How Big Can E-Learning Get? At Southern New Hampshire U., Very Big

A little-known private college uses distance education to support and enhance its traditional program.

Who Deserves MIT's $200,000 Prize for Clean-Energy Technology?

The developer of the device in the winning entry says it was used without permission. Questions of intellectual-property rights have ensued.

In Nevada, Harsh Economic Reality Lowers Horizon for Higher Education

Years of budget cuts have depleted campuses and morale alike.

College Presidents Are Bullish on Online Education but Face a Skeptical Public

Just over half of the presidents surveyed saw equal value in online and traditional courses. The enthusiasm was more muted, however, among prospective students.

New Site Brazenly Trades Pirated E-Textbooks

The leaders of the site, a copycat of one that was shut down a few years ago, say the way it is operating overseas will help protect it from any efforts by publishers to stop...

Education Department Chases 'Pell Runners' Who Threaten Aid Program

Community colleges are often the target of spurious students who take their Pell Grant money and run.

Nanotechnologists Are Targets of Unabomber Copycat, Alarming Universities

In Mexico, new information about the sender or senders of mail bombs to labs shows a continuing threat worldwide.

Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Humanities Gain Importance in Career Paths

As the job market stagnates, some recent Ph.D.'s find hope in supportive postdoctoral programs, many backed by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Academics Abroad (With the Family in Tow)

Keeping the kids occupied during fieldwork expeditions calls for special tools in some parts of the world. Goats and chickens, for example.

For Science's Sake, a Small Liberal-Arts College Makes the Most of Its Location

Emmanuel College leverages its proximity to Boston's universities and hospitals, offering students hands-on training in a Merck pharmaceutical lab on the campus.

Education Pays, but So Does Occupation

Median lifetime earnings are still correlated with educational levels, but not as strongly as in the past, Georgetown University scholars found.

Education Department Backs Away From Fix to Help Disabled Student Borrowers

Despite a pledge to make it easier for disabled people to discharge their loans, the agency now says the change is not legally possible.

U.S. Tightens Rules on Financial Conflicts of Interest in Science

After years of scandals, new regulations will require researchers to report to their universities more information about their relationships with companies.

Complaint Reveals That Roger Williams U.'s Chief Left Amid Harassment Inquiry

Questions had been raised before a complaint was filed in April 2010. What should boards do when their presidents' personal lives endanger the institution?

Enrollments Plunge at Many For-Profit Colleges

The slide has come as some of those institutions curbed their aggressive recruiting practices amid growing pressure from lawmakers.

Outmoded Vocational Schools Fail to Teach Skills for India's Booming Economy

Corporations and foundations step in to provide much-needed training that the public sector can't offer.

U.S. Promotes Ties Between American Community Colleges and India

When the State Department asked Montgomery College to organize a meeting on community colleges in New Delhi, it leapt at the chance.

Admissions Offers to Foreign Students at U.S. Graduate Schools Climb at Faster Pace

Much of the growth is fueled by a 23-percent increase in offers to prospective students from China, says a report from the Council of Graduate Schools.

5 Minutes With Robert S. Kramer, a Historian Who Studies the End of Time

The professor wondered, back in 2001, whether his new course on believers in the world's end would be relevant. Then the World Trade Center towers fell.

Honored Professor Developed Rigorous Metric for Service Learning

Sherril Gelmon, who teaches and does research at Portland State University, won the 2011 Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award from Campus Compact.

Politics and the University: Views From the Campuses

Public colleges are in financial trouble, and legislators want more accountability and productivity. We asked six key people on campuses for their predictions.

Measuring Faculty Productivity: Let's Get It Right

Faculty do a great deal more than teach, and faculty productivity embraces a great deal more than credit-hours taught, especially in the humanities.

The Know-Nothing Assault on Higher Education

As colleges become gated communities for the offspring of the well-to-do, opportunity for others is reduced. The American ideal of upward mobility is further diminished.

An Old Story With a Dangerous New Twist

Public higher education is being dragged down as part of the conservative assault on American government.

The Road to Dystopia

We are moving decisively toward a society in which job insecurity is the norm for everyone, including faculty.

Public Education for the Public Good

To build a successful innovation economy, more people need more education—and not just at elite universities.

Keep Your Hands Off the 'Fierce Humanities'

For these fields, the assessment, accountability, and quantifiable-outcomes movement is a benighted fantasy of mastering the unmasterable.

Note to Legislators: Don't Eat Your Seed Corn

"Legislators are currently choosing to pay for a second-rate education for their children."

Qualified International Students Abound at Community Colleges

"Community colleges are becoming quite the desirable option for international students who flourish in a highly supportive, small-class-size environment."

Privatization Overtakes the Original Logic Behind Public Universities

"What we are currently seeing looks to me a lot like the privatization of higher education."

Please Give Me Your Divided Attention

Delete your assumptions and reboot your pedagogy. And then join us today at 12 noon, U.S. Eastern time, for a live chat with Professor Davidson.

Race, Class, and the Parsing of a President

The president's ethnicity shouldn't exempt him from criticism for selling out poor people, and poor African-Americans especially.

Why Education Is Not an Economic Panacea

Education, in and of itself, is not an antidote to poverty and inequality.

The 2011 Mind-Set of Faculty (Born Before 1980)

These faculty members remember a world before Starbucks, Facebook, and the Kardashians (gasp!).

What Men Do When Things Fall Apart

For a fictional treatment of a 1970s family man in debt, a scholar draws on his expertise in early American literature.

The Literature Cure

We read and write stories, I tell my students, because they help us understand how to live and how to die.

An Illegal Immigrant in Academe

Becoming a Dean

If you don't value faculty members and treasure time spent with them, don't become a dean.

Making Up Isn't Hard to Do

Sometimes all it takes to nip an academic feud in the bud is the willingness to let it drop.