Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

The best college or university by state

New data reveals which college or university has the highest graduation rate in its state

state-graduation-rateAs many of the problems facing higher education come into national focus—student loan debt, low retention rates, inability to help students land a skilled degree—more online data resources are springing up to help students make the best return-on-investment (ROI) choices when choosing their institution…and there’s no better current indicator than graduation rate.

Already, some social savvy students may be using TIME’s new ranking, which measures how “influential” an institution is by alumni Wikipedia pages; or they’re trolling Facebook and Twitter to see how socially active an institution really is.

For those career-minded students focused on ROI when it comes to choosing a degree, ‘old-school’ considerations like average student SAT score, or new considerations like Wikipedia prestige, may not mean as much as what colleges have the highest graduation rate.…Read More

Poll: Public blames grad rates on college students

Republicans are likelier than Democrats to blame federal officials for today's college graduation rates.

The public pins most of the blame for poor college graduation rates on students and their parents and gives a pass to colleges, government officials and others, a new Associated Press-Stanford University poll shows.

All sectors of American higher education received high marks for quality. That extends to for-profit colleges, despite recent criticism of dubious recruiting tactics, high student loan default rates and other problems at some schools.

The belief that students are most at fault for graduation rates is a troubling sign for reformers who have elevated college completion to the forefront of higher education policy debates and pushed colleges to fix the problem, said Michael Kirst, professor emeritus of education and business administration at Stanford.…Read More