The growing view of higher education as a global commodity has driven many ambitious institutions to deepen their international presence by setting up shop overseas. While still far from common practice, international branch campuses have risen from a worldwide total of 15 in 1995 to 231 in 2015, according to the Cross-Border Education Research Team […]
Rumors about the nearly two miles of tunnels that lie beneath Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, often revolve around its location near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Some people have suspected the tunnels were designed as an Air Force/Wright State bomb shelter—or even that top-secret military experiments have been conducted in laboratories there. For graduating […]
The wave of first-generation and low-income students now seeking higher ed access is placing unprecedented financial strain on the full spectrum of liberal arts institutions, says James F. Jones, the interim president of Sweet Briar College. But while other higher ed leaders acknowledge this and other challenges, many say the shutting down this year of […]
Students at Arizona State University today have access to a service-oriented financial assistance website that provides guidance on college planning. It offers cost calculators, links to scholarships and budget planning, and easy access to financial aid office staff. It's an approach that works—and the result of using analytics to unearth a treasure trove of website […]
Snow College's latest travel policy included new, logical restrictions. For example: Employees would be reimbursed only for for hotel stays on days that matched an event's agenda, and they could no longer expense a first-class airline seat. The Utah college got lots of comments—about three-quarters of them negative—when the regulations were posted for a 30-day […]
In a "post-racial" and "post-feminist" America, do we still need colleges and universities that serve women? If most institutions now admit those previously excluded, isn't the disappearance of women's colleges and historically black colleges, oddly, a good thing? Not in my view. The recent announcement of the closing of Sweet Briar College is not a […]
The Great Recession of 2007-08 had a profound impact on both public and private universities. In How the Financial Crisis and Great Recession Affected Higher Education (University of Chicago Press, 2015), Jeffrey R. Brown, a finance professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and co-editor Caroline M. Hoxby, a Stanford economics professor, examine universities […]
Most institutions think they measure the impact and the performance of social media, but only a few have shown they are ready to invest the necessary time and resources to measure what really matters. How your school defines social media measurement ultimately determines how strategically it uses social media. Many colleges use their social media […]
College and university administrators, already aware of their obligations to comply with Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, ("Title IX"), are facing rapid changes and uncertainty in addressing the rights of transgender students. Though issues involving the rights of transgender students were rare as recently as a few years ago, it is […]
There was a time when colleges and universities could put their best marketing message out to the masses, and wait for students to respond and express interest. Today, it's about being aggressive without being pushy, being more student-focused without being intrusive, and being more open to digital communication without sacrificing authenticity. It's a fine line […]