College Degrees, Designed by the Numbers

Welcome to college, quantified: Data mining produces customized recommendations for courses in which students are likeliest to succeed, and for how they should be taught.

A Conversation With 2 Developers of Personalized-Learning Software

U. of Texas Admissions Case Becomes Hurdle in Presidential Race

A lawsuit against the University of Texas at Austin has landed before the U.S. Supreme Court just in time to leave its mark on the election campaign.

College Too Easy? UCLA Makes It Tougher

Officials instituted capstone projects, unusual for a university of its size. They have had some success, but there are trade-offs.

NCAA Levies $60-Million Fine Against Penn State

The punishment is likely to hobble the university's football team for years to come.

Wired Campus: Berkeley Joins 'EdX' Effort to Offer Free Open Courses

The university will join MIT and Harvard, offering two courses in the fall and helping to develop the project’s technology platform.

How an Upstart Company Might Profit From Free Courses

Coursera's contracts with universities seem driven by a familiar Silicon Valley imperative—build fast and worry about money later.

Less Choice, More Structure for Students? In a Tennessee System, It Works.

The Tennessee Technology Center system boasts graduation and job-placement rates of 75 percent and 83 percent, respectively. Such numbers draw attention.

Female Veterans Can Be Hard to Spot, and to Help

As colleges add services for the growing number of student veterans, they find that many women in that population seem reluctant to participate.

Documents Show U. of Missouri Press Suffered Years of Mixed Signals

The press long operated at a loss but was actually well on the way to righting itself just as the university pulled the plug.

For-Profits Fill a Niche in Latin America

They step into the gap created because the poor can't get into elite colleges. But their graduates face dim prospects in the job market.

These Days, Colleges Urge Young Alumni to Give ... Posthumously

As donors worry about outliving their assets, fund raisers find success--and often bigger donations--in asking them for bequests.

Much-Watched Couple in Economics Lands at U. of Michigan

After Betsey Stevenson didn't get tenure at the University of Pennsylvania, people knew she and her partner, Justin Wolfers, would move. The question was where.

Sree Sreenivasan, Tech Guru and Skeptic, Becomes Columbia's First Chief Digital Officer

The social-media expert, who was most recently dean of student affairs at the journalism school, will develop the university's approach to online learning.

Transitions: Departing President to Work on Training More Leaders; Stanford Names New Medical and Law Deans

R. Mark Sullivan will help develop a new institute to train higher-education leaders at the College of Saint Rose. Read about that and other job-related news.

U. of North Texas-Dallas Chief, a Champion of 'Disruptive Innovation,' to Leave in 2013

John Ellis Price brought in Bain & Company and a panel of civic and business leaders to advise him on creating a "model" 21st-century university.

Selected New Books on Higher Education

JoPa No More, Olympics of the Ages

Glimpses of life in academe from around the world.

Colleges Try a New Trick to Get Attention Online

You're not imagining it. That ad for a college is following you across the Web.

How Re-targeting Works

Academic Researchers Escape Scrutiny in Glaxo Fraud Settlement

One of the key pieces of evidence was a 2001 paper about Paxil that listed 22 academics' names but had actually been written by the company.

Medical Simulation Lets New Doctors Learn Without Fear

The University of South Florida's new facility is among the most ambitious examples of a growing trend in health-care education.

Australia Loses Its Luster as Foreign Students Feel Unwelcome

They feel lonely and discriminated against in a country that highly subsidizes domestic students.

For Some Students, College Really Is a 3-Ring Circus

At Florida State University, undergraduates work and shine under the big top.

The Trouble With the Other N-Word

Students' use of "Negro," a seemingly more benign fraternal twin of a clearly racist term, deserves closer scrutiny.

Walking to 'Middlemarch'

The treadmill miles go faster in the audio-book company of great literature.

Marketing Restraint

Fifty shades of indirectness distinguish erotica from porn.

Breaching the Wall of Separation of Church and State

Ideally, there can be a constructive tension between religion and politics.

An Academic Auto-da-Fé

A sociologist whose data find fault with same-sex relationships is savaged by the progressive orthodoxy of his discipline.

Why One Accreditor Deserves Some Credit. Really.

Seemingly alone among its regional peers, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges is trying to hold colleges accountable.

We're Muddying the Message on Study Abroad

Forget the hype; we need to know a lot more about the actual benefits of international education.

Academic Tradition Demands More Evenhanded Treatment of Israel

Colleges can act in a number of ways to make sure that pro-Israel perspectives get a fair hearing.

A Painting of Players Is Still Protected Art

"Even without the acquiescing conduct of Alabama, it is clear that the court would have come to the same conclusion--that my artwork does not violate the university's...

LSU Administrators Refused to Meet With AAUP

"Faculty members and students at LSU and at Colorado State University, which has appointed Mr. Martin as its new chancellor, might wish to know how his statement squares with...

Should the Catholic Church Change, or Catholics?

"The vast majority of Catholics have long ago decided that the church edict against contraception is not one that is central to their religion."

Washington College Got Its Start While Jefferson Gardened

"America's--if not the world's--first fully secular institution was Washington College."

College Costs Too Much Because Faculty Lack Power

Reason and data alike suggest that administrators and governing boards have too much influence over how resources are used.

Technology Has Its Place: Behind a Caring Teacher

The residential-college model is uniquely effective in changing lives. It will remain so, if we tell our story well and stay faithful to the vision of personal learning.

In the Facebook Era, Students Tell You Everything

How could someone share something so private in a public setting with a professor she barely knew?

Dear Sir

How should you respond to "micro-inequities," those sexist slights that, though they may seem minor, can add up to damage over time?