By Reynaldo Garcia and Scott Ralls. Every week, it seems we read a report or article about the need for the United States to increase the number of students who have degrees or certificates to meet the country’s workforce needs. We in community colleges are doing our part to meet this challenge. Read more...

By Martha Schulman and Gwen Hyman. Let’s face it: no one likes grading student essays, because student essays, in general, aren’t very good. When you’re halfway through a pile of essays that seem rote and devoid of thought, it’s easy to feel your soul shriveling. Read more...

By Abigail Seldin and Kim Cook. Making college not only more affordable but also actually free for everyone has been the subject of much recent debate in Washington, in the national news and on the presidential campaign trail. Read more...

By Charles Lu. “Me? Study abroad? I thought that was for rich white girls who wanted to get drunk in Paris on Daddy’s dime.” That was a response made by a first-generation African-American student at the University of Texas at Austin who was approached about studying abroad. Read more...

By Paula M. Krebs. Much of the student travel at my former institution, a traditional liberal arts college, involved semesters at Oxford, or in Florence, or maybe someplace with easy access to Australian beaches. Read more...

By Scott McLemee. Umberto Eco, who died last week at the age of 84, once defined the polymath as someone “interested in everything, and nothing else.” (Now that’s more like it!) The formulation is paradoxical, or almost: the twist comes from taking “nothing else” to mean “nothing more.” It would be clearer to say that polymaths are “interested in everything, and nothing less,” but also duller. Read more...

By John L. Jackson Jr. Many college seniors have long considered law school an all-purpose next chapter in their lives. Even if they don’t know exactly how they plan to use the degree, they commonly believe that once they figure out what they want to do for a living, the skills picked up along the way to acquiring a J.D. should come in handy. Read more...

By 68 Scholars. On Dec. 24, our valued colleague George Yancy published a piece in The New York Times’s “The Stone” column. Its title was “Dear White America.” It was the culmination of 19 interviews with distinguished thinkers on the subject of race. Read more...

By Mary Rittling. The college completion agenda has stalled. A decade in, a smaller percentage of first-time students are earning a degree or certificate. Read more...

By Colleen Flaherty. Purdue is cutting grad enrollments to boost pay of those it enrolls -- and is pushing professors to teach more intro courses. Will the approach provide focus? Or is it another attack on English that could leave undergrads without enough instructors. Read more...