By Goldie Blumenstyk. A new for-profit education organization, designed to give more academic and financial control to the adjunct instructors who teach its online courses, has just won approval from the state of Vermont to operate. The Vermont State Board of Education’s approval of Oplerno (the company’s name stands for “open learning organization”) means that its courses can qualify for credit at colleges and universities, at the institutions’ discretion. More...

By Peter Schmidt. Top officials of the American Association of University Professors have fended off an election challenge from a slate of candidates who had accused them of being too focused on union organizing.
In an election that represented just the latest in a series of skirmishes over the AAUP’s direction, the incumbent slate prevailed in all four races for the association’s top offices, according to voting results released on Thursday. More...

By Benjamin Mueller. A religious-studies instructor at Missouri State University who invited a former Ku Klux Klan leader to speak to his class two years ago is drawing scrutiny after that same man became the sole suspect in shootings that killed three people at Jewish centers in the Kansas City area on Sunday.
The instructor, David Embree, defended his decision in a statement released on Monday, saying that he wanted to educate his students on white supremacist worldviews. More...

By Karin Fischer. International graduate-student trends appear to have hit a reset. For the second year in a row, applications to American graduate schools from India skyrocketed, while those from prospective Chinese students fell. The findings, from a report released on Thursday by the Council of Graduate Schools, turn the trend line of recent years on its head. For the better part of a decade, Chinese graduate applications—and enrollments—have climbed upward, regularly and robustly. More...

By Alexis Garcia. The idea that you have to go to college in order to be a respectable member of the middle class is "kind of weird" to Glenn Reynolds. The professor of law at the University of Tennessee and purveyor of the popular Instapundit blog, says students and parents are starting to rethink the benefits of higher education compared to the enormous costs associated with it. Reynolds sat down with Reason TV to discuss his latest work,  The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education From Itself.  The book examines the higher education bubble and suggests ways students, parents, and educators can remake the system. More...

By Robert Morse and Diane Tolis. Projects like the U.S. News Best Colleges rankings don't happen overnight. U.S. News works on the college rankings 12 months a year. The most recent step in the process was the release of the three U.S. News statistical surveys – main, financial aid and finance – on March 27. The statistical data collected will be used for the 2015 edition of our college rankings, which will be published later this year. More...

By Robert Morse. A new study from a Washington, D.C.-based higher education association concludes that it's misplaced for the federal college ratings plan, announced last year by President Barack Obama, to try to enhance consumer access and institutional accountability through one tool. More...