Aug 28 Community college district tries full slate of innovations, all at once By Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report Rio Salado Community College doesn’t look much like a typical higher-education institution and it doesn’t act like one, either. With just 23 full-time faculty it serves more than 60,000 students, a disproportionate number of whom are low-income and attend part-time… Continue reading
Aug 27 Still little consensus on role of massive, online courses in higher education By Kyla Calvert Mason, WGBH News Massive, open, online courses could be reshaping the typical college classroom. Tonight, PBS NewsHour Weekend Anchor Hari Sreenivasan looks at how in the third story in his Rethinking College series. Continue reading
Aug 27 Twitter Chat: Is a college degree worth the cost? By Nora Daly Even with a degree, many college graduates struggle to find work in the current economic climate. As tuition continues to rise, student debt appears to be a growing problem. All this raises the question- is a college degree worth the… Continue reading
Aug 27 The White House plans to rate your college — here’s what you need to know By Kyla Calvert Mason This fall the Obama administration will unveil their proposed formula for the federal college rating system. Continue reading
Aug 27 New degree program is big test for MOOC-style higher ed By Timothy Pratt, The Hechinger Report Advocates of online higher education hope this first-ever attempt by an elite institution to offer an entire computer-science graduate program in a MOOC-style format will prove the value of so-called massively open online courses. Continue reading
Aug 27 How lacrosse, China and adjuncts are changing higher ed By Scott Jaschik and Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed Higher education is facing great pressure to change -- both in the administrative offices and in the classrooms. Here are five less-visible developments on college campuses -- with implications big and small for students and their families. Continue reading
Aug 26 Colleges warm up to tuition freezes to keep students in-state By Kyla Calvert Mason As the recession squeezed state budgets, the Obama administration made college affordability one of its signature issues, often pointing out that while average tuition at public universities rose 300 percent in the last 30 years, the average family’s income rose… Continue reading
Aug 25 Competing college rankings take different views of what matters By Kirk Carapezza, WGBH The country’s best known college rankings are probably those published every year by U.S. News and World Report. While the rankings sell magazines and advertising, their influence is often criticized as pushing colleges to drive up admissions criteria and drive… Continue reading
Aug 25 Colleges adjust to new reality that more students juggle work, family By Kyla Calvert Mason Marshall University in West Virginia is seeing a national trend up-close, Between 2000 and 2011, the number of people 25 and older enrolled in college increased 41 percent. At Marshall, nearly 20 percent of students are over 25. The campus… Continue reading
Aug 25 How to educate Americans for jobs? Ask the Germans, employers urge By Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report U.S. colleges are importing the German model of career and technical education to keep up with a demand they can’t fill for skilled, mid-level American workers. Continue reading