Colleges and universities miss a significant opportunity to capture the attention of their primary web audience—teens and young adults—when their websites aren't designed to perform well on mobile devices. A 2014 study of 200 public and private schools in New Jersey and Pennsylvania found that more than 70 percent of those institutions did not have […]
Branding may have historically been considered too commercial an endeavor for higher ed, but this mindset has clearly evolved. It's no longer a question of whether a college should brand itself, but of how it can create an accurate embodiment of its mission and student experience. Branding a university is fundamentally different than branding a […]
Sprucing up a campus building's interiors need not involve buying loads of new furniture. Just ask officials at Georgetown University. The institution recently refinished and reupholstered a variety of public space furniture in Alumni Square, an apartment complex on the Washington, D.C. campus. It also had loveseats, sofas, arm and lounge chairs, and other pieces […]
The academic landscape is fraught with risk—everything from hazardous chemicals and internal fraud, to flu outbreaks and budget shortfalls. It seems obvious that any college or university would invest effort to identify and rank its current top risks, if just to assign the right level of attention and resources to each. Yet many academic institutions […]
Thirty percent of higher ed students today are the first in their family to attend college, while 24 percent—4.5 million—are both first-generation and low-income. That means a significant portion of students is at risk of dropping out, as National Center for Education Statistics data shows that only 11 percent of low-income, first-generation students graduated within […]
Fifteen California community colleges received initial approval in January to offer four-year degrees in a limited number of specialties as soon as next year. If approved, the plan could—at a fraction of the cost of four-year schools—produce thousands of new workers in a state that needs more employees in areas such as healthcare and the […]
New football teams continue to take the field at colleges and universities each fall, overcoming criticism—from within higher ed and from outside—that sports programs not only suck up money desperately needed by academic departments but also drive up tuition and student fees. Some experts also predict that the wave of lawsuits the NCAA faces could push […]
For many colleges and universities, there used to be gold in garbage. Or, at least, there was some revenue to go along with the recycling stream. But two years ago, the whole landfill landscape changed. "When China shifted its policy, it affected almost every school," says Travis Freidman, sustainability and energy manager at the University […]
There were big-picture pieces on race relations, immigration, climate change, incarceration, veterans, gender issues and the proliferation of firearms. And there were hot-button campus issues such as sexual assaults, alcohol, college access, free speech, college cost and debt, emotionally unstable students, and abuses in sports programs. In all, college and university presidents had nearly 600 […]
While some schools operate aging HR systems that can't perform key tasks, others are looking ahead to their next technology purchase. Towers Watson, a global consulting firm in Dallas, conducted two surveys last year looking at human resources technology trends. In the first survey, 41 percent of the 1,000 responding organizations (including colleges and universities) said […]