Here’s how classes work: Holakou Rahmanian turns on his computer early in the morning or late at night. He goes to a website whose address is known only to students, faculty and administrators of his university. Sometimes he's in his pajamas when he logs in. Sometimes, he guesses, his professors are also in their pajamas. In his four years of classes, he has only seen his online teachers' faces once or twice. The bandwidth is saved for their voices and online whiteboards. Rahmanian, 23, completed a degree in computer science last fall and is close to finishing his second major in ... Read More
College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be
May 10, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is often loosely cited to support even looser claims that America is declining. But Gibbon’s observation that in ancient Rome “a cloud of critics, compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning” does resonate with something that's gone wrong in American liberal-arts education. In his telling, Rome’s loss of its republican virtues had left its later writers and orators in “very unequal competition with those bold ancients” who had expressed “their genuine feelings in their native tongue” and, "living under a ... Read More
Can We Make College Cheaper?
April 12, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Critics of American higher education have a set of theories to explain the ever-rising cost of college tuition. Schools are inefficient. They blow too much money on administrators, not enough on academics. The academics they do have spend their time on research, not students. And those students live in an increasingly plush world created by the arms race for prestige rankings: Best medium-sized college in the Midwest! Most wired campus in the country! Top-rated college for would-be aerospace engineers! “These people are going to say, ‘Ah! Colleges, they’ve turned themselves into ... Read More
College Football Wins Lower Guys’ GPA
December 21, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
As the college football season approaches its climax, a just-released set of statistics should give fans of Bowl-bound teams pause. According to three University of Oregon economists, when a university’s football team has a winning season, the grade point average of male students goes down. At least, that was the case at their own school over the course of nine recent seasons. Given that the University of Oregon is “largely representative of other four-year public institutions,” they have no reason to believe the equation won’t apply elsewhere. “Our estimates suggest male ... Read More
If LSU Cuts Football, Academia Can Panic
December 9, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
History professor John V. Lombardi, the president of the Louisiana State University System, inevitably takes a long view when asked about the parlous state of research universities in the United States. “You pick your decade and there will be a whole bunch of books on how things are in crisis,” he observes. “You know: an American university in crisis. You could have an American university in crisis book written every 10 years, and they’ll all say the same thing. You know: ‘we’re coming to a dramatic shift in the way in which universities are operated, and they’ll never be the ... Read More
Despite Bad Marks, For-Profit Colleges Still Passing
December 2, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
It has been a rough stretch in Washington for for-profit higher education. The Obama administration has fought to tighten regulations linking student aid to graduates’ “gainful employment” prospects. Consumer advocacy groups have spotlighted the debt load that often comes unaccompanied by diplomas. Hollister Petraeus, the wife of David Patraeus, has been leading a crusade against for-profit schools that pursue veterans (and their lucrative G.I. benefits). And recently, the Government Accountability Office detailed an undercover investigation in which fictitious students enrolled ... Read More
Innovation Must Get in Line for Academic Funding
October 4, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
“I think researchers are really struggling to survive in a world where resources are really scarce and innovation is not always the highest priority,” says Francine Berman, a computer scientist and vice president for research at upstate New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Speaking as part of Miller-McCune.com’s series of interviews on the challenges facing research universities, she explained that the innovation enterprise requires complex scaffolding, access to a pool of adequately paid graduate students, up-to-date equipment and money for things like travel to professional ... Read More
‘Wither’ the Liberal Arts College?
September 27, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
In Liberal Arts at the Brink, Victor E. Ferrall Jr., former president of Beloit College, bluntly and convincingly argues that liberal arts colleges, from famous leafy schools like Swarthmore and Bowdoin to lesser-known regional schools like Bethel and Hiram, are in trouble. The increasing career orientation of students entering higher education has led many of these schools to add vocational majors such as nursing, education and leisure studies, watering down their historic missions. While listed tuitions remain high, in part to ensure prestige, colleges compete for the few top students, ... Read More
Are Professors Picking the Public’s Pockets?
August 25, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
From his arrival in the U.S. some 25 years ago, Tatsuya Suda deftly cut a path to the upper echelons of academic computer research. Fresh from prestigious Kyoto University, he steadily rose to become a tenured professor at the University of California, Irvine, earning a reputation for dynamic theories in computer networking at the dawn of the cell-phone age. He even wed Grammy-winning singer Rita Coolidge. But along this intellectual course, studded with access to valuable discoveries—Suda was one of the first nanotechnology researchers to explore the idea of using biological molecules ... Read More
Showing Where Community Colleges Pass, Fail
August 25, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Community colleges, the often-overlooked workhorses of America's higher-education system, are finally getting some respect. Sure, many have been forced to cut their budgets due to shortfalls in state revenues. But President Obama has pledged his support to these schools, setting a goal of an additional 5 million students by 2020. Bill Gates' foundation announced a $35 million grant aimed at boosting graduation rates. And NBC is about to premiere the third season of its hit comedy Community, which is set at one of these underappreciated institutions. The official website of that fictional ... Read More
