A typical day for college freshman Yoel Ferdman might include a class held at a local coffee shop, an afternoon trip to the opera and an ethnic dinner cooked with fellow students.
Ferdman, 17, is a member of the founding class at Minerva Schools at Keck Graduate Institute. It’s a four-year, accredited undergraduate degree program aimed at teaching students critical thinking, creativity and communication skills. More...

By Derek Newton. Economists predict that colleges will soon become "unbundled" by the Internet. But that won't—and shouldn't—happen.
One of these entrepreneurs is Martin Smith, who wrote an essay last July for Quartz titled "What universities have in common with record labels". More...

By Tim Goral. When it comes to criticism, higher education tends to look for how we can make the smallest possible adjustments in our thinking to mollify our critics. I think that’s absolutely wrong in terms of how to respond. It’s a much bigger issue that requires us to rethink what we’re doing. More...

By Jennifer Polk. I also think a very important step is to be honest with yourself regarding what you can and cannot do. This also means being humble to one’s weaknesses and deficiencies. If it means having to take a few online classes to be qualified for a position, do it. I still have to take classes to get my teaching licensure. I could be angry about having to do more school after 15 years of it, but I see it as an opportunity to learn. And as a former scientist with a PhD, learning is easy, so long as I humble myself to it. More...

By Melonie Fullick. Late last year you may have seen an article circulating in which linguist Steven Pinker, Harvard professor and author of books such as The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works, expended 5,500 words on the topic of academic writing and its many flaws. Pinker’s piece, subtly titled “Why Academics Stink at Writing” (there’s a summary here), is particularly critical of the dense, complex language that he argues is characteristic of academic prose – including writing produced by star scholars. More...