By Allan Metcalf. What’s wrong with American education nowadays?
Take your pick. You can lament lack of support for the humanities, or lack of student interest in science. If you’re concerned about the latter, you have a word for it. An acronym, actually: STEM. It stands for those areas of underinterest to students: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. More...
By Ian Wilhelm. In a new ranking of higher-education systems in 50 countries, the United States tops the list but falls drastically when its level of economic development is factored in. The annual ranking, by Universitas 21, an international group of universities, is based on measurements that include government spending, level of internationalization, and scientific output. More...
By . Higher One Holdings Inc., a major provider of campus-based debit cards and other financial services, this week disclosed in a corporate filing that it is facing penalties from the Federal Reserve that could trigger default on a loan. More...
By Eric Hoover. Anyone in the mood for colorful renderings of the big business built around the college-admissions process should read the lawsuit filed last week against the Common Application in a federal court in Oregon. The nonprofit group behind the ever-growing online application, a competitor asserts, “has orchestrated a sea change in the student-application process, turning a once vibrant, diverse, and highly competitive market into a straitjacketed ward of uniformity.” More...
By Steve Kolowich. Dedoose, a cloud-based application for managing research data, suffered a “devastating” technical failure last week that caused academics across the country to lose large amounts of research work, some of which may be gone for good. Read more...
By Steve Kolowich. The disclaimer on Santa Clara University’s new mobile app strikes an ominous tone:
“In no event will we be liable for any loss or damage arising out of, or in connection with, the use of this website/app.”
Then again the Ethical Decision Making app, developed by the university’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, aims for more-consequential uses than, say, Fruit Ninja or Angry Birds. Read more...
By Steve Kolowich. A big fish in the education-media world has been swallowed by an even bigger fish. CourseSmart, a major provider of electronic textbook content, has been acquired by the Ingram Content Group, a media company that supplies books and music to thousands of retailers across the world. CourseSmart was created in 2007 by the “big five” textbook companies as an online marketplace for their digital content. Read more...
By Jonah Newman. It’s no secret that in more than 40 states the highest-paid public employee isn’t the governor or even a university president. It’s a public-college football or basketball coach. Coaches’ salaries are well documented and are often cited in comparisons with the salaries of student-athletes ($0) or with professors and college presidents (considerably higher). More...
By Goldie Blumenstyk. Student groups, veterans organizations, and others who want the federal government to put more teeth into its newest proposed “gainful employment” regulation are launching a visible lobbying and public-relations effort over the measure this week. There’s a Twitter campaign set for Wednesday—complete with its own hashtag, #studentsdemand—and a Capitol Hill news conference on Thursday featuring students at for-profit colleges and several U.S. senators. More...
By Eric Kelderman. In recent months, higher-education news coverage across the country has focused on the increased share of public-college costs being shifted from state governments to students. The prevailing story line goes like this: States have “disinvested” in higher education during the past quarter-century, “cutting” money for public colleges and forcing institutions to raise tuition to cover the loss of tax dollars. As a result, many of the stories proclaim, students are neck-deep, or worse, in student-loan debt, which is hampering the economy and perhaps even forcing them to borrow more money for other purchases. The first part of this narrative isn’t untrue, according to the figures reported annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers. More...
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