Category: Higher Education/System

After taking over as Yale University?s dean of undergraduate admissions five years ago, Jeffrey Brenzel studied a lot of institutional data. He learned that Yale, which enrolls 1,300 freshmen annually, was sending about 120,000 viewbooks each year to high-school students who had inquired about the university, or whose names the admissions office had purchased from testing companies and other sources.

With some regularity, the mainstream press seems to love to scare would-be college students and parents with stories about how one may be more likely to be hit by lightning than win admission to an Ivy university or a prominent flagship. True?

The latest Open Doors report on international student mobility is out. It shows that foreign students are still attracted to U.S. colleges of all types. The biggest destination is the University of Southern California, with around 8,000 international students. There are large enrollments in community colleges like Houston?s — more than 6,000 — and in specialized colleges like the Savannah College of Art and Design, which has over 1,000.

The number of U.S. students earning college credit abroad dipped in 2008-09, the first decline in the 22 years since the data have been tracked, a State Department-funded report out today shows. The dip is mostly due to the recession.

If any of the 70 undergraduates in Prof. Bill White?s ?Organizational Behavior? course here at Northwestern University are late for class, or not paying attention, he will know without having to scan the lecture hall.

When Li Zhou visited Washington last month, he didn?t take in the sights. He stuffed envelopes, hundreds of them, addressed to college-admissions directors across the country.

Leaders of land-grant universities see a slight brightening in their institutions? immediate economic situations — but increasingly recognize that they must make structural changes to accommodate fundamental, long-term shifts in their funding models.

Worries that the worldwide economic downturn would trigger a slip in international education should be largely alleviated by this year?s “Open Doors” report, which shows that during the peak of the recession, international student enrollment continued to rise and — for the first time in the report?s history — the total number of U.S. students who studied abroad declined slightly.

Thirty presidents of private colleges each earned more than $1 million in total compensation in 2008, up from 23 the previous year, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education?s annual salary report.

Eight of 10 public high school juniors in Illinois weren?t considered ready for college classes in all subjects based on ACT testing last spring ? and many students missed the mark even at posh suburban Chicago schools that graduate some of the state?s brightest kids.

A new website will serve as a gateway to 70 online degree and certificate programs offered by the University of Wisconsin System. Prior to the creation of the site – ecampus.wisconsin.edu – there was no centralized place to search through all the programs offered by the UW System?s 26 campuses.

The University of Wisconsin System has launched a new website with information about all of its online degree programs in one place. UW System officials on Wednesday launched eCampus. Wisconsin.edu as part of a push to better promote the online offerings by its 13 two-year colleges and 13 four-year universities. System officials say distance and online learning programs are a key part of their plans to graduate more students in Wisconsin.

As the stock market soared for two decades, college and university endowments swelled with gifts. Over the last 10 years, contributions to higher education have risen an average of 4.1 percent a year, despite the downturn.

When a tragedy occurs on campus, the response that typically follows is both familiar and lamentable — the college promptly assumes a defensive crouch and refuses to comment. Sometimes, the silence follows a need to assemble all the facts. Other times, it is to lessen a college?s exposure to a lawsuit.

The number of veterinarians who work with farm animals is on the decline as many retire and fewer students choose large-animal practice. Officials are worried about the impact on food safety, because large-animal veterinarians serve as inspectors at ranches and slaughterhouses.

In her ballroom dance class, Li Wanrong has learned to tango and cha-cha. At lunch one day, she tried a strange mix of flavors ? pepperoni pizza, the spicy sausage and oozing cheese nearly burning her tongue. Then there was that Friday night before going clubbing for the first time when new friends gave her a makeover, and she looked in the mirror to see an American girl smiling back wearing a little black dress, red lipstick and fierce eyeliner.

Alarmed by evidence that gay and lesbian students are common victims of schoolyard bullies, many school districts are bolstering their antiharassment rules with early lessons in tolerance, explaining that some children have ?two moms? or will grow up to love members of the same sex.

If history is any guide, colleges may have less to fear from last week?s Republican surge in Congress than they think.

The numbers keep rising, the superlatives keep glowing. Each year, selective colleges promote their application totals, along with the virtues of their applicants.

