increasing access and success

Congress has restored the country's oldest student loan program, which expired in October following congressional inaction.

In an online video released Thursday, First Lady Michelle Obama raps about the importance of going to college, encouraging students to pursue higher education in order to become an astronaut or civil engineer.

Pointed questions, impatient follow-ups and testy retorts rang through the Supreme Court Wednesday as the future of affirmative action in college admissions was debated with intensity.

For the second time since 2012, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Fisher v. University of Texas case on Wednesday. The case targets a race-conscious admissions program at the University of Texas.

Labor economists at Georgetown University are out with their own rankings of more than 1,400 colleges and universities based on graduates’ earnings potential. The report, Ranking Your College: Where You Go and What You Make, gives students and families a list of colleges with the highest earnings potential ten years after students enroll.

In an effort to protect student loan borrowers, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is cracking down on some student loan debt relief companies.

Harvard University is investigating after law school students there found that portraits of some African American faculty members were defaced. This comes as students throughout the country protest incidents of racism on their campuses.

Paris is one of the most popular study abroad destinations for students at New England colleges. After Friday’s attacks, which targeted places where young people hang out, many schools are scrambling to contact students in the French capital and reassure families at home.

The University of Missouri is in the spotlight this week for mishandling racial unrest that has paralyzed the campus, and some local students see the Missouri movement as just the opening salvo in civil unrest on American campuses.

Marty Meehan will be formally installed as the 27th President of the University of Massachusetts on Thursday. The former congressman and University of Massachusetts Lowell Chancellor will present his vision for the university’s future during his inauguration ceremony at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate.