reform
October 7, 2014
Kaplan’s New “Open College” May Not Be a Bargain for All Students
On Monday, Kaplan University launched “Open College” which is intended to help adult students earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Professional Studies by offering credit for a combination of competency-based course assessments, experiential learning, and external exams (AP, IB, CLEP, DSSTs, etc.). Open College will include free online courses and mentoring to help prospective…
July 11, 2014
AASCU Releases Latest State Outlook
On Thursday, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) released its most State Outlook. According to the report, state operating support for public four-year colleges and universities is 3.6 percent higher for FY 2015 than it was for FY 2014. Of the 49 states that have passed a budget thus far, support for…
March 3, 2014
“Pay It Forward” Is really “Pay It Yourself and Pay More Than Ever”
On Thursday, The Equity Line, a blog by The Education Trust, posted a critique of Pay It Forward (PIF) that discusses some of PIF’s major flaws. As a reminder, under PIF, instead of paying tuition and fees upfront, students would pay back a certain percent of their adjusted gross income for 25 years. For more…
December 10, 2013
Research Suggests MOOCs Primarily Serve the Well-Educated
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania recently surveyed students who had taken at least one of Penn’s twenty-four MOOCs and viewed at least one online video lecture. Findings from the responses of 34,779 students revealed that 80 percent of the MOOC-takers already had a 2- or 4-year degree and that 44 percent already had some graduate…
September 9, 2013
Oregon Passes Bill to Implement “Pay Forward, Pay Back” Pilot Program
(This piece was originally posted on 07/11/2013, however it was lost due to technical issues and is therefore re-posted here.) Last week, the Oregon legislature passed a bill that, if signed by the governor, will implement a pilot program to study the effects and feasibility of substituting upfront tuition payments with income-based, post-graduation payments. For 24 years after…
August 29, 2013
Obama Releases College Affordability Plan
Last week, President Obama toured several colleges and universities promoting his plans to make college more accessible and affordable for “middle class” students. As he noted during several stops, achieving a higher education remains one of the most critical means by which citizens achieve job security and financial stability. For more detailed information about the central…
August 9, 2013
Critique of “For Public College, the Best Tuition Is No Tuition”
In “For Public College, the Best Tuition Is No Tuition,” a recent opinion piece published by The Chronicle, the author describes the merits of Finland’s no-tuition education system. In Finland, “all education became public and free” during the 1960s as part of a multipronged strategy to reform and improve education. The other prongs of the…
May 18, 2012
New OPB Brief on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
Today, with public financing for higher education eroding, tuition on the rise, and little growth in household income, the idea that technology can and must revolutionize higher education has once again taken strong hold. Recent start-ups, Coursera and Udacity, founded by Stanford faculty members, and a joint MIT/Harvard venture called edX have the country talking…
May 4, 2012
“Did Anyone Ask the Students?” A Student’s Response
Jeff Selingo’s recent blog post on the Chronicle of Higher Education website summarizes conversations he had with students at six higher education institutions about majors, job skills, and online learning. His findings were somewhat surprising and ran counter to many current trends in higher education. First, he learned that students, while completely immersed in the…
April 25, 2012
Report Promotes Autonomy for UC Campuses
The Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) at UC Berkeley has released a new report calling for a modernization of the UC system’s governance structure. Today, the UC system is run as one university with multiple campuses, and most decisions are made by a single, system-wide Board of Regents. The Center contends that the…
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