By Andrea Watson. The extensive marketing that some for-profit colleges use to woo prospective students and the intense criticism voiced by some Democratic politicians have largely dominated the national discussion about the college sector. A new survey from Public Agenda seeks to insert a set of missing voices into the dialogue -- those of students and alumni -- and their assessment is mixed. Read more...

By Doug Lederman. Everywhere you look, politicians are asserting that the public and taxpayers are questioning the value of higher education – and that their disappointment stems primarily from the fact that increasingly pricey college degrees aren’t leading to jobs. Governors in states such as Florida and North Carolina have asserted that their investments in higher education should be focused like a laser on degrees that lead directly to jobs. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. The College Board is releasing data today showing sustained growth over the last decade in the number of students taking Advanced Placement exams, with more than 1 million members of the high school class of 2013 taking AP exams.
That's nearly double the 514,000 from the class of 2003. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. Few educational theories have taken off as quickly in recent years as that of "undermatching." The idea is that many academically talented, low-income students who could succeed at top colleges are not applying to, enrolling in or graduating from them. Research on the topic has attracted widespread attention not only from colleges but from the White House, where administration officials have urged higher education leaders to do more on the issue. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. Cornell University and the University of Texas at Austin may have trumpeted their partnerships with -- and pledged millions to -- the massive open online course provider edX, but to no avail: Their students don't seem to understand why.
“A year after UT began rolling out nine Massive Online Open Courses, the results are in,” The Daily Texan wrote in a Jan. 29 editorial, which appears to have been inspired by a recent article in The Texas Tribune. Among the “results” are completion rates ranging from 1 to 13 percent, the lack of credit granting courses and the $150,000 to $300,000 production costs. Read more...

By Michael Stratford. The last time the Higher Education Act came up for a vote in Congress in 2008, Senator Lamar Alexander trotted out a five-foot stack of cartons onto the Senate floor to show the enormity of existing regulations governing higher education. Now that lawmakers are once again contemplating how to rewrite that massive piece of legislation -- which authorizes, among other things, the $150 billion-a-year federal student aid program -- Alexander is returning to his props. Read more...

By Allie Grasgreen. Young Invincibles, the political advocacy group that has been helping students and other people under 35 enroll in health care programs under the Affordable Care Act before the March 31 deadline, has more than 100 events planned around the country Saturday as part of National Youth Enrollment Day. The events are, in part, an effort to make up some of the ground that was lost due to debilitating malfunctions on the federal enrollment website, HealthCare.gov. Read more...