Higher Education

From The Chronicle, more fuel for the debate over the extent to which colleges can control rising tuition costs: The cost of goods, services, pay, and benefits in higher education rose 2.3 percent for the year ending June 30—a figure that is nearly a percentage point higher than the Consumer Price Index for the same […]

Speaking of college graduation rates, a new book out today looks to be a pretty thorough treatment of the subject. An AP writeup says: In “Crossing the Finish Line,” William Bowen and Michael McPherson, former presidents of Princeton University and Macalester College, along with researcher Matthew Chingos, chime in on what many experts consider American […]

David Leonhardt has some stern words for the United States’ public universities: If you were going to come up with a list of organizations whose failures had done the most damage to the American economy in recent years, you’d probably have to start with the Wall Street firms and regulatory agencies that brought us the […]

Fred Schwarz at Phi Beta Cons has a post up today arguing that student aid (along with “all the diversity deans and transgender studies departments”) is to blame for the huge increases in tuition that we have been witnessing in recent years. It is a common conservative argument, and one which contains a kernel of […]

The Chronicle of Higher Education notes a new report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that shows just how valuable public investment in higher education is. OECD analyzed data from its 30 member nations to come to some rather telling conclusions, like this one: On average across the OECD, the net public return […]

The best metro areas for off-campus enjoyment.

How suggestible are the nation’s college students? Very: Boston College German studies professor Michael Resler went searching for a way to boost flagging interest in his “German Literature of the High Middle Ages’’ class a few years ago, and settled on the idea of simply giving the course a sexier name. The resulting “Knights, Castles, […]

Overall, college tuition goes up. Only. Endlessly. Even during times of severe and widespread economic insecurity. Ron Lieber of The New York Times devoted his Saturday Your Money column to asking why, which led to an informative interview with Daniel H. Weiss, president of Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. We all know why schools like Harvard […]

On Friday Fox Business’ website ran a piece on options for those looking for a low- or no-tuition college experience: work colleges, work-study programs, and service academies, to name a few. But the part that really caught my eyes was this bit at the end on loan-free schools: Students stressing over post-graduation loan repayment, fear […]

Happy Labor Day, everyone. Here are a couple holiday-relevant items out of Detroit: the faculty strike at Oakland University, which has kept classes from being held since Thursday, appears close to resolution. And Stephen Henderson of The Detroit Free Press, reflecting on labor unrest at OU and among city teachers and workers (the latter of […]