International
OECD: Research funding cuts threaten global innovation | A decline in government funding of science and technology research in some countries – including four of the world’s 10 biggest economies – could pose a threat to innovation at a time when global challenges such as climate change and ageing populations demand solutions, according to a new Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, report.
Make contextual offers ‘on school type, not family income’ | Universities should favour pupils from badly performing schools over those from poor backgrounds if they want to guarantee recruiting the most academically successful students, a groundbreaking study suggests.
Universities are experiencing an unbundling revolution | Interestingly, this was predicted a while back, in a 1981 article, titled “The Dismantling of Higher Education”, by law professor William KS Wang in Improving College and University Teaching. In the article, Wang discusses five primary services performed by traditional universities – imparting information, counselling, credentialing, coercion and club membership – and how they are currently performed… and how they might be replaced.
We don’t have students any more – just customers | With the globalisation and deregulation of trade, governments are increasingly susceptible to the influence of powerful commercial interests. Organisations such as the OECD, the World Bank and the EU mediate this influence and thereby exercise in direct control over national higher education systems.
Affirmative action works in HE admissions – just look at India | We tracked academic performance using results from externally administered exams and found affirmative action substantially increased college attendance among targeted students, and allowed those students to move up the college quality ladder – gains that came at the quantifiable expense of upper-caste men.
How to fix higher education: Do the numbers and rewards follow | [T]he Australian Chamber, Australia’s largest business advocacy network, is launching our refreshed higher education policy, which outlines nine principles that should guide Australia’s approach to funding the sector. The solutions that flow from these principles would be practical and sustainable.
Entry grades ‘heavily influence’ future earnings, analysis finds | The Department for Education recently published the latest batch of figures from its Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) project, which links individual education and tax records. In a major development, the latest publication included figures on earnings for law graduates at 76 English universities. The DfE plans to develop earnings figures by institution for all courses and to include the data as a metric in the teaching excellence framework.
U.S. National
Big Data, Big Challenges | The rise of big data has been a tremendous boon to researchers, but it has also revealed shortcomings in how higher education collects and analyzes data and judges the impact of research on human subjects.
Older college students face completion crisis | Many students, young and older, are looking for learning options which can help them to make more money, but are often unprepared for the rigor and workload required to complete credentialing or degree programs.
Field of Dreams: Public Higher Education in the United States | For Judt, a public research university in the heartland perfectly evoked the United States’s unique experiment in what Christopher Lasch called “the democratization of intelligence.” Only Americans would build a research library next to a cornfield, because only Americans would design a single institution devoted to technical training, the advancement of knowledge, and liberal education.
OFFICE HOURS: One Academic Life By H.N. Hirsch, PhD Explores the Crisis in Higher Education | Professor H.N. Hirsch of Oberlin College’s passionate and insightful memoir, OFFICE HOURS: One Academic Life, is a thought-provoking reflection on academia during a time when the crisis in higher education has never been more acute.
U.S. States
Investing in higher education vital for Ohio | At a time when northwest Ohio is adding jobs and businesses are investing again in the Greater Toledo region, we need to think more about our future work force. We simply do not have enough workers with college degrees to meet work force needs.
Survey: College affordability a big problem | A new survey confirms what many Californians have long suspected. The state’s public higher education system get high marks, but most see affordability as a big problem.
More parents funding college education contributes to income and wealth gap | More parents today are financially supporting — and paying more — for their children’s college education, but that development also might be exacerbating economic inequality, according to a new study by a University of Kansas professor.
Study: Community college affordability crisis puts workforce at risk | Executives at community colleges confront many of the same issues faced by four-year institutions, because the predominant number of their students face cost concerns on scale with their tuition and fee price points.
North Carolina Legislators Cut Governor’s Power to Appoint Campus Trustees | Mr. McCrory signed the bill into law on Friday afternoon. Until now the governor has had the authority to appoint four trustees to the boards of each of the 16 institutions of higher education in the system. The new law instead gives the General Assembly that power.
Institutional
Think Tank Trouble? | In November, the University of South Florida decided to shutter a five-year-old think tank focused on global civil society and conflict, a tacit admission that the venture had been unable to find its voice or a sustainable financial base despite receiving millions in grant funding.
* What ‘Grit’ Means for College Educators | One of the hot topics on campuses this year is “grit,” which University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth understands as a fusion of passion, aspiration, tenacity and resilience that launches people to success. Her important new book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, challenges educators and institutions to see and strengthen this mind-set in our students. Yet some critics have taken issue with Duckworth, arguing that grit is too hard to isolate and measure, or too weak for broad impact in the face of structural barriers like generational poverty.
* Looking for Low-Income Students | A new effort to enroll low- and moderate-income undergraduates at colleges and universities with high graduation rates is being announced today in an attempt to have more students from modest backgrounds graduate from prestigious campuses seen as opening doors to top careers.
Survey: Career Services of Greater Benefit to Minority Students | Graduates who visited the career services office as undergraduates are more likely to be employed full time for an employer or for themselves — at a rate of 67 percent versus 59 percent among those who did not visit career services, according to a new survey released Tuesday.
Educator Warns of Pitfalls of Training to Workforce Needs | At a time when calls to align higher education with workforce needs are ubiquitous, Tuajuanda Jordan — president at St. Mary’s College of Maryland — bucked the trend Wednesday and questioned the merits of “training for the immediately apparent and educating for an uncertain future.”
Faculty Gather to Share Insight Into Academic Assessment | The BMCC Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Analytics presented Academic Assessment Day on Tuesday, December 13 in the Fiterman Conference Center… Discussions throughout the day focused on how departments across the college have developed and implemented assessment tools, and used them to improve student outcomes. Other topics of discussion included BMCC’s Academic Program Review (APR) process and the meaningful assessment of student learning.
Some small colleges are finding clever ways to stay open | Moody’s, a credit-ratings agency, said in 2015 that the pace of closures and mergers will accelerate and could triple from an average of five per year over the next few years. Dennis Gephardt of Moody’s says closures and mergers will be concentrated among the smallest colleges.
* “Grit,” like academic preparedness or college readiness, will serve as another post-hoc analysis to explain the differences between success and failure in higher education for low-income students. Here is an easy measurement: how much of a low-income student’s tuition is directed to the higher education of the low income student? The noblest recruitment efforts often exist to subsidize the higher education of the less-needy students who receive unfunded, full-tuition scholarships for Honors Programs at the same universities: The Honors of Inequality, Part II.