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→
Blog Archives
Oxymoron of the week: Congress seeks to fix broken Higher Ed system
Not doing the PhD (and being ok with that)
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→
Millennials: the age of entitlement
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→
Difficulties and ways to innovate in pedagogy
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→
Rethinking the undergraduate business model
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→
How do I email my supervisor? Part two – the thank you note.
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→
Another Professor fired for having standards
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→
Boost your MBA ROI with an international program
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→
PhD completion: an evidence-based guide for students, supervisors and universities
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→
Another State University system documents itself as fraud
Years ago, in my book, I wrote how a state university had an unwritten policy for faculty to pass 85% of their students. To clarify, any faculty who did not meet this “standard” would find his career cut short. I’ll double down on this by noting the university also allowed students to register for the […] … learn more→
