By Joshua Kim. The world of educational publishing is completely fascinating. What other industry faces more pressure to change in this world of print-to-digital than textbook publishers? How will the leadership of the large education publishing companies pull off this transition? What role will publishing play in how higher ed evolves in an age of information abundance? My method for answer these and other questions is to try to get to know the people that work in publishing. I like these people. In some near parallel universe I work for an educational publisher, and they work for a university. We share a common set of values, a shared vocabulary, and often the strong feeling that the status quo can no longer hold. One of the most insightful leaders in the world of educational publishing is William Rieders, Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer for Cengage Learning. We first met William when I interviewed him for a piece about his transition from the consulting to the publishing world. Read more...

By Doug Lederman. With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to rule (again) on the constitutionality of considering race in college admissions, higher education leaders have been in virtual lockstep -- through legal briefs filed by scores of groups and associations, newspaper op-eds by individual presidents, and the like -- in asserting that curtailing affirmative action would hurt the quality of the education students receive.
"The diversity we seek and the future of the nation do require that colleges and universities continue to be able to reach out and make a conscious effort to build healthy and diverse learning environments that are appropriate for their missions," the board of the American Council on Education, the country's main association of college presidents, asserted in a resolution related to the case last year. "The success of higher education and the strength of our democracy depend on it." A report of the survey's results can be downloaded here. Read more...

By Ian Wilhelm. When the philanthropist Salah Khalil proposed starting a magazine to cover Arab higher education, he knew it would have to negotiate political obstacles in a region where governments tightly watch scholarly work. Just how quickly that would happen, however, he didn't expect. On Wednesday, Mr. Khalil canceled a higher-education conference that was to launch the new online publication because of concerns about academic freedom in the United Arab Emirates, where the event was to be held this weekend.
That step came less than a week after a similar move by the London School of Economics and Political Science, which canceled a conference it had planned in Dubai after Emirati authorities requested that a presentation on Bahrain, which is facing political upheaval, be dropped from the program. A scholar on Arab politics from the London institution who was to speak at the event was briefly detained at the Dubai airport and barred from entering the country. The new magazine, called Al Fanar, "is committed to strong coverage of academic freedom, and we truly believe academic freedom is an essential condition for excellence in universities around the Arab world," said Mr. Khalil. "We can't talk about upholding academic freedom and launch in Dubai. I don't think it sends the right message." Read more...

By Ann Schnoebelen. Findings released on Wednesday by the Milken Institute corroborate a view many in higher education have found themselves defending in recent years: A college education pays. In a report titled “A Matter of Degrees: The Effect of Educational Attainment on Regional Economic Prosperity,” the nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank says its research proves “the strong relationship between educational attainment and a region’s economic performance.”
The report associates education with increases in real gross domestic product per capita and real wages, linking the addition of one year in a worker’s average years of schooling to a 10.5-percent rise in a region’s real GDP per capita and a 8.4-percent rise in the region’s real wages. The regional jumps in GDP and wages grow even larger—to 17.4 percent and 17.8 percent, respectively—when applied to workers who already hold at least a high-school diploma. Read more...

By Ann Schnoebelen. Findings released on Wednesday by the Milken Institute corroborate a view many in higher education have found themselves defending in recent years: A college education pays. In a report titled “A Matter of Degrees: The Effect of Educational Attainment on Regional Economic Prosperity,” the nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank says its research proves “the strong relationship between educational attainment and a region’s economic performance.”
The report associates education with increases in real gross domestic product per capita and real wages, linking the addition of one year in a worker’s average years of schooling to a 10.5-percent rise in a region’s real GDP per capita and a 8.4-percent rise in the region’s real wages. The regional jumps in GDP and wages grow even larger—to 17.4 percent and 17.8 percent, respectively—when applied to workers who already hold at least a high-school diploma. Read more...