Several years ago we shared with University Business readership our prognostications on contemporary polytechnic institutions popping up across the U.S. In relatively short time, higher ed is still surfing the Polytechnic Revival wave at engineering schools, colleges, and universities across the Nation. The common heritage of Classic Polytechnics extends back to the 1745 founding of […]
With student debt in the trillions and other economic concerns looming over families, college stores often bear the brunt of public anger over course material costs. But stores are working harder than ever to provide students with affordable options that will help them learn, succeed and get that coveted degree. College stores work closely with […]
In the eyes of many, higher education has become an industry focused on a singular goal—career training—and college students these days forgo the big questions about who they are and how they can change the world. In The Purposeful Graduate: Why Colleges Must Talk to Students about Vocation (University Of Chicago Press, 2015), Tim Clydesdale […]
Decades ago, U.S. Sen. Claiborne Pell eloquently stated: "The strength of the United States is not the gold in Fort Knox or the weapons of mass destruction we have, but the sum total of the education and character of our people." Shortly thereafter, Pell backed up his statement by sponsoring legislation to provide grants to […]
Community colleges have achieved the goal of providing broader and cheaper access to higher education. Now, experts and administrators say, the focus must turn more aggressively toward student success and completion.
After years of quiet evolution, the competency-based education movement is now poised for explosive growth, with several hundred colleges and universities developing programs that fundamentally redefine the college degree. An estimated 34 U.S. institutions now offer some form of competency-based learning, according to research by Robert Kelchen, an assistant professor of higher education at Seton […]
In just three years, enrollment at Lone Star Community College grew by about 50 percent. The six-campus system, located in the north Houston metro area, now has more than 95,000 students and has experienced explosive data growth, as well—from 40 terabytes to 1.6 petabytes. A data collection that big is hard to imagine. But as […]
As director of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, Thomas Bailey is the nation's preeminent scholar of community colleges. After recognizing that myriad reform efforts directed at community colleges showed little evidence of improved outcomes, he and his CCRC colleagues, Shanna Smith Jaggars and Davis Jenkins, set out to learn why […]
Outside the circle of higher ed facilities managers, it's the shiny new campus buildings that get all the glory. Yet what facilities insiders know all too well is that existing buildings are in dire need of attention. Aging buildings, a recent economic downturn and pressure to invest in new construction has led to rising deferred […]
At 500,000 square feet, the new Science and Engineering Hall at The George Washington University is the largest academic building dedicated to these fields in the nation's capital. And it serves thousands of students and roughly 140 faculty members in the heart of the Foggy Bottom campus. The building, known on campus as the SEH, provides […]
