Northeastern

In a striking move, part-time faculty at Northeastern University voted to unionize Thursday, making it the third Boston-area college in the past seven months to do so.

Thursday's vote is part of a popular national movement to give part-time professors collective bargaining rights at a time when colleges and universities are increasingly depending on their work. More than half of Northeastern's faculty is part-time, though the university notes that adjuncts deliver about 27 percent of all instruction.

The debate that's happening in this country about the value of a college degree often centers around job preparation. A new poll out Tuesday from Northeastern University finds business leaders think few recent graduates have the skills to be good workers.

The poll paints a rather bleak picture, out of 800 business leaders polled nationally, 73 percent said there's a shortage of necessary skills in the American workforce.

Northeastern University has suspended its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, barring it from meeting on campus and stripping it of university funding. Northeastern says the group repeatedly disregarded university policies.

It's been two weeks since President Obama proposed his sweeping plan to make college more affordable. Now, low-income students and their advocates are urging Congress to support it.

The president wants to create a college rating system that ties federal financial aid to colleges' performance outcomes, including their ability to increase access for nontraditional students.

Reactions to Obama's plan to rank colleges have been mixed.

Students are moving into dorms, apartments and houses, getting ready for the new school year, but a debate over free speech last semester still lingers at Northeastern University, where a group of pro-Palestinian students says administrators have stifled its free speech.