Higher Ed 2016
Overview
Higher Ed 2016
Accelerating Innovation: New Ideas for Colleges & Newsrooms
EWA’s Annual Higher Education Seminar
What new techniques and practices should higher education embrace to ensure that more students graduate? Join the Education Writers Association September 16–17 at Arizona State University to explore cutting-edge innovations that aim to address financial, academic, and social barriers. More on the seminar theme.
This annual seminar is one of the largest gatherings of journalists covering postsecondary education. Network with others covering this beat and step up your coverage for the upcoming academic year.
Big Data Is Coming to Colleges. Are Students’ Grades and Privacy Safe?
A college degree may be the golden ticket to a better job, but that incentive alone isn’t enough to stop millions of students from dropping out of school. In fact, just over half of students complete their postsecondary degrees within six years.
Competency-Based Education: More Interest and More Analysis
Scrap the lecture halls, final exams, degree plans and traditional semesters.
‘Ban the Box,’ Campus Carry and More Higher Ed Story Ideas for Reporters
As has become tradition at EWA’s higher education conferences, Inside Higher Ed Co-founder and Editor Scott Jaschik offered a series of story ideas for reporters to pursue this academic year.
Innovation
What does the term “innovation” mean in regard to higher education, and should journalists take colleges’ definitions at face value?
First in the Family: What Works for First-Generation College Students
“A bad attitude is like a bad tire: You can’t go anywhere until you change it,” Arizona State University sophomore Ricardo Nieland told a roomful of journalists gathered on the campus for a seminar on innovation in higher education earlier this month.
Nieland was speaking on a panel about college students who are among the first generation of family members to pursue a degree. The session addressed the struggles many of these young adults encounter in higher education.
College Completion Failures Must Be Tackled in Tandem With Costs, Report Says
Two numbers haunt the college landscape: $1.3 trillion and 40 percent.
The first is the ever-increasing debt Americans are shouldering to pay off the cost of a degree. But a growing chorus of experts believes that extraordinary sum obscures another crisis: For many, those debts wouldn’t be as devastating had they earned a degree. But only 40 percent of Americans complete a bachelor’s degree in four years.
The upshot is that millions of Americans earning meager wages are on the hook for thousands of dollars with almost nothing to show for it.
Innovation and the Future of Higher Education
Higher Ed 2016
In many industries, innovation is the engine that pushes businesses toward success, but colleges and universities haven’t changed much in centuries. What are some universities doing to change the academic experience for students and break down the barriers between departments, for example, making courses in science and engineering more attractive to more students? And how can students use these experiences to solve real-world problems?
Analyze This: Using Data to Improve Student Success
Higher Ed 2016
More colleges and universities are using information about students’ backgrounds and past experiences to stop bad academic habits before they begin. It’s called predictive analytics, and its potential has higher-education reformers excited. By looking at trends among students with similar characteristics, some colleges have steered students toward positive behaviors like declaring a major early, meeting with mentors, or going online to look at homework material. But data-privacy experts and skeptics say data breaches and unclear intentions could color this fast-moving trend.
Command Performance: Outcomes-Based Funding and Student Success
Higher Ed 2016
A majority of states have created some type of performance-based model that provides public colleges and universities with extra dollars for showing better results, like graduating more students. To some, these policies force colleges to make sure they are getting the most out of taxpayers’ dollars. To critics, the outcomes-based approach encourages administrators to enroll fewer low-income or first-generation students, as those pupils are less likely to graduate and might hurt the school’s finances. What does the evidence show about these arguments?
Top 10 Higher Ed Stories You Should Be Covering This Year
Higher Ed 2016
From the presidential election to racial tensions on college campuses, recent developments could change the nature of higher education for years to come. Inside Higher Ed Co-Founder and Editor Scott Jaschik shares his insights on these two topics, along with other topics journalists should track this fall.
Borrowing Trouble? Income Share Agreements, Loan Forgiveness & Refinancing
Higher Ed 2016
Few news articles about student financial aid omit the staggering fact that total student loan debt for former college-goers stands at $1.3 trillion. While the U.S. Department of Education has aggressively enrolled more borrowers into repayment plans that are based on how much they earn, millions of people remain either in default or near it. As a result, several efforts — both private and public — have emerged to potentially help students manage their college loans.
What Reporters Need to Know About Competency-Based Education
Higher Ed 2016
For years, advocates of competency-based education — awarding students college credits based on the skills and knowledge they demonstrate rather than the time spent in a classroom — have argued that the approach will enable more students to earn degrees and make college more affordable. But will this approach to education, which some say has largely centered on skills development, undermine colleges’ commitments to providing students with a broader base of knowledge?
First in the Family: What Works for First-Generation College Students
Higher Ed 2016
For students who are the first in their families to attend college, navigating higher education can be particularly challenging, in part because they can’t turn to their families for guidance from experience. But some programs are starting to work with families before students even apply to college, offering information and support to help the students succeed once they enroll. How might such programs, in addition to other ways of supporting first-generation students, help them better adapt to college?
Building Better Stories: Ideas for Covering Innovation
Higher Ed 2016
In this workshop led by veteran higher education reporters, journalists brainstorm story ideas and share their reporting tips and advice with one another.
Hiring More Black and Latino Professors: ‘You Have to Want to Do That’
ASU President Michael Crow with his thoughts on faculty diversity
Why aren’t there more black and Latino college professors at elite institutions?
Understanding the Student Loan-Debt Picture
“There’s a lot of talk about the student debt crisis and I’m going to tell you that I don’t think there really is a student debt crisis,” said Debbie Cochrane, vice president at The Institute for College Access and Success. “What there are are multiple student debt crises.”
Higher Ed 2016: Program
September 16–17, 2016 • Tempe, Arizona
Please check the online agenda for any future changes to the program.
Higher Ed 2016: Agenda
September 16–17, 2016 • Tempe, Arizona
Friday, September 16
Innovation and the Future of Higher Education
1:00 – 2:15 p.m.
Information for Higher Ed 2016 Attendees
Addresses, Hours & Logistics
Registration & Badge Pick Up
Friday – Saturday
Opens at 11:30 a.m. on Friday and 8:30 a.m. on Saturday.
Memorial Union
301 East Orange Street
Badges are required to attend all seminar events and meals.
Session Location
Memorial Union
301 East Orange Street
Higher Ed 2016 Theme
Accelerating Innovation: New Ideas for Colleges & Newsrooms
What new techniques and practices should higher education embrace to ensure that more students graduate? Join the Education Writers Association September 16-17 at Arizona State University to explore cutting-edge innovations that aim to address financial, academic, and social barriers.