By Michael Stratford. A federal college ratings system has the potential to curb access to higher education for disadvantaged minority and low-income students, several college leaders and student advocates told U.S. Education Department officials on Wednesday. Dozens of students, faculty members, administrators, parents and advocacy groups testified at a daylong hearing at California State University’s Dominguez Hills campus. The event kicked off a series of four public forums that the Education Department is holding this month to solicit feedback on how to develop a federal college ratings system, President Obama's top higher education priority. Read more...

By Elizabeth Redden. It’s no secret that American and British universities dominate the global university rankings, a fact that's prompted the proliferation of regional rankings that delve deeper into the pool of say, just Latin American or just Asian universities. The slicing and dicing of international university rankings has been happening for years, but three new efforts to rank universities in countries that haven’t historically fared well in the international league tables – the Middle East and North Africa region and the so-called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries – have been announced in recent months. Read more...