International
Can Sexual Predators Be Good Scholars? | Arendt’s vision of artistic retribution is comforting. If literature or scholarship reflected its author’s moral failings, brutality would contravene brilliance: Wrongdoing would amount to its own punishment. We would never have to confront the galling affront of a beautiful thought birthed by a hideous thinker.
Dirty Old Men on the Faculty | I’ve often wondered if there are more sexual predators in academia than in other environments. Where else is there an unending procession — renewed annually — of enticingly attractive young men and women, often unsure of themselves and eager to be in your good graces?
How the UK HE sector functions as a market, and why it warrants analysis | Last Friday, we at the National Audit Office published our report The Higher Education Market. This study examined how the higher education sector functions as a market, and the extent to which this supports the government’s objectives. So why did we approach the study this way?
Higher education funding divide grows across Europe | Only 14 systems had higher funding in 2016 than in 2008 and eight of those have a faster growth in student populations compared to the increase in funding. Nineteen systems still had lower levels of direct public funding than at the time of the financial crisis.
U.S. National
Baby Steps on ‘Unit Records’ in House | A bipartisan bill introduced this summer would direct the National Center for Education Statistics, the Education Department’s research arm, to connect existing data maintained by several agencies for purposes of tracking, on a program-by-program level, issues such as graduates’ employment prospects, earnings and typical student debt loads.
U.S. States
After five years and $100 million, Idaho remains far from its ’60 percent goal’ | daho has committed more than $100 million since 2013 to turn high school graduates into college students…But the money isn’t doing the one thing it was supposed to do.
Narrowing the Terms of Tenure | It’s hard to build faculty consensus on anything, but professors across Arkansas and colleagues elsewhere are speaking out against proposed changes to the University of Arkansas System’s personnel policies — changes they say would make them tenured or working toward tenure in name only.
Price of college keeps rising | Idaho’s college sticker price remains one of the lowest in the nation. On average, only five states charge a lower in-state tuition. However, not all the numbers are as encouraging. This fall, the average fees at Idaho’s four-year colleges and universities came to $7,078 — up 34 percent since 2010-11.
Community Colleges are Lowering the Cost of Education | The open-access concept sets New Jersey’s community colleges apart from traditional four-year institutions. The only qualification for admission is a high school diploma or G.E.D.
Institutional
Some USU students pay more— Is it worth it? | The topic of differential tuition has faced increased scrutiny on campus over the last month since the student-run newspaper, The Utah Statesman, reported that an advisory board — tasked with recommending ways differential tuition be used in the Huntsman School — never actually met.
Northern Illinois University freezes tuition for 4th straight year | The Northern Illinois University Board of Trustees voted Thursday to freeze tuition and lower fees for the 2018-19 school year. Tuition at the university has remained the same since the 2015-16 school year.
Oberlin’s Enrollment Headache Lingers | In June of this year, he wrote that Oberlin’s budget for 2017-18 had been dealt “an unexpected blow” because the incoming class would be smaller than expected and fewer students were returning for the upcoming academic year. Oberlin faced a deficit of approximately $5 million, even though it had already reduced budgets across the institution for the upcoming year, Canavan said in an email to faculty and staff that The Oberlin Review published in September.
FAMU’s New President Accused of Defamation for “Hot Mic” Remarks | In Cotton’s complaint, he asserts that President Robinson and Trustee Dortch “did defame and slander me through words delivered over public radio, as their comments were inadvertently picked up on a ‘live mic’ following my presentation to the FAMU Board of Trustees on Wednesday, November 29, 2017.” Cotton contends in the complaint that the hot mic conversation stemmed from efforts by Dortch and two other board members – Robert Moody and Chairman Kelvin Lawson—to retaliate against him for refusing to hire or grant contracts to their friends and business associates.