The Other 85 Percent

This article in the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that between 31 and 45 states are keeping some individual records on college students. I think that is a very good thing. There are others in higher education who consider such record-keeping to be problematic and threatening. So threatening that they pursued and secured legislation [...]

The answer, according to this report from Inside Higher Ed, may simply be because we have to do it for accreditation. What the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment report reveals is that many colleges are measuring what undergraduate students learn. The problem is that they are not using the data to make improvements.  For-profit [...]

Inside Higher Ed reports on a new study from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching that calls for the bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) to be required for entry into the field of nursing. The authors of the study are correct in stating that the demands on nurses are increasingly complex. [...]

This Inside Higher Ed article is a reminder to the higher education world that “the clock is ticking” in terms of accountability expectations. I have repeatedly written about the expectations that higher education become more accountable for its actions and its outcomes. David C. Paris correctly predicts that higher education will be challenged [...]

Working Learners:  Educating Our Entire Workforce for Success in the 21st Century is a good read with an important message – and it addresses the needs of the other 85 percent.  Louis Soares of the Center for American Progress writes in this paper that working students, those who combine work and postsecondary education, “have little [...]

I spend a lot of time with colleagues from traditional, face-to-face colleges and universities and often hear them dismiss schools that have been reported to have very low completion rates.  It is obvious that these folks, despite working in higher education, do not understand the national problem we have with data on completion rates.  And, [...]

Congratulations to The Council for Higher Education and Accreditation (CHEA) for its joint statement with UNESCO about how to combat diploma mills. While reported to be short on details, this type of work is important for higher education in America and around the world.
I have posted in the past about Capella’s involvement with Transparency by [...]

The American Enterprise Institute recently released its study titled “Diplomas and Dropouts:  Which Colleges Actually Graduate Their Students (and Which Don’t).”  There are parts of the study that are good.  There is an attempt to compare institutions with similar missions, and there is a strong emphasis on success, as in completion.  But, there is a [...]

The premise of this blog is that the prevailing view about who attends college, and how they engage, is way off the mark.  The general assumption is that students go directly to college after high school, live on a campus, and study full time. That view drives public policy decisions even though it addresses a [...]

EduVentures has released a timely survey of the attitudes of adults about the value of higher education. It reveals the same level of complexity and uncertainty that consumers in general are feeling as they try to make sense of how the recession is impacting their lives.
While it is often argued that demand for higher education [...]