increasing access and success
President Obama is preparing to hit the road on a two-day college bus tour that will take him across upstate New York and Pennsylvania to discuss the high cost of higher education.
In a letter emailed to supporters on Wednesday, the president promised "real reforms that would bring lasting change" to the way colleges and universities run their business.
Three Massachusetts universities received poor grades in a national report that's adding fuel to the debate on how to teach America's school kids.
The report, which was issued by the National Council on Teacher Quality, is critical of how colleges and universities nationwide are training the next generation of teachers.
UMass-Dartmouth is one of three schools in Massachusetts for which the Council issued a consumer report alert. It found the state university is using course material for aspiring teachers that “often has little relevance to what they need to succeed in the classroom.”
A deal that would tie student loan interest rates to the financial markets is heading to President Obama’s desk for his signature.
Meanwhile, a new report from Georgetown University released on Wednesday suggests higher education is exacerbating white racial privilege in America.
Researchers at Georgetown found that while it’s getting easier to access colleges and universities, at the same time racial polarization on campus is, in fact, growing.
For Jamal Aden’s parents, it was never a foregone conclusion that their son would go to college. The son of Somali refugees, Jamal was born in a Kenyan refugee camp. He says conditions were rough.
Long before two bombs exploded under a bright blue sky on Boylston Street on Marathon Monday, English professor Richard Larschan would take the time at the beginning of the semester to look up students enrolled in his class.
“I made very active use of the student information system,” Larschan said.
Larschan wanted to know whether his students were ready to meet the expectations he had for them. Could they cut it? Did they understand the course workload?
In the past ten years, he noticed a disturbing trend at UMass Dartmouth: More and more of his students couldn’t cut it; they didn’t understand his expectations.
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The head of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences is stepping down following allegations she had embellished her resume.
In a letter to its members sent out Thursday, the Academy said Leslie Berlowitz is resigning after 17 years at the helm of the Cambridge-based honorary society. She will receive a one-time payment of $475,000.
Students at Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s former college, UMass Dartmouth, are worried his image in Rolling Stone - a space usually reserved for celebrities - might glorify their former classmate.
With record high temperatures, it was relatively quiet on the University of Massachusetts campus in Dartmouth on Wednesday. Months after the campus was evacuated during the manhunt for the Tsarnaev brothers, just a few students were hanging around the campus.
Inside the library, some of them stared at their laptops, chatting online. Outside, senior Jenny Patrick carried books and a yoga mat as she walked slowly to her summer job. The criminal justice student said she first learned about the upcoming Rolling Stone cover where she gets most of her news – celebrity or otherwise – on Twitter.
The state will dole out $4.5 million to various Massachusetts workforce organizations, community colleges, tech schools, and career centers for skills training and workforce development, according to Governor Deval Patrick.
The grants will be used to train more than 850 job seekers in the healthcare, manufacturing, construction, early education, hotel and hospitality, and financial services fields, according to a press release.
College students today are struggling with the state of higher education. For instance, class size is up 25 percent in some courses on University of Massachusetts campuses. Then, with money tight, schools are adding administrators to their payrolls. And if paying tuition isn't tough enough for most students, they're forced to pay hundreds of dollars more in fees.
At UMass Boston, Patrick hosted a private roundtable discussion with UMass President Robert Caret and several students, including sociology student Farrah Bruny-Brown.
“Coming up with $600 extra is just another struggle," said Bruny-Brown. "It makes it hard because you lose focus when it comes to education when you have to pay the bills.”
While most students have the summer off, Don Shepherd is getting ready for the fall. At Mass Bay Community College in Wellesley, Shepherd takes the elevator down to the basement.
He digs through cardboard boxes, stocking up on tote bags and other swag for incoming students.
“We’re expecting about 73 that are actually scheduled but then you always have the walk-ins,” Shepherd said.
