new business models
Now that members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association have voted to approve a sweeping, if not radical, proposal giving the five largest athletic conferences “autonomy” to establish new governance rules regarding a compensation pay package for the recruitment of athletes, three very important public policy concerns need to be addressed.
New York University offers one of this country's most expensive four-year degrees, and it's only getting more expensive.
John Sexton has been president of NYU for over a decade. During that time, the university's real-estate footprint has grown by two million square feet and it's launched 11 international academic centers. Sexton has faced significant criticism for the direction he's taken the school, and for rising costs. Earlier this year he announced he'll step down in 2016.
Public discourse around the increasing cost of college and the student debt crisis has reached a feverpitch over the past five years. College and university administrators have responded to these concerns by increasing the amount of financial aid institutions provide to students: the average discount rate is now over 45 percent for private schools. This means that the average private college subsidizes students at a rate of $0.45 for every dollar of tuition it receives.
Students and faculty at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire enjoy some of the least restrictive speech rights in the country, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. The school was recently awarded a "green light" free-speech rating from the FIRE, an organization that monitors individual rights on college campuses.
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As community colleges assume a more central role in the nation's higher education landscape, the question of how prepared graduating high school students are is increasingly important. Some states are trying to improve the quality of, and change the way students think about, remedial education.
On Emerson College's first day of classes, the corner of Boylston and Tremont streets swarm with students; students drinking coffee, students smoking cigarettes, students wearing skinny jeans and plaid. In short, a small corner of Boston chock-full of hipsters.
And while "hipster" may not seem like an apt description of Boston's population as a whole, it does describe the students at Emerson College, at least according to College Magazine, an online and in-print publication written by college students.
College for America is an online degree program with no classes, no professors, and no credit hours. Offered through Southern New Hampshire University, the $10,000 degree program relies on students' skills to award credit. The program was recently featured as part of PBS NewsHour's Rethinking College series.
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School is almost back in session, and high school juniors and seniors are looking at colleges, trying to find the best fit. Families often turn to rankings, like U.S. News & World Report. But this year, Washington Monthly magazine is out with a different kind of college ranking, one where neither Harvard nor Stanford come out on top. Editor Paul Glastris calls it the "Bang for the Buck" list.
