any off-campus recruiting until next month, ESPN reports. This comes after a Friday announcment that the coach of the team “admitted having contact with prospective recruits that violated NCAA regulations.”

Inside Higher Ed: WASHINGTON — A group of distance education leaders today plans to discuss how current state-by-state approval and licensing protocols are hampering online colleges, and how those policies might evolve to accommodate colleges that educate students in many different states via the Web. America’s preeminence, the leaders argue, is at stake, says the […]

The Chronicle has a good article outlining some of the issues with the “open course” movement: Steven T. Ziegler leapt to MIT off a mountain. He was on a hang glider, and he slammed the ground hard on his chin. Recovery from surgery on his broken back left the 39-year-old high-school dropout with time for […]

From the AP: Stroll through the mall on a weekend and you get the impression teens save money to buy clothes or iPods and video game systems, but a new survey shows their priority is quite different — saving for college. The survey by online brokerage TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. shows putting money away for […]

Paul Krugman, as is often the case, is right on, this time on the erosion of America’s place in the world when it comes to educating our young: About that erosion: there has been a flurry of reporting recently about threats to the dominance of America’s elite universities. What hasn’t been reported to the same […]

Colleges are beginning to pay attention to social media: As prospective students, current students, and alumni increasingly make Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube their portals to the world, many colleges that once balked at engaging their populations in the social media realm are now seeking to leverage these sites to attract applicants and boost fundraising efforts. […]

Here are some disturbing numbers: On any given day, about one in every 10 young male high school dropouts is in jail or juvenile detention, compared with one in 35 young male high school graduates, according to a new study of the effects of dropping out of school in an America where demand for low-skill […]