By Marianne Hudson. We’re all aware of the amazing research and technologies that universities are doing to improve people’s lives. What makes many angels excited is that these new innovations can lead to great companies – if universities can connect with the right startup entrepreneurs.
What is often surprising to learn is how difficult it is for angels and universities to work together to bring these technologies to market. While Google GOOGL +0.74%, started by Stanford graduate students Sergey Brin and Larry Page, is forever connected to the university through licensing agreements, many successful companies such as Facebook, Microsoft MSFT -0.56% and Dell weren’t. Although they were conceived of by college students, they were started after the founders left school. More...

By Claudio Sanchez. It's late afternoon. Most classes at Randolph College are done for the day but students have begun gathering in the lobby of the elegant, century-old main hall.
A student taps on a piano while he and four classmates wait for their philosophy professor. After-hours sessions like these are a key feature of this small, private liberal arts college in Lynchburg, Va.
It markets itself nationally as a "unique, nurturing community of learners," well worth the $45,000 a year in tuition, room and board. More...

By Theodora Kalikow. Gone are the days when students went to college for four years to 'find themselves.'
Here’s an example. In 1994, if we met someone walking down the street talking out loud and looking down at their hand instead of greeting passers-by or watching the traffic, we would have crossed to the other side. Now, they’re probably talking on a cellphone or texting a friend. More...

By Patricia McGuire. In a tale worthy of O.Henry's combs and watch fob, just as colleges and universities across the country have begun to get the hang of good practices in learning outcomes assessment, in large part due to pressure for accountability imposed by the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) on accrediting agencies, USDE has now declared learning outcomes impossible to consider in its framework for establishing ratings on the quality and value of institutions of higher education. More...

The attachment to this letter provides, in a Question and Answer (Q&A) format, guidance to institutions regarding the eligibility of competency-based education programs, which include direct assessment programs, under existing statutory and regulatory requirements for the Title IV, Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (HEA) student assistance programs...
Q13    Since students generally progress in competency-based programs at their own pace, how are the Return of Title IV Funds (R2T4) provisions to be implemented when there are no established start and end dates for competencies?
A13    Because of the self-paced nature of CBE programs, we consider the time when a student is enrolled in a competency to be, for Title IV R2T4 purposes, a module.  We consider a CBE module to have begun when the student began working toward demonstrating mastery of the competency and ending when the student has successfully demonstrated mastery.  An institution must have a mechanism for determining and documenting that a student has begun attendance in a payment period by working toward one or more competencies. More...

By Fabrice Demichel. It’s another sizzling day in Wan Chai.
My technology partner for 10 years, Pierre Boquet, and I recently moved from France to Hong Kong to drive the technology efforts for our company FIRST FINANCE Institute, an enabler of online-based certificate programs for prestigious business schools worldwide, including Tsinghua SEM in Beijing and HEC Paris. More...