By Catharine Hill. Bloomberg Philanthropies announced this week a new effort to help talented low- and middle-income students enroll in and graduate from top-tier colleges and universities. While every intervention is welcome, this one assumes that a major problem is getting these students to apply to these institutions. In fact, the real problem is that colleges can accept more of these students only by reallocating resources to need-based financial aid. More...

By Peter Schmidt. A federal appeals court has ruled that the First Amendment protected an adjunct instructor’s public complaints about how her employer, an Illinois community college, deals with people in her position. In a decision handed down on Thursday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit unanimously held that the First Amendment precluded Moraine Valley Community College from firing Robin Meade, a part-time business instructor and adjunct-union head, for telling an international organization that her college mistreats adjuncts in ways that hurt students’ education. More...