Public Higher Ed News Recap

Here’s a recap of some of the public higher ed news stories from the last week. As always — we hope you engage in a dialogue about these in the comments below.

news

Robert B. Reich explores the gap between government subsidies of elite private universities versus public institutions.

Richard Vedder suggests the solution to low graduation rates is more restrictive admissions, and suggests that we have too many college graduates.

How to we revive the California model? Income contingent student loans and focus on the net public good

President of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities also wants us to focus on public good

Reflections on fair-use and the Cambridge v. Patton decision

A Commentary in the Chronicle of Higher education on the push towards new assessment models in higher ed

But despite the emphasis on these new assessment models, as John W. Powell, Diane Ravitch, Moshe Adler, and others have pointed out, there is no reliable research showing that value-added measures of learning outcomes actually improve education.

Massachusetts Higher Ed Commissioner Richard Freeland to step down at the end of the academic year

New agreement aids transfers from Holyoke Community College to UMass Amherst Commonwealth Honors College

Slate explores how some Oregon students are getting a free first year of post-secondary education

President Obama discusses affirmative action in the latest issue of the New Yorker