confronting cost

While only 22 U.S. colleges and universities have actually agreed to sell their shares in oil and coal companies, more than 50 have committed themselves to efficiency projects on campus through a special financing method called green revolving funds, including Harvard University.

In Germany, Europe's leading economy, taxpayers fully subsidize the cost of college. Our search to understand how German universities keep costs down and quality up begins in the Rhineland.

These seemingly never-ending snow days are taking away valuable time from all students. But in excess they are most harmful to low-income students and their families, who education experts say are already more likely to be behind academically and rely more on the social services public schools provide.

Big Ten champion Ohio State and Pac-12 champion Oregon will meet in Arlington, Texas, on Monday, January 12, in this country’s first College Football Championship game.

The Buckeyes and Ducks will take the field at a time when college sports have never been a bigger business. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) football and basketball is now a $16 billion dollar industry. In recent years, we’ve witnessed a dramatic rise in college football and basketball coach compensation while there are increasing concerns about academic issues, including graduation rates and admissions standards for athletes. 

WGBH News is taking a look back with our series The Rewind. Each day we're listening to some of the top stories in 2014 in politics, science and higher education.

This year colleges and universities continued to face strong headwinds: rising costs, declining enrollment and pressure to address sexual assault on campus.

The president of the University of Massachusetts will be in Baltimore on Friday where he’ll accept his new job as the chancellor of the University of Maryland System. During his four-year tenure at UMass, Robert Caret helped the UMass system achieve some financial stability during very uncertain times. For public college presidents, fundraising has emerged as a full-time job.

In late October, the Massachusetts’ Department of Higher Education released its “Degrees of Urgency” Vision Project report. It addresses challenges for state colleges and universities as demographic shifts in the next decade will result in smaller student enrollments. In New England, colleges can anticipate a 9 percent or more population loss.   

A national organization representing thousands of university professors is criticizing program cuts and faculty layoffs at the University of Southern Maine in Portland.

In a letter addressed to President David Flanagan, the American Association of University Professors questions the severity of the university’s financial woes. AAUP says the actions being taken are in “blatant disregard” for tenured faculty.

Since the Great Recession, the amount of money states invest in public higher education has dropped dramatically. That, coupled with a steep drop in enrollment, has led some state university systems to cut faculty and academic programs altogether. In Maine, where Republican Paul LePage secured a second term as governor on Tuesday, those cuts are unlikely to be restored.

There's a growing skepticism in this country about whether college is really worth it. Now, one of higher education’s heavy hitters is weighing in on that national debate.  On Friday, Harvard President Drew Faust kicked off the university’s campaign to make the case for college, writing an op-ed in the USA Today and delivering a speech to high school students and teachers in Dallas.