By Matt Reed. The twentieth century gave “re-education camps” a bad name.
(I can’t imagine anyone quoting that out of context…)
But short-term college programs for people who already have bachelor’s degrees (or higher) are looking like the new hot ticket for community colleges and for-profit providers. Read more...

By Matt Reed. No, this isn’t about Greece. 
In response to yesterday’s post, which was tangentially related to a Center for Teaching Excellence, an occasional correspondent wrote to wonder why CTE’s and similar centers with different names often choose to ignore Education faculty on their own campuses. Read more...

By Matt Reed. Maybe political theorists just have a certain way of thinking. That might explain it.
Betsy Barre, the Assistant Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Rice (and a fellow political theorist by training), fired off a set of tweets this weekend that made a lot of sense to me. Read more...

By Matt Reed. Jeff Selingo has a good piece about the importance of “tolerance for ambiguity” as an employment skill. He situates it in the context of his early days in journalism, when an editor basically dropped him off in a small town and told him to find, and write, a story by five o’clock. Read more...

By Matt Reed. Between getting older and having a teenage son, I’m gaining a new perspective on trends. The Boy complained yesterday about a meme that “has been around forever -- it’s two months old, at least!” I’ve had library books longer than that. Read more...

By Matt Reed. Yesterday’s post, co-written with Susanna Williams, got some unexpected and very welcome backup from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The post was a response to a piece by Harry Holzer, of AIR, arguing that community colleges are preventing students from succeeding. Read more...

By Matt Reed. The Oregon House and Senate have approved a bill co-sponsored by Rep. Mark Johnson, Republican from Hood River, and Sen. Mark Hass, Democrat from Beaverton, to waive most tuition at Oregon community colleges for many students. Read more...

By Joshua Kim. “The illusory university pretends that all professors are guided by a shared sense of educational excellence specific to their institution”. 
From Kevin Carey’s NYTimes Upshot piece - The Fundamental Way That Universities Are an Illusion. Read more...

By Joshua Kim. I mostly read nonfiction. The 8 books that I’m recommending below are the fiction books that I’ve read so far this summer. Read more...

By Joshua Kim. Dr. Jonathan Rees is a professor of history at Colorado State University Pueblo. He writes the widely read More or Less Bunk blog, and is the author of the upcoming book Refrigerator, part of the Object Lessons series from The Atlantic. Jonathan’s book Refrigerator Nation, will also soon be released in paperback. Read more...