quality
January 26, 2011
New OPB Brief on Institutional Autonomy
The economic outlook for state budgets remains bleak and additional steep cuts to public higher education inevitable, making it imperative to re-imagine how institutions can become more efficient and self-sufficient while remaining effective and accountable to the public. For many institutions greater autonomy from the practices and requirements of state government seems attractive, and this…
January 5, 2011
WA Higher Education Task Force Report Released
Last summer, Governor Gregoire created a Higher Education Task force, comprising both public and private leaders, and charged them with proposing a new funding strategy for public higher education, as well as new ideas for increasing institutional accountability. The Task Force released its report yesterday, January 3rd, recommending three major reforms to higher education policy…
December 17, 2010
Why Does College Cost So Much?
We’ve previously mentioned the new book Why Does College Cost So Much? by two economists from the College of William and Mary, Robert Archibald and David Feldman. The authors have made a compelling argument that increasing higher education costs are not the result of institutional dysfunction, but of broader economic forces. Read our summary of…
November 2, 2010
APLU Releases Regional Meetings Report
In advance of the 123rd annual meeting in Dallas on November 14, The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) has released the final report resulting from five regional meetings to discuss key concerns about the future of public research universities, one of which took place at UW Seattle on April 26, 2010. The report,…
October 27, 2010
Berkeley Report Provides Roadmap for ‘Smart Growth’ in Higher Ed
John Aubrey Douglass of UC Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education has issued a new report on the current status of higher education, and potential paths for growth and change into the future. In Re-Imagining California Higher Education, Douglass argues that the existing model for higher education in California (here representative of higher education…
October 4, 2010
Under Federal Fire, For-Profit Colleges Point Finger at Publics
As a result of recent federal scrutiny, the for-profit higher education industry and its supporters have begun to turn their protests toward the unfairness of singling out the for-profit companies while ignoring traditional higher education’s non-profit institutions, particularly public community colleges and four year institutions. Congressional scrutiny of for-profit education companies comes at the same…
Senator Tom Harkin and the HELP Committee Continue to Investigate For-Profit Colleges
The atmosphere was tense on the morning of September 30th as attendees, many of them proponents of the for-profit higher education sector, overflowed into a second room to witness a hearing held by the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions (HELP). The hearing, The Federal Investment in For-Profit Education: Are Students Succeeding,…
September 29, 2010
NRC Releases Long Awaited Doctoral Program Rankings
After five years, $4 million and a lot of effort across many institutions, the National Research Council has released an update to their 1995 assessment of doctoral programs. A Data-Based Assessment of Research-Doctorate Program in the United States analyzes 2005-06 academic year data collected from over 5,000 doctoral programs at over 200 universities. The NRC…
September 24, 2010
National Academies Continue to Sound Alarm Bell on Competitiveness of Research U’s
The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine have sponsored an update to their consequential 2005 report entitled Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future. The latest version is called Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5, and can be…
September 22, 2010
Recent Reports Highlight Value of College Education
How can we tell if college is worth the cost? The economic crisis has some questioning the cost-benefit ratio for post-secondary education, claiming that higher education may be a bubble on the verge of bursting, and that the payoff might not be worth the cost. However, two in-depth reports released this summer presented ample evidence…
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