By Andy Thomason. The U.S. Education Department has agreed not to take legal action against former students of the defunct Corinthian Colleges who have defaulted on their student loans, Reuters reports. The department also won’t attempt to collect the debt owed by former Corinthian students for 120 days. Last month the department announced a plan through which it would allow former Corinthian students to apply to have their debt forgiven. More...
Education Dept. Dismisses Asian-American Groups’ Bias Complaint Against Harvard
By Andy Thomason. The U.S. Department of Education has dismissed a complaint against Harvard University that asserted it had discriminated against Asian-American students in undergraduate admissions. Bloomberg News reports the complaint was dismissed in June because a similar lawsuit is being considered by a federal court. More...
For-Profit Group Will Appeal Decision Upholding Gainful-Employment Rule
By Andy Thomason. The main trade association of for-profit colleges will appeal a ruling that upholds the U.S. Education Department’s gainful-employment rule, the group announced in a news release on Thursday. Steve Gunderson, president of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, said in the release that the rule is “arbitrary and capricious and in violation of federal law.” More...
Here Are the Colleges Where Tuition Has Risen the Fastest
By Andy Thomason. The U.S. Department of Education is out with its annual list of colleges whose tuition and net price have risen the fastest in recent years. More...
Steven Salaita Says He Has a New Job, in Lebanon
By Andy Thomason. Steven G. Salaita, the professor whose job offer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was revoked after his anti-Israel tweets drew criticism, has a new job. Mr. Salaita announced on Twitter he will be chair of American studies at the American University of Beirut, in Lebanon. More...
How One Professor’s Tweets Got Her Fired — or So It Seemed at First
By Andy Thomason. Cue rumors that Ms. Robinson, an assistant professor of sociology, had been fired for statements she made on Twitter about whiteness and the Confederate flag. Conservative websites were abuzz on Tuesday with articles quoting from the sociologist’s Twitter account. More...
How a New Report May Hasten the End of Racial Preferences in Admissions
By Richard D. Kahlenberg. With the U.S. Supreme Court set to rehear the Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin case challenging affirmative action in the coming term, the results of an important new survey released Tuesday by the American Council on Education may unwittingly undercut the arguments of supporters of race-conscious admissions. More...
The Feast Is Still Moveable
By Karen Sullivan. In 1950, Ernest Hemingway reportedly told his friend A.E. Hotchner, "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."
Years later, when I was 19, those words spoke to me, as they did to many young Americans. On the surface, Hemingway and I were opposites. More...
This ‘Extra Credit’ Question Does No Credit to Fairness
By Jay Sterling Silver. A recent exam question by a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, who presented his students with the opportunity to raise their grades if the class acted altruistically, has gone viral, revealing — although no one seemed to see it — the delicate balance between incorporating life lessons into exams and the legitimate assessment of performance. More...
The Ex-Pimp Who Remade Black Culture
By Justin Gifford. My search for the story of Robert (Iceberg Slim) Beck — the pimp turned African-American writer of bestselling paperbacks — began long before I knew his name. I grew up in a white working-class area of Seattle back in the days before Microsoft and Starbucks changed everything. More...