The University of California system is reeling. Crushed by the recession and the total collapse of governance in the Golden State, the UC system just raised student tuition by a mind-boggling 32 percent. A few weeks ago, New York Times Magazine interviewer Deborah Solomon sat down with UC Chanchelor Mark Yudof. Naturally, she asked him tough, insightful questions about how he was going to maintain academic and scholarly standards and preserve the UC system's historic leadership in American higher education spent the bulk of the interview mindlessly haranguing Yudof about whether he was overpaid and deserved a free house. Because the single most important thing to remember when conducting an interview is that it's all about...

In the course of presenting a very interesting paper on international college rankings at an accountability conference I co-hosted yesterday, Ben Wildavsky made an observation that I strongly endorse: international competition in higher education isn't a zero-sum game. In fact, I think there's a good argument that America would be better off if we no longer towered above most other countries in college attainment.

Which doesn't mean we shouldn't compare ourselves to other countries and act on the results. The legitimate methodological questions raised in this recent report from Cliff...

The latest issue of the Chronicle includes a survey of the nation's highest paid college presidents, a list topped by Shirley Ann Jackson, who was paid $1,598,247 to lead Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute last year. Jackson also sits on six corporate boards that pay her another $1.3-million per annum. The article is accompanied by a text box listing Jackson's "Key Accomplishments at Rensselaer." They are:

"$690-million in new building and renovations to date. Highlights include the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, the Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations, the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, and the East Campus Athletic Village.

"Completed $1.4-billion fund-raising campaign, including a $360-million...

Earlier this year, my wife and I traveled to Bates College, in Maine, where I gave a speech on technology and higher education. That evening, we went out to dinner in downtown Lewiston. Our hosts were two members of the classics department, a couple who had lived together for many years in a nearby small town. It was one of the best dinners I've had in a long time, partly because of the food and wine, but mostly because of the smart, charming, and wide-ranging conversation. Two married couples, enjoying time together -- except, not quite, because both of our hosts happened to be women, and same-sex marriage wasn't legal in Maine ... yet.

A few months later, duly elected state legislators in Maine passed a law extending marriage rights to all. Maine Governor John Baldacci signed the bill into law less than an hour later. "I have come to believe," he said, "that this is a...

The latest Newsweek cover story is titled, "The Three Year Solution: How the Reinvention of Higher Education Benefits Parents, Students, and Schools," by Senator (and former University of Tennessee president) Lamar Alexander. Like the discussion of three-year bachelor's degrees generally, the article is at best shallow and at worst deeply confused.

The article begins with the story of Hartwick College, a private liberal-arts college in upstate New York located halfway between Binghamton and Schenectady. (Having gone to high school in Schenectady and college in Binghamton, I spent a number of weekends at Hartwick. Having been in my late teens at the time, I remember the details of very few of them.) Hartwick has a small program whereby students can earn a B.A. in three years. This, says Alexander,...

The College Board announced today that the price of higher education increased significantly in 2009, rising faster than inflation and family income. In other news, the sun rose in the east, teenagers were sullen and uncommunicative, too much alcohol gave people false courage, and politicians told people what they wanted to hear.

Following past practice, the College Board presented the findings in a light most favorable to its members, the colleges and universities that increased prices. Comparing this year's announcement with last year shows this pretty clearly.

In 2008, the average tuition and fees at public four-year universities increased by 6.4 percent. Inflation in 2008 was unusually high, 5.6 percent, due in large part to spikes in energy prices. So when the College Board released

Late last week I got a call from a sports reporter at USA Today who was writing about Binghamton University's deeply embarrassing men's basketball team. The amazingly-still-employed coach, Kevin Broadus, a man who thought this would be a really good week to commit new recruiting violations, was formerly an assistant to Georgetown University coach John Thompson III, son of legendary Georgetown coach John Thompson. The article quotes the senior Thompson supporting Broadus' decision to recruit a host of players who have since been kicked off the team amid accusations of crack...

The 2009 state NAEP math results were released today, and they're disappointing. Fourth-grade scores, which have been a great and under-recognized success story over the last two decades, were flat. Eighth grade scores rose slightly. What to conclude? Most broadly, that most of the claims about national education policy, pro and con, have been overwrought.

Supporters of the No Child Left Behind Act -- and I've generally been one of them -- hoped that the law would catalyze a major upward move in student achievement. That hasn't happened. Perhaps it's because every state got to choose its own standards; perhaps it's because the law did little to get better teachers in classrooms; perhaps it's because yawning revenue...

A few months ago a magazine editor sent me proofs of some upcoming higher-education books, to see if I'd be interested in writing a review. One was Wannabe U, by University of Connecticut sociologist Gaye Tuchman. That sparked my interest -- my father was once a professor at UConn and I lived in Storrs until I was 13. But when I started leafing through the pages, the book immediately struck me as ... odd. It purports to be the study of an un-named university's quest for status. All the characters have pseudonyms and the author says some of the details of their jobs have been changed. But the university in question is obviously the University of Connecticut.

For example, on page 14, the book quotes President "Whitmore" as saying, at his inauguration, "Nothing is more important to the quality of life in this state than educational excellence." If you

So I'm taking the Red Line to work this morning, at around 8:50 a.m., traveling from east to west between Gallery Place and Metro Center. We're in the tunnel and I'm all the way up at the front of the first car, just behind the driver, when suddenly there's a WHUMP and the car lurches upward and then back down again, followed a fraction of a second later by a bright shower of orange sparks in the tunnel outside.

The car shudders to a halt and I can hear the driver radioing in to central dispatch, we have a situation, there was a loud noise, we may have hit something, please advise. Other trains barrel past in the other direction. The people in my car are calm but I can hear passengers from cars further back on the intercom in the driver's cabin behind me, calling...