International
The ‘bona fide’ crisis in US universities that’s coming to the UK | With American staff living in poverty and students in ‘outlandish’ debt, ‘Dr Karen’ is touring UK campuses with a simple message: it could happen to you.
Government should not cut funding for improving teaching | Any savings from the anticipated loss of the Office for Learning and Teaching are insignificant. The complete abdication by the federal government, however, from any real interest — through funding, leadership or strategic engagement — in learning and teaching in higher education will be a significant and deeply disappointing decision.
U.S. National
Outcomes-Based Funding in Higher Education: Unintended Negative Impacts on Low-Income and Underprepared Students | Earlier this week, the Community College Research Center (CCRC) announced the forthcoming release of a new book, Performance Funding for Higher Education, in October 2016.
White House Adding $100M Program to Tuition-free Community College Push | The White House will roll out a $100 million program to strengthen tuition-free community college programs across the United States early this summer, White House officials said on Monday.
Report: Last affordable options for college students are fast disappearing | The converging trends of falling state investment, rising tuition and stagnant incomes have finally pushed higher education out of the grasp of low- and middle-income Americans, even at community colleges, a new report contends.
U.S. States
Rauner, Madigan both blink on higher education money | Facing heat from rank-and-file members to do something before a weeklong break for Passover, Madigan held a vote Friday on a measure to spend $600 million to keep universities afloat through the summer, including cash-strapped Chicago State University on the Far South Side. Rauner plans to sign the bill into law as early as Monday.
Ohio colleges spending more to get students they want | As colleges large and small compete fiercely for freshmen, a nice brochure doesn’t cut it anymore.
Baker-Polito unveil plan to make higher education more affordable | Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito announced Thursday a bipartisan plan to increase the affordability of higher education and encourage degree completion, according to a Thursday press release.
Short-term state funding won’t fix Illinois’ systemic higher-education | Gov. Bruce Rauner has signed a law authorizing $600 million in state funding for Illinois’ universities and community colleges, including $170 million for tuition grants to low-income students. The appropriation is enough to keep higher education running through the fall. But it won’t do anything to stem Illinois’ long-term higher-education crisis.
Nearly dead last: Pa. ranked 49th in college affordability study | Pennsylvania is ranking nearly dead last in a new report examining college affordability across the nation.
Institutional
Provost Pins Hopes on a One-Stop Academic-Support Strategy | When Thomas A. Sudkamp learned that Wright State University planned to build a new classroom building, he suggested going one step further. Instead of simply expanding lecture space, said Mr. Sudkamp — who was then associate provost for undergraduate education and is now university provost — why not create a center to house all the key academic services offered to students?
Institutional Effectiveness Professionals: The Special Ops of Higher Education | Figuratively speaking, Institutional Effectiveness Professionals (IEP’s) are the special operators or “A-Team” of higher education. It is their knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) that allow them to carry out their assigned missions to develop strategy, analysis, policy, and procedures that work together to affect change at the nation’s HBCUs.
Private universities should stop wealth-hoarding and share | Our criticism of these large donations to the tax-exempt University of Chicago, which has a $7.5 billion endowment, are undoubtedly sour grapes: We teach at institutions of higher education experiencing endless belt-tightening and wage losses, and which, like most public colleges and universities, have no big donors on the horizon.
The Call to Nationalize Private University Endowments | Crain’s Chicago Business published a fascinating, head-scratching and troubling opinion piece recently by two professors from the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northeastern Illinois University critical of the “wealth hoarding” of large private research institutions.
Students Vent Frustrations as Yale Leaves a Slavery Champion’s Name Intact | Yale University’s decision on Wednesday to keep the name of John C. Calhoun, a vocal supporter of slavery, on a residential college touched off a widespread, passionate reaction on a campus that has been roiled by racial tension for much of the academic year.