Category: Higher Education/System

One in five American households now owes money on student loans – more than double the percentage of households and nearly triple the average amount of college debt of two decades ago.

Now here?s something to cheer about: Bucky Badger just ranked in the Top 10. We?re not talking about the football team (obviously). Nor does this have anything to do with binge drinking (thank goodness). U.S. News & World Report just released its annual list of “Best Colleges,” with UW-Madison highlighted as the 10th-best public university. Among all 281 national universities with doctoral programs, UW ranked 41st, behind only Northwestern and the University of Michigan among Big Ten schools. Not bad.

The accolades come at a time when the university and its many students and faculty are challenged by state aid cuts, rising tuition and increasing emphasis on technology….The magazine just provided plenty of reasons for prospective students to want to be Badgers. And the high scores should reassure all of Wisconsin that the state’s flagship university remains strong.

You can?t plan for everything, and increasingly it seems like the one thing you don?t plan for will undermine your public university presidency.

The University of Wisconsin increased in rank throughout the past year, moving up in line as one of ?America?s Best Colleges? in the eyes of U.S. News and World Report.

Love them or loathe them, U.S. News & World Report on Wednesday unveiled its annual rankings of ?America?s Best Colleges.? UW-Madison inched up one spot from a year ago and is tied for 41st in a ranking of 281 national doctoral universities.

Love them or loathe them, U.S. News & World Report on Wednesday unveiled its annual rankings of ?America?s Best Colleges.? UW-Madison inched up one spot from a year ago and is tied for 41st in a ranking of 281 national doctoral universities. Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, Columbia University and the University of Chicago took the top spots in this year?s rankings. Northwestern University (No. 12) and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (No. 29) were the only Big Ten Conference schools ranked higher than UW-Madison.

For decades it?s been a familiar pattern in Wisconsin?s public schools: Young teachers get a few years of experience, then start pursuing their master?s degrees.

But in the new landscape shaped by legislation that rolled back collective bargaining in early 2011, Wisconsin school districts no longer have to pay teachers extra money for such degrees, a move that?s disrupting a pipeline of enrollment into graduate schools of education and causing those institutions to refine their offerings.

Students don?t seem to want to buy e-textbooks. So some schools are simply forcing them.

When Appleton resident Kristen Kasperek enrolled at Carroll University in Waukesha, the freshman nursing student knew she would be buying scrubs, a stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff.

(CBS/AP) COLLEGE STATION, Texas – A gunman and a law enforcement officer were among three people killed Monday in a shooting near the Texas A&M University campus, police said. A male civilian also was killed, while two other officers and a woman were injured in the shooting in College Station, said Bryan Police Department spokesman Jon Agnew. Bryan police are assisting nearby College Station in the investigation.

(CNN) – A Texas constable and two others were killed Monday in a shooting near Texas A&M University, police said. Rhonda Seaton, a spokeswoman with the College Station police department, told CNN that the three people killed were the constable, the man authorities say exchanged gunfire with law enforcement officers and an unidentified civilian. A few minutes earlier, Asst. Chief Scott McCollum, from the same police department, told reporters that multiple people had been shot in the incident, which occurred around noon just a few blocks from the Texas A&M campus.

University of Iowa officials insist a new contract with Anheuser-Busch will help cut problem drinking, but researchers suggest such agreements are likely to have little positive impact on drinking habits.

Scientists-in-the-making in research university graduate programs are growing less and less likely to want tenure-track jobs, and even when they do want an academic job, many of them might be more inclined toward teaching than research. These findings are part of the ?Longitudinal Study of Future Stem Scholars,? by Mark R. Connolly, an associate scientist at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

What is it about a great lecture that leads to learning? I attended the University of Wisconsin as an undergraduate between 1968 and 1972 where I experienced the power of two great lecturers. I attended the lectures of two very different history professors, Harvey Goldberg and George Mosse. I don?t remember much detail all these years later. But I do remember my intellectual and emotional response. They inspired me in three ways. [This was written by Arthur Camins, director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J.]

Helicopter parents, impatient trustees, overworked professors, entitled athletics boosters and deeply partisan lawmakers with little cash to spare. It?s enough to make people wonder why anyone would want the job of college president.

Although the soap opera that unfolded at the University of Virginia over the past few weeks was must-see drama for those with close ties to the school and for many within academia, the brouhaha between the institution?s president and governing board generally failed to catch the attention of the public. But perhaps it should, several members of the UW-Madison faculty told me in recent conversations and email exchanges.

The tumult at the University of Virginia ? with the sudden ouster of President Teresa Sullivan on June 10, and the widespread anticipation that she will be reinstated on Tuesday ? reflects a low-grade panic now spreading through much of public higher education.

The nation?s public flagship universities in recent months have seen a remarkable exodus of presidents ? some by choice, most not ? revealing a sometimes fractious relationship between campus leaders and the governing boards they answer to.