By Andy Thomason. At first blush, it might seem like an ad for another online university you haven’t heard of. But “Let’s Profit Off Each Other” is, in fact, the slogan of the fictional “For Profit Online University”—the subject of an 11-minute parody infomercial that, according to the blog Splitsider, was created by former writers for The Onion, a satirical website, and has been airing at 4 a.m. recently on the cable-television channel Adult Swim. More...

By Chris Kirkham. Eric Parms enrolled at an Everest College campus in the suburbs of Atlanta in large part because recruiters promised he would have little trouble securing a job.
He'd seen the for-profit school's television commercials touting its sterling rates of job placement, and he'd heard the pledges of admissions staff who assured him that the campus career services office would help him find work in his field.
But after completing a nine-month program in heating and air conditioning repair in the summer of 2011 -- graduating with straight As and $17,000 in student debt -- Parms began to doubt the veracity of the pitch. Career services set him up with a temporary contract position laying electrical wires. After less than two months, he and several other Everest graduates also working on the job were laid off and denied further help finding work, he says. More...

By Karen Weise. With tuition on the rise and student debt now totaling more than $1.2 trillion, it’s no wonder students are increasingly questioning the value of college. Presidents of small schools are claiming a liberal arts degree is vital, and the federal government is trying to figure out how to determine which schools are worthy of its funding. There’s been greater focus on measuring what alumni earn after graduation, and now, Gallup’s getting into the act, saying the value is about more than money. More...

By Karen Seidman. Université Laval says Quebec universities will be forced to slash their operating budgets for a third consecutive year and that the budget cuts are starting to compromise the university’s mission and threaten programs that rely on getting accreditation.
The rector of Université Laval, Denis Brière, called on Higher Education Minister Pierre Duchesne to keep his promise to reinvest in Quebec universities without further cuts.
Brière said universities are being asked to tighten their belts by trimming $123 million in spending, which amounts to $18 million for Laval. More...

By Jonathan Charlton. The U of S English department has joined the chorus of academic voices calling for the end of indigenous-themed mascots.
At a December 11 faculty meeting, the department passed a motion reading, in part, “when prejudicial caricatures of indigenous people have institutional power behind them, this situation compromises the ability of a society to hear and see indigenous people’s self-representations.”
The departments of native studies and educational foundations have already passed similar resolutions, joined most recently by the archeology department. More...