ND chancellor, college presidents get pay bumps

According to the Associated Press, North Dakota’s Board of Higher Education on Thursday approved annual pay rises for its college presidents that ranged from 2 percent to 6 percent, with the presidents of North Dakota State University and the University of North Dakota both getting increases of more than $12,000, Businessweek reports. Chancellor William Goetz recommended the salary increases, using performance evaluations of each of the 10 presidents, a salary range based upon the type of school each president ran, and each one’s distance from the middle of the salary range…

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Financing an MBA, with help from Mom and Dad

Daniel Wesley knew as soon as he started applying to business school that he wanted to avoid student loans, BusinessWeek reports. He’d already racked up about $45,000 in loans from his undergraduate days and didn’t relish the idea of adding another $200,000 or so to that debt load, he says. When he found out he got into the Weekend MBA program at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business (Booth Part-Time MBA Profile), he turned to his mother and father, a retired construction foreman, for help. They agreed to pay for his first year of school, which he just completed, and plan to pay for his second year as well…

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A graduation gift for college seniors: Jobs

Hamza Afzal had such a hard time finding an electrical engineering internship during the recession that he delayed his graduation, took pre-med classes, and applied to law school, BusinessWeek reports. This year he got two job offers in his field. “I definitely saw a shift in the job market,” says Afzal, a senior at San Jose State University, who starts May 30 at chipmaker Linear Technology. The class of 2011 is enjoying the best job market for new grads since the 2008 financial crisis, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. It’s being driven by gains in finance, energy, and technology, says Edwin W. Koc, NACE’s research chief, who foresees younger workers filling a backlog of jobs after two years of stagnant hiring…

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College ROI: What we found

The PayScale methodology reveals which schools prepare students for well-paying careers and which schools make for poor investments, reports Bloomberg Businessweek. When Bloomberg Businessweek and PayScale last year inaugurated their ranking of the top U.S. colleges for return on investment, the main finding was a shocker. At a time when experts were trumpeting the value of a college education, our analysis showed that it was worth a fraction of what was previously thought, less than $400,000 over 30 years’ time. Only four schools had 30-year ROI in excess of $1.6 million, the highest previous estimate…

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Google: 600 communities aim to be high-speed networking test sites

Planning to build a local high-speed broadband network as a test project, Google Inc. has received more than 600 responses from communities interested in the effort, BusinessWeek reports. More than 190,000 individuals also have requested information, Google said on its blog. The company announced plans last month to build a fiber-optic network that would serve between 50,000 and 500,000 people, providing connections that are 100 times faster than current networks. “As we narrow down our choices, we’ll be conducting site visits, meeting with local officials, and consulting with third-party organizations,” James Kelly, a product manager, said in the blog posting. “Based on a rigorous review of the data, we will announce our target community or communities by the end of the year.” The proposed network set off a frenzy of lobbying by cities and towns across the U.S., with some holding rallies and sending gifts to Google’s headquarters. Several universities have teamed up with their local communities in support of their applications…

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