15 février 2015

President Obama said Friday that the popularity of 529 college savings accounts made him abandon a proposal to end the tax benefits of those accounts just days after first proposing it. "It wasn’t worth it for us to eliminate it," he said during remarks at Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana. Read more...

New data released by the National Science Foundation show that research and development spending by universities -- from all sources -- edged up slightly, to $67.2 billion in 2013. When adjusted for inflation, that reflects an increase of less than half of a percent. Read more...

University of California at Berkeley is “faced once again with the threat of political interference in academic affairs,” its chancellor, Nicholas Dirks, wrote Friday in the university’s student newspaper. Dirks (photo at right) took exception to California Governor Jerry Brown’s contention that the state’s flagship university has closed its doors to “normal” people. Read more...

It's become fashionable among some pundits and politicians to question the economic value of the bachelor's degree. But the latest unemployment figures, which show good hiring trends across the board, suggest to Bloomberg Business that there is one possible labor market problem for bachelor's degree holders: there may not be enough of them. Read more...

Just in time for tax season, hackers are escalating their efforts to impersonate the Internal Revenue Service in attempts to defraud taxpayers, the Research and Education Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or REN-ISAC, warned on Monday. In an advisory, the organization warned I.T. executives and business officers to watch for suspicious e-mails and phone calls from people claiming to represent the I.R.S. and to protect personal information. Read more...

An investment banking and consulting firm focused on education, Tyton Partners, is issuing a report today that attempts to create a framework for measuring "evidence of learning." The research, which the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded, seeks to take a holistic approach to defining the "body of knowledge, skills and experience" people achieve in both formal and informal activities throughout their lifetime. Read more...

The Competency-Based Education Network (C-BEN) announced Monday that it has added 15 new college members. The Lumina-funded group now features 30 institutions and 4 public college systems, all of which either offer competency-based degrees or are creating them. Read more...

The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities on Friday filed a motion calling for a judge to issue a ruling without a trial on the for-profit trade group's legal challenge to the U.S. Department of Education's gainful employment rules. Read more...

A booking agency that represents musician Jack White has reportedly blacklisted the University of Oklahoma after the student paper printed excerpts of White's contract ahead of a concert there last week. The Oklahoma Daily wrote two articles after obtaining the contract through the state's open records law. One article highlighted White's $80,000 fee while another, snarkier article detailed his tour rider, a document that included stipulations for a steak dinner, "aged salami with a sharp knife" and "FRESH HOME-MADE GUACAMOLE" for the band ("we want it chunky"). Read more...

By Nate Kreuter. A soft job market and regular assaults on public funding for higher education have characterized my entire academic career. If my own experiences are in any way typical, it’s not much of a speculation to say that the financial pressures exerted upon higher education have significantly hurt morale among faculty at many of our universities. Read more...