Given the chance to shoot down a proposed tax hike, voters in the area bucked conventional wisdom Tuesday by overwhelmingly backing Madison Area Technical College?s ambitious expansion plans.

….The latest numbers show nearly 60 percent voted in favor of the referendum, which gives the school the green light to borrow up to $133.8 million to fund new building projects in Madison and upgrades to MATC?s campuses throughout the region.

The gains Republicans made in Tuesday?s Congressional elections bode well for for-profit colleges, who are hoping for some respite from a harsh federal spotlight. They are also likely to lead to more-austere budgets on Capitol Hill, possibly resulting in spending cuts for student aid, research, and other higher-education priorities.

Final tallies of exactly how many seats Republicans gained Tuesday in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are days — if not weeks — away though by early Wednesday morning, the major news networks were projecting gains of more than 60 seats in the House. But anyone who didn?t stay up all night watching election results pour in has woken up to a GOP-led House of Representatives and a Senate guided by a small Democratic majority.

WASHINGTON — As Americans head to the polls today, the implications that their votes hold for federal higher education policy aren?t likely to drive them toward a candidate. Nonetheless, the outcomes of today?s Congressional elections will shape debates on higher education for the next few years.

People interested in the PhD in nursing and the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) programs can attend an information session on Nov . 17. Attendees will have the opportunity to meet faculty, staff and currently enrolled students.

The ranks of the most expensive colleges have grown again: 100 institutions are charging $50,000 or more for tuition, fees, room, and board in 2010-11, according to a Chronicle analysis of data released last week by the College Board. That?s well above the 58 universities and colleges that charged that much in 2009-10, and a major jump from the year before, when only five colleges were priced over $50,000.

Until recently, if you wanted to take Professor Rebecca Henderson?s course in advanced strategy to understand the long-term roots of why some companies are unusually successful, you needed to be a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Ms. Henderson teaches at the Sloan School of Management. Admission to the Sloan School is extremely selective, and tuition fees are over $50,000 a year.

Six months after passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), health care reform has finally moved off the front pages of America?s newspapers and is no longer the lead story on the nightly news. But below the surface, the controversy and political fights over the issue continue to roil.

In a move being hailed by some Jewish organizations as a major and welcome shift, the U.S. Education Department?s Office for Civil Rights has signaled that it plans to step up its efforts to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitism under a federal law that bars colleges from discriminating based on national origin or ethnicity.

College tuition costs shot up again this fall, and students and their families are leaning more on the federal government to make higher education affordable in tough economic times, according to two reports Thursday. At public four-year schools, many of them ravaged by state budget cuts, average in-state tuition and fees this fall rose 7.9%, or $555 a year, to $7,605, according to the College Board?s “Trends in College Pricing.” The average sticker price at private nonprofit colleges increased 4.5%, or $1,164, to $27,293.

Tuition is up (no surprise) and this year the percentage increases for public and private four-year colleges and universities are higher than they were last year. Generally, the percentage increases at public institutions are larger than those at privates (which are more expensive to start with).

Nonprofits have long used the honor roll, a list of benefactors prominently displayed, to inspire others to make gifts.

As their state financing dwindled, four-year public universities increased their published tuition and fees almost 8 percent this year, to an average of $7,605, according to the College Board?s annual reports. When room and board are included, the average in-state student at a public university now pays $16,140 a year.

Despite their lofty SAT scores and sterling academic credentials, some Northwestern University students apparently need remedial instruction when it comes to selecting appropriate Halloween costumes.

A student at Emory University told a fellow reveler at a fraternity party early Saturday morning that he was gay. In return, he was allegedly showered with anti-gay slurs and dragged out by his neck as onlookers cheered, according to the Emory Wheel. Though the incident is still under investigation, it has already prompted calls for greater campus harmony.

As many states face billion-dollar deficits and struggle to maintain their quality of education with increasingly stingy budgets, few have remade their higher education systems as aggressively as Ohio has. Under Gov. Ted Strickland, the structure and financing of higher education have undergone dramatic changes, not least of which is a performance-based funding system that awards institutions government money based on retention and educational attainment.

Credit-card companies paid $83.5-million to colleges, their foundations, and alumni organizations last year under agreements that allow them to market credit cards to students and alumni, according to a report released on Monday by the Federal Reserve Board.