By Ashley A. Smith. Community colleges are learning that getting the authorization to offer four-year degrees doesn't mean the struggle is over.
Twenty-two states allow community colleges to award bachelor's degrees, and many administrators believe that number will grow. Read more...
Crowded Out by Medicaid
By Paul Fain. State tax revenues are up. But the next decade is looking rough, thanks largely to rising Medicaid costs. And public higher education will bear the brunt of tighter state budgets. That's the central finding of a new study from the National Commission on Financing 21st Century Higher Education. The University of Virginia's Miller Center created the nonpartisan commission last year with funding from Lumina Foundation. Read more...
Regulating Job Placement
By Paul Fain. The federal government's gainful-employment standards for vocational programs at colleges kick into effect in three months, assuming two lawsuits filed by the for-profit sector don't block the new rules. Read more...
Change, but How Substantive?
By Carl Straumsheim. Arizona State University has yet to brief its accreditor about plans to award credit through massive open online courses to thousands of students at the same time. While the university is unconcerned, accreditation experts are unsure if federal or regional regulations could derail the initiative. Read more...
MOOCs for (a Year's) Credit
By Carl Straumsheim. Arizona State University, in partnership with edX, this fall will begin to offer credit-bearing massive open online courses at a fraction of the cost of either in-person or traditional online education. Read more...
A Piece of the Online Pie
By Carl Straumsheim. The online “enabler” company Academic Partnerships plans to share tuition revenue with faculty members at partnering universities as the company prepares a major update of its online education platform. Read more...
Get Back to Work
By Carl Straumsheim. It’s a familiar problem to anyone with a deadline and a computer: the assignment is open on the screen, half-finished, but is quickly lost in a stack of web browser tabs. Upon rediscovery (with an accompanying pang of guilt), the procrastinator resolves to buckle down and type out the last few paragraphs -- right after clearing the notification that just popped up and checking just one more website. Read more...
Inside Look at Ratings Plan
By Michael Stratford. The U.S. Department of Education has set aside more than $4 million to develop the Obama administration’s college ratings system, newly released federal documents show. Read more...
Debt Collector Suit Fails
By Michael Stratford. A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education by four student loan debt collection companies that claim the department arbitrarily cut ties with them earlier this year. Read more...
The Anti-Handbook Writing Handbook
By Kaitlin Mulhere. Frank L. Cioffi taught his first college composition course in 1977. Since then, he’s read student writing at elite private colleges and urban public universities. He’s taught Comp 1 and advanced literature. Read more...