Formation Continue du Supérieur

By Bill Destler. Some day, I am going to write a book in which I will discuss the laws that govern academia in America, and one of them will be: "U.S. higher education is widely regarded as the best in the world, which is why so many people want to change it." There is real truth in this statement. Even though hundreds of thousands of international students come to the U.S. each year to pursue college degrees here, often at enormous personal sacrifice, American higher education is increasingly under attack by politicians and the media. More...

By Nataliya Rymer. As the immigration reform debate endures in the House of Representatives, leaders in higher education are continuing their call for improvements to the nation’s immigration system. Most recently, presidents of 28 Catholic and Jesuit colleges and universities united in a fast for immigration reform on Ash Wednesday (March 5, 2014). In doing so, they joined the “Fast for Families” movement, which reignited the immigration debate last fall when the movement’s leaders, supported by many members of Congress and The President, fasted for twenty-two days on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Students have not been far behind in the campaign to reform the nation’s immigration system. More...

By Chris Wilson. Forget March Madness. We're scoring schools by the prominence of their alumni. For the next three weeks, many American universities will be measured up exclusively by the strength of their basketball programs. But for those less impressed by “a group of pituitary cases trying to stuff a ball down a hoop,” as one Annie Hall player once put it, TIME has devised an alternate way to score schools: by the influence of their alumni. To start, we rounded up the 107,408 living people whose Wikipedia profiles list at least one alma mater in the U.S., and scored each according to the length and breadth of his or her page on the site—the bigger the number, the greater the influence (more on that below). More...

The total per credit cost for in-county students at Harford Community College was increased last week to $124.80, which translates to $374.40 for a single three-credit class. It's hardly a king's ransom. College officials are also quick to point out that it is a bargain relative to the cost of attending even a Maryland college system facility as an in-state student. Still, as has been noted before, the latest round of increases (to fees rather than tuition, a distinction that's meaningful only to hair-splitters) follows several other increases in recent years. Read more...

By Sophie Quinton. As more students see the two-year schools as a step toward a four-year degree, California tries to smooth the way.
"I think this is one of the most important issues that we have," National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling said ahead of a White House higher-education and social-mobility event last month. More...

By Josh Freedman. Last week, the University of California got downgraded. Not in the U.S. News or other college rankings, where six of its campuses rank in the top 15 public colleges in the United States; nor in College Prowler’s list of schools with the most attractive men on campus (where flagship UC-Berkeley clocks in at a measly number 1185). Rather, the UC system has been downgraded in the credit markets: ratings agency Moody’s lowered the UC system’s general revenue bonds from Aa1 to Aa2. People like to talk about student debt – read, for example, my five part series on the topic. More...

By Kathy Fuller. A bill signed into law Tuesday at Portland Community College’s Rock Creek campus by Gov. John Kitzhaber could have far-reaching effects for a number of Oregon students, for community colleges around the state and for businesses looking to hire skilled workers.
Senate Bill 1524 directs the state Higher Education Coordinating Commission — an advisory group to the Oregon Education Investment Board, the Legislature and the governor — to look at the viability of making community college free to students who graduate from high school. More...

By Ben Ho and Sita Slavov. Much has been made recently of the rising cost of attending a four-year college. House Speaker John Boehner has decried the fact that “during the 1980s, the cost of attending college rose more than three times as fast as the typical family income,” and that “[t]his trend of rapidly-increasing college costs continued unfettered through the 1990s.” President Obama has threatened colleges and universities with funding cuts unless they clamp down on tuition increases. More...

By Betty Lochner. The rising cost of college is unduly influencing our nation’s future.
A new survey from UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute indicated that the percentage of college freshmen attending their first-choice school has reached its lowest level in almost 40 years, primarily due to rising costs and limited availability of financial aid. The cost of a college degree has increased more than 1,120 percent in the past 30 years — far outpacing the price inflation of consumer goods, medical expenses and food. More...

By Richard (RJ) Eskow. Social progress is never a straightforward, linear process. Sometimes society struggles to recognize moral questions that in retrospect should have seemed obvious. Then, in a historical moment, something crystallizes. Slavery, civil rights, women's rights, marriage equality: each of these moral challenges arose in the national conscience before becoming the subject of a fight for justice (some of which have yet to be won). More...