College Educators from across U.S. Take on Ways Online Classes Can Help or Wreck a Student’s Hopes for a Good Education

COLUMBUS, OHIO—Faculty and staff members from colleges and universities across the U.S. met in Ohio over the weekend to address the some of the toughest issues facing student success in America’s higher education system. The rapid drive to move students’ classes from campuses to online and the Gold Rush mentality behind many entrepreneurs pushing the…

The Cold Facts about Higher Education and Contingent Faculty Appointments

This is a re-post from the “On the Issues” blog of the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education [http://futureofhighered.org/on-the-issues/] Although the details are shameful, it’s good to see the mainstream press publicizing the facts about higher education faculty appointments and compensation.  A recent NBC report highlights these facts from the most recent annual survey…

Review of The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities

Reviews of Recent Books Concerning Current Issues in Higher Ed: No. 6 Donoghue, Frank. The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities. New York: Fordham U P, 2008. In this seminal work of the corporatization of American universities, Frank Donoghue offers a much longer historical view than most other authors focusing…

Review of Saving Higher Education: The Integrated, Competency-Based Three-Year Bachelor’s Degree Program

Reviews of Recent Books Concerning Current Issues in Higher Ed: No. 5 Bradley, M. J., R. H. Seidman, and S. R. Painchaud. Saving Higher Edu­cation: The Integrated, Competency-Based Three-Year Bachelor’s Degree Pro­gram. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2012. This book proposes an idea previously treated at some length by Robert Zemsky in his book Making Reform…

Review of Embracing Non-Tenure-Track Faculty: Making Change to Support the New Faculty Majority.

Reviews of Recent Books Concerning Current Issues in Higher Ed: No. 4 Kezar, Adrianna. Embracing Non-Tenure-Track Faculty: Making Change to Support the New Faculty Majority. New York: Routledge, 2012. A faculty member at the University of Southern California, Kezar has written several books on the issues currently confronting higher education. In Embracing Non-Tenure-Track Faculty, she…

American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges.

Reviews of Recent Books Concerning Current Issues in Higher Ed: No. 2 Altbach, Philip G., Patricia J. Gumport, and Robert O. Berdahl, eds. American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges. 3rd Edition. Eds. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins U P, 2011. In selecting the essays included in this collection, the editors…

Remarks on Benjamin Ginsberg’s Fall of the Faculty

Reviews of Recent Books Concerning Current Issues in Higher Education: No. 1 Ginsberg, Benjamin. The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters. New York: Oxford U P, 2011. Ginsberg’s book has very quickly become a seminal work in the growing body of scholarly literature dedicated to higher education’s…

Student Debt, By the Numbers: Part 6: Factors—For-Profit Higher Ed

Sources: National Center for Education Statistics, Bloomberg News, Chronicle of Higher Education, Blumenstyk and Fuller Number of post-secondary institutions newly accredited between 2005 and 2009:  483. Percentage of post-secondary institutions newly accredited between 2005 and 2009 that were private for-profit institutions:  77%. Percentage of total accredited post-secondary institutions in the U.S. that were private for-profit…

Student Debt, By the Numbers: Part 4: Factors—Changes in Student Financial Aid

Source: National Center for Education Statistics Percentage of those enrolled in public four-year institutions who received financial aid in 2009:  79%. Percentage of those enrolled in private not-for-profit four-year institutions who received financial aid in 2009:  87%. Percentage of those enrolled in private for-profit four-year institutions who received financial aid in 2009:  86%. Percent of…