Higher Education
College Access & Admissions
Covering Americans’ access to college is nothing less than covering the American Dream.
Getting into college opens the door to more knowledge and skills, of course, but also better jobs and other advantages, including a longer, healthier life.
College Affordability
America’s higher-education system passed a milestone a few years ago that university officials would probably prefer no one noticed: Annual tuition plus room and board at some private institutions overtook the median household income. Going to a selective college, for the first time, cost more than the average family earns in a year.
College Completion
“Right now, three-quarters of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma,” President Obama said in a February 2009 address to a joint session of Congress.“And yet, just over half of our citizens have that level of education, and half of the students who begin college never finish.” With those remarks, the president put the issue of college completion front and center on the national stage.Calling the situation a “prescri
College Rankings & Ratings
There are more than 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States, ranging from open-enrollment community colleges to highly selective Ivy League institutions, from colleges with historical missions to educate the underserved to universities exploring the cutting edge of online education.
So—which college is the best in the nation?
Community College
When President Obama proposed the American Graduation Initiative during a July 2009 speech at Macomb Community College in Warren, Mich., he brought “unprecedented” attention to community colleges, institutions that in some ways had previously been overlook
Faculty & Staff
Imagine a “professor.” For many, the idea evokes images of a well-compensated, full-time scholar with the academic freedom, job security and prestige associated with tenure. Now think again, but this time envision a Ph.D. who spends hours a day commuting between the two or three colleges at which he’s taken on course assignments, in an attempt to make a living. The pay is low, the job security is non-existent and a full-time position is a kind of pipe dream – let alone the possibility of tenure.
Federal Policy & Reform
The federal government provides billions of dollars in student aid and tax breaks to the nation’s colleges and universities each year, and it demands remarkably little in return.
For-Profit Universities
For-profit colleges and universities are a growing presence in American higher education. The sector accounted for an estimated 13 percent of all U.S. college students in 2009—up from 5 percent in 2001—as well as an outsize share of the federal financial-aid dollars that help students cover the cost of higher education. For instance, nearly 25 percent of Pell Grant funds—need-based awards that the federal government provides to students from low-income families—go to students of for-profit schools.
Higher Education Finance
Higher education is not just big business: It is huge business. If you add up all the revenues colleges get – tuition, government subsidies, ancillary operations, etc. – higher education took in nearly $500 billion in 2009-10, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education. But despite the magnitude of money that flows into colleges and universities, these institutions have faced considerable financial pressure in recent years as states have cut funding for higher education.
Higher Education Reform
At a 1979 meeting of The University of Texas Arts and Sciences Foundation in San Antonio, Peter Flawn, then-president of UT-Austin, railed against what he dubbed the “widget theory” of education. The notion, he said, is “that a college or university is a manufacturing enterprise that produces products called academic degrees in basically the same way as a company such as Universal Widgets Inc. produces widgets.” He went on to forecast “that the struggle for excellence in higher education over the next decades will be a struggle against the widget theory in higher education and against those who knowingly or unknowingly espouse it.”
Online Higher Ed
There’s an online-learning boom going on in higher education. The focus is on a relatively new model that promises to teach tens of thousands of students at a time for free, with a mix of short Web videos and automatically graded (or peer-graded) assignments. These new offerings are called massive open online courses, or MOOCs.
Presidents & Trustees
When its governing board abruptly dismissed the president of the University of Virginia in 2012, the flagship state university quickly became the focus of national attention. The decision—prompted by board complaints that the president had not moved fast enough to address the university’s challenges—embroiled the board, faculty, and president in two weeks of public confrontations. It also prompted a board member’s resignation before ultimately culminating in the president’s reinstatement.
Sexual Assault & Title IX
Stories about campus crime and safety always attract interest, but these issues also are often difficult to summarize simply. That’s especially true with sexual assault, a subject that has been highly visible in recent headlines. Prominent universities like Yale, the University of North Carolina and Notre Dame have been the subject of investigations by the Department of Education; the alleged involvement of football players in sexual assaults has intensified the spotlight on incidents at Vanderbilt University, the U.S. Naval Academy, Florida State University and the University of Montana.