Higher Education

From Higher Ed Watch last week: Is there a looming student debt crisis at our nation’s for-profit colleges and trade schools? The latest data from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) certainly seems to suggest so. According to an analysis of this data by the College Board, 60 percent of […]

The obvious answer is “never,” but this story that someone submitted to reddit had me rethinking that stance. Given a situation like this one—where the person is obviously qualified for a higher-paid job than what he or she can get because he or she lacks an oftentimes-meaningless piece of paper—I’m finding it hard to blame […]

The Wall Street Journal‘s personal finance “tip of the week” is a good one: Looking for loans to help you foot your college bills? Don’t settle for private loans until you’ve exhausted all options for federal loans, which usually come with lower, fixed interest rates and more flexible payment plans. (Some government-backed loans are made […]

The audio from the Washington Monthly/Education Sector event I blogged about last week is up and definitely worth checking out. It was a great discussion of the future of higher ed policy, and it featured some of the smartest folks in that world.

Here’s a telling stat for you: A little under a thousand incoming freshman confirmed that they would be attending Delaware State this fall. Only 825 showed up. Diverse Issues in Higher Ed explains why this is bad and introduces us to one of the many students whose educational plans have been seriously disrupted by the […]

From The Chronicle: In August, Mark Parkinson, Kansas’ Democratic governor, said that within 10 years at least one of his state’s public universities should be among the top 50 in U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings and that a second state university should be in the top 100. Now the Institute for Higher Education […]

Can’t say I’m surprised: In a year when federal dollars for scientific research declined for academic institutions overall, minority-serving colleges took a disproportionate hit, according to a new report from the National Science Foundation. Historically black colleges and universities, institutions with large Hispanic enrollments, and tribal colleges all saw steeper federal funding declines than the […]

Ross Hancock, spokesman for the American Welding Society, as quoted in Inside Higher Ed: The American Welding Society gets concerned when we see Congress act, as it did this year, to discontinue funding for proven programs like the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technical Training programs in favor of brand new “green jobs” education… That’s because, […]

It wasn’t reported until today’s paper, but William Trombley, a very influential longtime higher education reporter for The Los Angeles Times, died Sunday at 80. The obituary is here.

Business Week has a solid article running down some of the options for recent college graduates who find themselves struggling with student loans. (One of the more intriguing ones is SponsorChange.org—graduates who volunteer in their community through this program get a stipend to help cover student loans in return.) The problem, as is the case […]