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Some faculty members are concerned that Bryan College, a Christian institution in Tennessee, is making its required statement of faith so specific in its Biblical literalism that it may be difficult for them to teach there, The Times Free Press reported. Like many Christian colleges, Bryan requires faculty members to sign and abide by a statement of faith, which has said in part that "the origin of man was by fiat of God in the act of creation as related in the Book of Genesis; that he was created in the image of God; that he sinned and thereby incurred physical and spiritual death." That statement of faith has been broad enough that some faculty members have said they can believe in evolution and also sign the statement, arguing that they believe evolution was divinely inspired. Read more...

President Obama on Friday will lay out more details about the education proposals in his budget and also discuss his administration’s efforts to get more students to apply for federal student aid. Read more...

By Katrina Gulliver. I am not your friend; I am not “Miss.”
Is it just me, or are we witnessing an epidemic of familiarity among undergraduates?
They’re all calling me by my first name. Is this happening in your classroom too?
I’m not that much older than a lot of my students, generationally (I’m apparently just on the cusp between being an echo-boomer and a millennial, for those who keep track -- but old enough I don’t think they’re mistaking me for a fellow undergrad). Read more...

By Robert Berdahl, Steven Sample and Raquel M. Rall. For much of the past century, public higher education in the United States has been governed by various forms of state university control. These “systems” and their governing boards define and harmonize the educational interests and needs of their respective states with campus strategic plans, allocate state resources, oversee capital development, and try to buffer institutions from excessive intrusion by politicians and state agencies -- important roles all. Read more...

By Scott Jaschik. Curators at the new art museum at Kennesaw State University had some last-minute work to do before its grand opening Saturday night. They had to quickly pack up an installation -- one the art museum had commissioned -- after university administrators ordered it killed for being insufficiently "celebratory" for the event. Read more...

By Michael Stratford. Of all the criticism leveled at the Obama administration’s plan to rate colleges, perhaps the most widespread critique is that a ratings system will harm disadvantaged students' access to higher education. It’s a theme that permeated the Education Department’s public hearings on the ratings proposal last fall as well as the hundreds of pages of comments officials have received about the plan. Read more...

By Carl Straumsheim. The e-textbook platform Vital Source on Monday acquired CourseSmart, the academic publishing industry’s door to the e-textbook market. The deal could signal a change in the publishers’ attitudes toward digital educational materials. Founded in 2007, CourseSmart was a consortium of five major academic publishers -- Cengage Learning, John Wiley & Sons, Macmillan Higher Education, McGraw-Hill Education and Pearson -- forming a common front in the e-textbook market. Read more...

By Allie Grasgreen. Would a prospective engineer be more likely to pursue an undergraduate education at a liberal arts college if the college could show that there's a clear path to graduate school? What if there were also data showing that employers want to hire people with the skills that liberal arts institutions aim to instill in students, and that liberal arts grads over time earn enviable salaries, especially when they have graduate degrees? Read more...

By Michael Stratford. President Obama’s budget for the 2015 fiscal year will call for extending a tuition tax credit and providing tax relief to student loan borrowers whose debt is forgiven under income-based repayment plans. The White House on Monday night outlined, in broad terms, several of the tax proposals in the president’s budget, which will be released formally today. Read more...