Seven years ago, Western Kentucky University said goodbye to its time-consuming, paper-based way of issuing financial aid refunds and said hello to BankMobile, an electronic disbursement service that has led to major savings. “Between student refunds and student payroll disbursements, we have eliminated having to issue 76,000 paper checks annually,” says Belinda Higginbotham, bursar for […]
Nestled in the shadows of the iconic Flatirons mountain range, CU Boulder is home to 35,000 students, nearly 7,000 of whom reside on campus. The new Village Center offers those students multiple dining options, study and collaboration spaces, conference amenities, and a health clinic. CHALLENGE: CU Boulder was founded in 1876, and more than half […]
No institution can be better than its faculty. An institution can be better than its president, its football team, its library and its food service—but if the faculty are weak, the institution is weak. We are in an exciting time for faculty in that their roles are expanding with new opportunities in online education, MOOCs, […]
The interest in live videos across social media platforms has accelerated over the past few months with a series of developments that bring high-quality video broadcasting to the masses. Instagram launched live video in Instagram Stories, an upgrade to the ephemeral format it borrowed from Snapchat. Periscope’s live capabilities have been integrated into the Twitter […]
The first clue that something was wrong at Tidewater Community College in Virginia emerged in March 2016 when at least 15 employees discovered they could not file their tax returns. After the IRS informed the employees that their returns had already been submitted, college officials realized someone had breached the computer system. The attack began […]
First-generation college student and recent UC Berkeley grad Ulises Serrano, an aspiring higher ed administrator, will enter graduate school this fall without any student loan debt. That’s thanks in part to the income-share agreement (ISA) used to finance the first two years of his post-secondary education at Allan Hancock College in California. For Serrano and […]
Students today don’t respond to the traditional methods of communication from their college or university like they once did. While websites and email are appropriate for housing and delivering certain types of information, institutions need to develop a campus-wide mobile presence in order to reach students effectively and in the format they prefer. In this […]
“The last thing colleges want to do is put a former student in collections,” says Harrison Wadsworth, executive director of the Coalition of Higher Education Assistance Organizations. But when internal efforts to collect tuition don’t work, it’s important to have somewhere to turn for help. At Texas Tech University, the finance office pursues unpaid balances […]
Now more than ever, enrollment leadership requires a coordinated campus team to respond to emerging internal challenges as well as shifting external forces. One college president likened the job of chief enrollment officer to a pilot flying the plane while building it. In short, the immediate drive to fill enrollment goals today competes with the […]
Legislators, parents and students are not the only ones asking questions about the cost and quality of higher education. As educators, we don’t hesitate to ask ourselves and our universities to push for improvements. One major hurdle remains, however, as the academy does more to encourage and reward research output than it does to support […]
