Will New Transparency Measures Help North Carolina Students?
Whether or not you agree that a college degree is primarily worth its increase in potential earning power, students overwhelmingly rate the economic benefits of a degree as the top…
Shocking: The Chronicle Supports the Case Against College for All
The May 6 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education contains two illuminating and rather unexpected articles: “Should Everyone Go to College?” by Scott Carlson and “When Everyone Goes to College: a Lesson from South Korea” by Karin Fischer. What makes these pieces so interesting is that they say clearly what so many in the higher education community have long been at pains to deny, namely that a country can go overboard on higher education.
In Congress, Higher Education Proposals Fall Flat
Although the bills currently under consideration are unlikely to pass in the immediate future, evaluating them reveals the current areas of federal interest in higher education. These categories can be broadly defined as student aid and access, controlling costs, and political interest.
College Isn’t a Good Learning Environment, Says a Veteran Professor
What is needed is for students and parents to realize that swallowing the education that’s given to them isn’t the best way. They’ll have to change things from the bottom by seeking out schools and online programs where student progress comes first.
Community Colleges in the Spotlight
Lawmakers returned to Raleigh at the end of April to attend this year’s “short session.” On the agenda are adjustments to the state budget and a few policies left unresolved when legislators adjourned last year. Many of those policies focus on community colleges.
Online Education Revolution? College Bubble? Not So Fast.
There are limits to technology’s influence on higher education, just as there are limits to the “disruptive innovation” theory generally. And although some colleges have lived beyond their means in recent years, there are compelling reasons to believe that most of them will find ways to adapt and become solvent. The higher education sector is vibrant, and its resiliency precludes apocalypse.
Clinton’s Higher Education Proposal Only Makes Our Problems Worse
Hillary Clinton’s higher education proposals will not solve the cost and value problems in our higher education system, but will instead make them worse.
Will the UNC System Rise Above Higher Education’s Status Quo?
UNC System leaders are overhauling their 2013 strategic planning initiative. Whether that will result in sound reform ideas, however, is up in the air. North Carolina’s university system is a powerful force in the state—armed with its own lobbying team, almost 50,000 employees, and a $9.5 billion annual budget. It is a machine with a tendency to aggrandize. Curbing its appetite for expansion and self-serving policies won’t be easy.
North Carolina Universities Continue to Value Prestige Over Assessment
What started as a promising step towards a coordinated system of student learning assessment at all 16 UNC campuses now appears to be another lackluster attempt to appease stakeholders, while avoiding concrete data that could spur serious and necessary reform at the campus level.
Blind Faith in College Completion
The American higher education establishment suffers from the same problem as ruling establishments everywhere—the inability to look objectively at itself. Do you think that the members of the old Soviet Politburo ever asked, “Do our five-year plans actually do any good?” Of course not, and members of our higher education establishment are no more inclined to wonder, “Have we oversold college?” Illustrative of the inability of elites to question the basic assumptions of their status is the latest book from William Bowen and Michael McPherson, Lesson Plan.