increasing access and success

A new report published Tuesday is encouraging community colleges and four-year universities to help more students earn bachelor's degrees.

It's graduation season, and schools across New England are preparing for their commencement exercises. This year, commencement speakers at Boston-area colleges include governors, actors, news media personalities and others. 

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh has been pushing his new plan to make two years of community college free for some Boston Public School graduates. But few students will be eligible for the program.

President Barack Obama’s daughter Malia will attend Harvard University in 2017 - but not before taking what's called a “gap year.” The first family’s announcement comes at a time when elite private schools are encouraging students to postpone the start of college.

Free speech is fast becoming a hot-button issue at colleges across the country, with campus protests often mirroring those of the public-at-large on issues such as racism or tackling institution-specific matters such as college governance. On the surface, the issue of campus free speech may seem like a purely legal concern, yet in reality, colleges should also treat it as a public relations problem.

Part-time professors at New England’s largest university reached a three-year contract settlement with administrators on Thursday -- two months after voting to form a union. Under the deal, more than 800 part-time faculty at Boston University will see higher wages and improved job security, an agreement that could serve as a model for other part-time college professors.

Schools in the college capital of the world are preparing for commencement season. With all the pomp and circumstance is likely to come another annual ritual: rescinded invitations to controversial speakers. Free speech advocates argue that those disinvitations and other forms of censorship are preventing the type of rigorous debate that should be taking place on America’s campuses.

Public research universities educate 75 percent of all undergraduates in this country. But over the past decade, state appropriations to flagship research universities have plummeted 34 percent. Now public research universities have found an unlikely advocate.

The National Labor Relations Board has rejected a bid by Tufts Medical School professors to unionize.

In an essay published in Harvard’s student-run newspaper The Crimson, Harvard President Drew Faust wrote the university must recognize its ties to the slave trade. But students and historians think Harvard and other institutions should do more than acknowledging its history.