By Colleen Flaherty. If adjuncts want more workplace rights, they have to take them. That message was echoed throughout a discussion on non-tenure-track faculty rights here Monday at the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor, or COCAL, conference. It's being held this week at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. Educators continue to debate "undermatching" -- the idea that many talented low-income students do not even apply to, let alone enroll at, the most competitive institutions to which they could gain admission. In the last two years, many prominent researchers have endorsed the undermatching thesis, which has attracted attention at the White House. But other researchers have published studies that have cast doubt on it. A paper being published today in American Educational Research Journal belongs in that latter group. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. Grade inflation was the subject of scathing articles a decade ago, with educators and others poking fun at elite colleges and universities where merit seemed to have been replaced with a Lake Wobegon attitude that everyone was above average -- well above average in fact. Read more...

By Holly Else for Times Higher Education. A small proportion of European economists have confessed to “acceptance or offering of sex” in exchange for co-authorship or promotion, as well as owning up to fabricating or manipulating data. A survey of about 400 economists, conducted among members of the European Economic Association on an anonymous basis, is analyzed in the article "Scientific Misbehavior in Economics,” currently in press for the journal Research Policy. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. Massive open online courses will return to the University of Wisconsin at Madison next year -- or something that looks like them will, anyway. Having reviewed the results from its first round of MOOCs, the institution will offer new courses that are shorter, cover fewer topics and target Wisconsinites. Read more...

By Michael Stratford. The Obama administration on Friday will formally propose changes to the PLUS loan program that would largely loosen the credit requirements needed to obtain them. The proposal, which was tentatively agreed to by a negotiated rule making panel earlier this year, will clarify in regulation the department’s current practice of considering accounts more than 90 days delinquent as “adverse credit” that generally hurt a person’s chances of getting a loan. Read more...

By Jake New. The Board of Directors that governs the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I member universities voted Thursday to restructure how the institutions govern themselves, granting a greater level of autonomy to the five wealthiest conferences. Read more...

By Jake New. Some National Collegiate Athletic Association rules violate federal antitrust law, a federal judge ruled Friday. Judge Claudia Wilken issued an injunction blocking those rules, which bar the sharing of revenue with athletes, including football and basketball players at the focus of the suit. Read more...

By Paul Fain. Business leaders have been vocal in their criticism of higher education for not producing enough skilled workers. Yet corporate types rarely stand up for public colleges during funding battles in state capitols. That may be changing in Louisiana. A recently enacted law in the state requires colleges and private industry to team up on workforce-related academic programs. Read more...