new business models

Educators estimate nearly 25 percent of college students want to be entrepreneurs. That's why more programs that teach entrepreneurship have emerged in academia.

But can it be taught? Most people don't spring out of the ground fully formed as a savvy entrepreneur, so a main challenge is teaching people how to become one — or become a better one.

Listen to Kirk's extended interview with MIT's Bill Aulet on WGBH's The Takeaway:

Taking a page from the corporate playbook, public and private college boards are beginning to tie at least a portion of annual merit raises to how well presidents and their campuses meet performance targets.

Wisconsin's Northland College is the latest liberal arts school promising to freeze its tuition. The Associated Press reports freshmen at Northland won't pay more than $30,450 in tuition during their years on the Ashland campus. Responding to the public's outcry over the cost of college, more and more schools are pledging fixed-rate tuition.

The Obama administration wants technical expertise as the U.S. Department of Education develops a system that would rank colleges and universities and tie university funding to certain criteria like graduation rates.

If you're in college, or you've recently graduated, chances are you've been taught by adjunct, part-time professors. That's because today adjuncts make up more than 50 percent of all college instructors in America — and many of them earn just a few thousand dollars per class. Now, there's a growing movement to unionize these instructors.

Facing stagnant enrollment and increasingly price-conscious consumers, already cash-strapped universities will continue to see their revenues fail to keep up with inflation, the bond-rating agency Moody’s Investment Service says.

America’s universities are still held in high regard, but doubts persist about the system’s ability to prepare students for success in today’s fast-changing, knowledge-based economy.

The number of college graduates is climbing but too slowly to meet the country's economic needs, according to economists. That's why some innovators want to fundamentally change the way institutes of higher learning award college credit.

Only eight percent of students now major in the humanities, according to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, down from a peak of more than 17 percent in 1967. The trend is worrisome, and plenty of college presidents have come to the defense of the humanities.

The recession may be over but its effects still linger at public colleges and universities.

After facing declining revenue during the longest recession since the 1930s, many state governments continue to defund public institutions of higher learning.

A new report released this month by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center finds state funding for public higher education in Massachusetts has fallen 25 percent since 2001.

After barely more than a year in business, opposite-coast rivals edX and Coursera have become two of the biggest higher-education organizations in the world, with a combined six million registered users drawn to the online teaching they provide.

But the honeymoon may be coming to an end.