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Higher Education Reform/Innovation

Is 'Wal-Mart U.' a Good Bargain for Students? Chronicle of Higher Education June 14, 2010 The retailer has established a landmark alliance that will make a little-known for-profit institution, American Public University, the favored online-education provider to Wal-Mart's 1.4 million workers in the United States.  A closer look at the deal announced this month shows how American Public slashed its prices and adapted its curriculum to snare a corporate client that could transform its business. It also raises one basic question: Is this a good bargain for students?

In Search of Innovators Inside Higher Ed June 4, 2010 Gathered Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, panelists provided a litany of familiar reasons why colleges fall short of graduating students in sufficient numbers and often lack a real plan for dealing with diminishing resources. As is often the case, they suggested that colleges have failed to improve learning outcomes and productivity because they are resistant to change, underfunded and married to a process of shared governance that is at times cripplingly deliberative.

Lumina to Continue With Project Bringing Bologna Process's Lessons to United States Chronicle of Higher Education June 4, 2010 Lumina is moving ahead with a project to delineate what academic degrees, such as bachelor's and master's, represent in actual skills and knowledge. The project grew out of its examination of whether the Bologna Process, Europe's decade-long effort to harmonize degree cycles and university systems, could have lessons for American higher education.  Lumina is still evaluating the results of its look at Europe's changes, but is pleased enough with the initial results that it wants to move on to the next stage.

Leader of Liberal-Education Group Takes Stand Against 3-Year Degrees Chronicle of Higher Education June 3, 2010 "While the pressure to graduate more students at a time of ever-decreasing resources is acute, we do a disservice to individual students and our society if we confer degrees that do not assure that students have learned all they need to know in this very demanding global century," says a statement issued today by Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, who took the position on her own.

A Degree in Three The New York Times - Opinion May 26, 2010 Over the next few weeks more than half a million students will graduate from American colleges with at least four years of campus life behind them.  The assumption that it takes four years to get an undergraduate education - or three to get a law degree, or four to get a medical degree - lies at the center of the American university system.  That assumption needs to change. The college experience may be idyllic, but it's also wasteful and expensive, both for students and institutions. There is simply no reason undergraduate degrees can't be finished in three years, and many reasons they should be.

US: California's online pilot project: brave new world? University World News, U.K. May 23, 2010 Embracing the future at the University of California will undoubtedly bring new challenges when it evaluates the results of a recent decision to develop expanded online undergraduate and distance learning course offerings.  Will they stand up to the system's high standards?  And, if so, will their implementation help to bridge the escalating budgetary funding gap?

Plan B: Skip College New York Times - Week in Review May 16, 2010 The idea that four years of higher education will translate into a better job, higher earnings and a happier life has been pounded into the heads of schoolchildren, parents and educators.  But a small but influential group of economists and educators is pushing another pathway: for some students, no college at all.  It's time, they say, to develop credible alternatives for students unlikely to be successful pursuing a higher degree, or who may not be ready to do so.

College for all? Experts say not necessarily Associated Press May 13, 2010 The notion that a four-year degree is essential for real success is being challenged by a growing number of economists, policy analysts and academics. They say more Americans should consider other options such as technical training or two-year schools, which have been embraced in Europe for decades.  As evidence, experts cite rising student debt, stagnant graduation rates and a struggling job market flooded with overqualified degree-holders. They pose a fundamental question: Do too many students go to college?

Using Data to Drive Performance Inside Higher Ed May 12, 2010 The Action Analytics Symposium, was unusual in several ways.  Chief among the meeting's distinctions was that it was co-sponsored by two institutions of very different types: the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, a 29-institution system of public two-year and four-year colleges, and Capella University, a for-profit online institution that happens to be based in Minneapolis.

FIPSE's Freefall Continues Inside Higher Ed May 4, 2010 In the eyes of some observers, the Obama administration's focus on innovation and improvement makes it all the more surprising that the Education Department is contemplating a plan that would further erode the relevance of a longtime force for innovation within its own walls: the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, which has a nearly-40-year tradition of supporting and expanding creative ideas within higher education.

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