By Stephanie Wang. Purdue's 2-year freeze puts pressure on other state schools to hold the line on future increases. The announcement pleased lawmakers as they drafted budgets. It enthused state officials as they set lofty goals to better educate Hoosiers. It excited students and families as they mulled college costs and scholarship offers.
Across Indiana and the nation, many agree that Purdue University’s recent decision to freeze tuition for two years at its main campus can’t be ignored by other schools — even as other state universities, including Indiana University, hint that they won’t exactly follow that lead.
“Everybody seems to want to think, well, Purdue did something, so IU needs to respond,” IU spokesman Mark Land said. “We’re not going to feel like we’re pressured toward anything by anybody else’s actions.”
There are other approaches to college affordability already in place at IU and Ball State University, where on-time graduation is financially rewarded. Read more...

By Encarnacion Pyle. Rising costs reignite questions about the value of a liberal-arts education. The rising cost of college has rekindled the debate about the value of a liberal-arts education, with governors in three states pooh-poohing such degrees as history, literature and philosophy.
But several central Ohio college officials say a liberal-arts education has never been more important as employers complain that graduates lack communication, critical-thinking and problem-solving skills.
“The problems of the 21st century — 9/11, the global economic meltdown, terrorism in Boston are complex and don’t come in neat little boxes,” said Victoria McGillin, the provost of Otterbein University, a private liberal-arts college in Westerville. Read more...

By David Boren. Most Americans have barely noticed a trend that gravely threatens our future. Step by step, public higher education is disappearing across our nation.
Our dominance in higher education is our greatest asset as we compete with other nations. While the U.S. has less than 6 percent of the world's population, most surveys indicate that we have 85 percent to 90 percent of the world's greatest colleges and universities. Students from all over the world flock to America to obtain college degrees.
It is not a coincidence that our greatest period of economic growth came in the 20 years following the end of World War II. Real incomes of ordinary Americans almost doubled. This growth came as the percentage of our population going to college increased 500 percent because the G.I. Bill of Rights provided a free college education for those who served in the war effort. Read more...

By Honah Liles. Is it time for MOOC 2.0? Those behind World Education University (WEU) think so. The free online university opened its virtual doors worldwide on February 1.
Scott Hines, WEU’s chief operating officer, doesn’t mind the comparison to MOOC providers such as Coursera, which he sees as great trail blazers. But he sees WEU as the next step in the evolutionary process of online learning.
“We really take that concept of a cohort-based MOOC and create what we call an on-demand MOOC, which is a self-paced, supported, independent study model,” he says.
Because WEU implements an independent study model, students can enroll, start, and complete courses at any time. Students can also submit transcripts from other institutions, provided they are notarized and translated into english by a third party institution such as the Association of International Credit Evaluators. Read more...

By Caroline Alphonso. After an 18-year run, the University of Regina is shuttering its francophone studies program. The number of graduates: Zero.
Parents may be clamouring to enroll their children in French studies in the early years, but interest appears to wane among university-age students. Post-secondary institutions in many parts of the country have seen a drop off in applicants, and are either shutting down, scaling back or pausing their French programs.
Thomas Chase, the University of Regina’s provost and vice-president academic, said only one student is currently enrolled in the university’s undergraduate French program; three were registered four years ago. Read more...

I love the Amherst faculty’s commitment to educational rather than “edupreneurial” (or edupredatory) values. To be sure, there was the huge issue of institutional mission versus the mission–so far as anyone can figure it out–of these unproven for-profit ventures we call MOOCs:
Some Amherst faculty concerns about edX were specific to Amherst. For instance, faculty asked, are MOOCs, which enroll tens of thousands of students, compatible with Amherst’s mission to provide education in a “purposefully small residential community” and “through close colloquy?”
Then there was the issue of the ill-thought out vision of edX itself, as well as the sheer incompetence on display in edX’s sales approach, compared to the thought that the Amherst faculty had invested. Read more...

By Cathy Davidson. If I had a magic wand and could reverse the neoliberal funding trends depriving public state universities of support, of course I would. 
If I had a magic wand and could make private universities affordable by the best students, not just the richest, of course I would.
If I had a magic wand and could raise the percentage of students worldwide who have access to higher education, of course I would.  To put that wish into perspective, you need to know that, right now, less than 2% of those already pre-selected by excellent test scores in high school to take the college entrance exams are able to attend the technical universities of South Asia.  There are similar depressing statistics for many other countries around the world . . .
If I had a magic wand, I would make community college education available to the 450,000+ students currently waitlisted for such colleges in the state of California.
I do not have a magic wand.  We are facing an education shortfall of epic proportions. Read more...