Inside Higher Education (IHE) released its 2018 Survey of College and University Business Officers last week. While the findings vary across the different sectors of American higher education, many are sobering, especially for four-year private colleges. Many Small, Private Colleges’ Financial State is Perilous According to the IHE survey, conducted in partnership with Gallup, “44 percent of chief financial officers […] … learn more→

In an article for Forbes, Tom Lindsay reports on the scope of the student debt problem as a preface to discussing H.R. 4508, legislation introduced by Virginia Foxx (R-NC) to “reform” higher education ostensibly to make it more affordable. Titled the “Promoting Real Opportunity, Success, and Prosperity through Education Reform Act,” or PROSPER Act, “seeks to reform our […] … learn more→

Earlier this year I told some of my friends that I was enrolling in a PhD. This was a lie, but at the time I thought it was the truth. In February I was made one of those offers that you can’t refuse, a true gift for an early career academic; I was offered a […] … learn more→

I’m so lost! Your course is so confusing. Like, I really have no idea what to do and, like, I’m ready to simply cry and, like, drop this crazy course.” Susie, a major in education, blinked, but no tears came; she just kept glaring at me with her elaborately made-up brown eyes. She had texted […] … learn more→

Designing new ways of teaching is an imperative if we want to help students to understand the upheavals brought about by societal and technological changes, and to teach them how to adapt to a world that is changing very quickly. Moreover, from MOOCs, to inverted class attempts, educational innovations often spur much experimentation and investment […] … learn more→

Despite clear differences in research intensity, size and age, most of the 20,000 universities in the world share four common assumptions about how they deliver undergraduate education. Students generally attend campus; where fees are being paid, they are paid directly to the university; the default setting remains full-time study and all the credits for a […] … learn more→

The best blog post topics come from emails like the one I got a couple of weeks ago, from an international student studying at an Australian university. Here is the student’s dilemma: The questions might be naive, but I do want to learn more about the “Australian” way of sending regards to supervisors. My supervisor invited […] … learn more→

A few years ago, a book named Academically Adrift pointed out the results everyone working in higher ed already knew: many college courses have no content. The book showed nearly half of students gain no measurable skill after years of college. How could this be? I mean, our colleges charge plenty, and any look at […] … learn more→

As companies look to expand in geography and diversity to keep pace with an increasingly global economy, international experience—sometimes referred to as a global mindset—is a qualification that seems to be popping up more and more on job postings across a variety of industries and sectors. And while you can probably infer from the self-descriptive […] … learn more→

Many students enrol in a Master or PhD postgraduate research degree, but few complete them. From 2010-2016, 437,030 domestic and international students enrolled in postgraduate research programs in Australian public universities. Only 65,101 completed within the same six year period. This discrepancy does not necessarily mean postgraduate research students “failed” their degree. Common reasons not completing a degree […] … learn more→