By Richard D. Kahlenberg. The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice released a letter to college and university presidents on Friday about the legality of affirmative action. It suggests that the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2013 decision in Fisher v. University of Texas simply reaffirmed the Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger—a reading at odds with those of many higher-education lawyers. More...
By Megan O'Neil. Washington — The budget impasse that brought nonessential operations of the federal government to a halt on Tuesday also had a major impact on Web sites used by many educators, researchers, and students. The shutdown, which triggered furloughs for approximately 800,000 federal workers and the closing of offices, research labs, and national parks across the country, is expected to affect colleges, students, and academic scientists only minimally at first. Read more...
By Steve Kolowich. Khan Academy, the nonprofit organization that offers free tutorials on the Web, has introduced a new feature that lets users track their progress toward “mastering” various mathematics concepts. The Web site, a popular resource for students and teachers at many levels of education, uses data analysis to track students’ understanding. The new dashboard is supposed to give students access to more information about what they know, and what they do not, based on how they perform on various exercises. A user—a journalist, say—might log in to the Khan Academy home page, take a brief diagnostic “pretest,” and find out that of the 46 math concepts touched on in that test, he has demonstrated “mastery” of two. Read more...
By . Moody’s Investors Service on Tuesday downgraded Howard University’s credit rating, citing several financial challenges at the historically black institution, including revenue and enrollment declines and “weak” fund raising. Moody’s assigned $290-million in revenue bonds issued for Howard a rating of Baa1, down from A3, indicating that the agency considers them to be a moderate credit risk, according to The Washington Post. The agency began its review in July, after tensions arose regarding the university’s financial health. Read more...
By Don Troop. Yale University has announced a $250-million gift, the largest in the institution’s history. The money, from the mutual-fund billionaire Charles B. Johnson, will support the construction of two new residential colleges at Yale, according to a news release from the university. More...
By Elisabeth Ponsot. When Hugo Nicolas was 11 years old and living in Veracruz, Mexico, his parents sold their possessions and told him they were leaving.
After nearly two days of walking through mountains and desert, he crossed the border into the United States with his mother. The pair met up with his father who had crossed earlier, and the family settled in Salem, Ore. More...
By Greg St. Martin. Northeastern University President Joseph E. Aoun told a group of higher education writers from around the country on Friday night that there is one fundamental change facing colleges and universities today. This “tsunami,” as he described it, is not technology. Instead, it’s the dramatic shift in student demographics. See more...
By Libby A. Nelson. WHAT THE SHUTDOWN MEANS FOR EDUCATION: A shutdown of the federal government now seems all but certain if Congress doesn’t come to an 11th-hour agreement today. And it will hit the Education Department hard. About 90 percent of the department’s 4,225 employees will be immediately furloughed, and most won’t come back until the funding crisis is resolved, even if the shutdown lasts longer than a week. But many schools and colleges won’t feel an immediate effect if the funding crisis is resolved quickly. Federal dollars will continue to flow to both K-12 and higher education. A longer shutdown, though, could lead to a big paperwork backlog and problems for schools, colleges and students that receive federal funds. More...
By Jonathan Thon. In light of the present circumstances, I thought I would interrupt my ongoing series on federal funding of basic research in Canada and take the opportunity this week to update you on the current status of science funding in the United States amid another looming fiscal showdown. The 2014 fiscal year in the U.S. begins Oct. 1 and requires Congress to pass a spending bill to allow federal agencies to remain open. Later this month, on Oct. 17, Congress will be required to pass another bill increasing the American government’s $16.7-trillion debt ceiling to avoid default. More...
The Boston Globe. To the legions of students who have been tutored and molded and prodded toward a top college most of their young lives, it would be an absurd question: How many of you had to explain to your parents what MIT is?
When a dean asked a Massachusetts Institute of Technology classroom full of 20-odd freshmen recently in their first few days away from home — at one of the most famous colleges in the world — almost every hand went up. Then, they laughed. And someone cracked a math joke. More...
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