Eight years ago administrators laying plans for Guttman Community College in New York City set a goal: This school would not be like so many other community colleges with low completion rates. Guttman would make getting students to graduation a primary mission. That approach is proliferating across the community college sector, says Melinda Mechur Karp, assistant […]
Meredith College, celebrating its 125th anniversary, recently adopted a new brand—"Going Strong"—that reflects its reputation, enrollment and financial strength. While Meredith's fundraising and application rate are the highest in our history, several other women's colleges have recently either gone coed or closed. Questioning the relevance of women's colleges is a bit obvious—and not so easy […]
The University of Connecticut's recent announcement of a planned learning community intended for first- and second-year African-American male students has reignited a decades-old debate regarding ethnically themed living spaces on campus. Two members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights penned a letter to university President Susan Herbst urging her to reconsider the community's launch. […]
A bill that would allow concealed handguns at Georgia public colleges and universities was awaiting action from Gov. Nathan Deal as this issue of UB was being readied for press. The measure would permit licensed gun owners over age 21 to carry concealed handguns on campus, except in student housing and at athletic events. Deal, a pro-carry […]
As the 2016 Presidential campaign heats up this summer and the nation looks inward, candidates need to come up to speed in addressing a chronic water crisis in Flint, Michigan and across America. For good reason, this water resource catastrophe has captured the attention of national media and turned Flint into the posterchild for rebuilding […]
Making heads or tails of the many factors influencing student outcomes—while necessary—is daunting and difficult. For one university, a single wagging tail is making a dent in several barriers to student success. Resident comfort dog Zoey gives some emotional relief to students living away from their family and pets. In Zoey's 40-plus-hour work weeks, she […]
As we speculated last year, the shift to the use of families' Prior-Prior Year (PPY) financial data on the FAFSA has come to pass. Starting in October of 2016, the FAFSA will be available for students to complete for college enrollment in the 2017-18 academic year. This shift has far-reaching implications not only for timing […]
When endowment returns are way down, it's not exactly prudent to spend the same percentage of the endowment for institutional operations each year, with the assumption that target investment payoff percentages will return. And, right now, down they are. Endowment investment returns fell from an average of 15.5 percent for Fiscal Year 2014 to 2.4 […]
At Juniata College in Pennsylvania, students took Arabic for the first time last fall by enrolling in a course at Gettysburg College via video conference. Amherst College students, meanwhile, can major in architectural studies by taking classes at four neighboring colleges. And at Cabrini College near Philadelphia, students from five institutions researched viruses last summer […]
As a new study shows one group of students falling farther behind in the struggle to land jobs with salaries that will allow them to pay off debts and achieve financial stability, some experts say it's the country's education system that needs to adjust. Only a small percentage of African-American college students enroll in the […]
