innovation

Graduation season is underway, and commencement speakers are taking the stage at ceremonies throughout the country. An MIT scientist explains why the speeches they deliver are likely to be forgotten.

A Pew Research Center study out this week shows that Americans with college degrees are to the left of the majority without a degree. And post-grads who become professors are even left of that. Some conservative professors at Wellesley College are pushing their left-leaning students out of their comfort zones.

New England is facing a labor shortage of skilled carpenters, welders, engineers, and plumbers. Experts say part of the problem is that the U.S. is sending far too many people down the primrose path to college. That’s why some educators, employers and unions are trying to convince more young women to go into the trades.

The biggest difference between college in the 50s and college now? The tuition. Arizona State University President Michael Crow makes three proposals to tackle rising costs and other issues in America's higher education system. 

Hampshire College -- founded 45 years ago as an experiment in alternative higher education -- will soon become home to a ‘living building,’ and the the first college in the country to generate all of its electricity from renewable energy.

With college application deadlines looming, December is a stressful month for high school seniors - especially for those who can't turn to their own parents for help. When English is not spoken at home, and parents have not even been to college themselves, their children can get lost in the process. To fix that problem, one Massachusetts high school is pairing experienced parent volunteers with worthy first generation students.

Social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter have – for years – served as sites where ISIS and other extremist groups can disseminate propaganda to recruit disillusioned young people. To counter those radicalization efforts, the U.S. government is turning to college students. 

As part-time and adjunct faculty members at colleges and universities throughout the country are coming together to unionize, full-time professors at the Tufts University School of Medicine are taking the first step to join the Service Employees International Union.

Boston-based startup Gradifi is asking employers to help their employees pay back their students loans, and some firms are responding. More than a hundred businesses have lined up for a chance to help their workers pay down their crushing debt.

As part of our weeklong series on community colleges, "College Material," host of WGBH's Greater Boston Jim Braude weighs in on whether community colleges should be free.