College radio stations, which have long given a first break to little-known musicians and offered a voice for idiosyncratic viewpoints, are at risk of losing their identity to budget-cutters, a grass-roots campaign warns, USA Today reports. More than 350 college radio stations are going to the airwaves Tuesday to fight against a steady stream of universities nationwide that have been selling or transferring their FM licenses to non-student operations, usually in response to tighter budgets and a rapidly changing media industry…
…Read MorePodcast 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.
They dropped out of Princeton-for education reform
For the past three years, Princeton University has been home to Catharine Bellinger and Alexis Morin, and their non-profit organization Students for Education Reform, USA Today reports. Rather than returning for their senior year, Bellinger and Morin decided to take on running SFER full-time. The pair formed Students for Education Reform during their sophomore year…
…Read MoreCollege football players collecting millions in grants
Tattoo- and merchandise-related issues involving football players at Ohio State and an investigation into the activity of a booster at Miami (Fla.)—coupled with discussion at a summit between college presidents and NCAA president Mark Emmert—have fueled campus debate this summer, USA Today reports. Should athletes receive money beyond what scholarships, Pell Grants, and a little-publicized financial pot called the Student Assistance Fund provide?
…Read More8 tech tools for college students
The smartphone has become the centerpiece of many students’ digital lives, USA Today reports. Yes, it can be a distraction, but it also is an incredible tool that can transform classroom learning and late-night studying. Savvy professors and students are starting to explore what the smartphone can contribute to learning—and there is a whole host of apps to help that process along. There are also plenty of apps to help students with the less academic parts of college life…
…Read MoreStates start to require courses in financial literacy
Starting this fall, Virginia high school students will need more than reading, writing and arithmetic to snag a diploma, USA Today reports. Incoming high school freshmen will be required to take a one-credit course outlining the ABCs of economics and personal finance…
…Read MoreCollege requires fitness assessment for freshmen
During their first semester at Coker College, students this year will take a new required sequence designed to ease the transition from high school, USA Today reports. But it’s not your typical orientation class. Yes, it will involve advice on how to live independently, serve the community and engage with peers of differing opinions. But a major component of Coker College 101 compels students to do something they’re probably not used to being told to do: get fit…
…Read MoreCollege entrance exam ACT’s validity questioned
A new study has found that two of the four main parts of the ACT–science and reading–have “little or no” ability to help colleges predict whether applicants will succeed, USA Today reports. The analysis also found that the other two parts–English and mathematics–are “highly predictive” of college success. But because most colleges rely on the composite ACT score, rather than individual subject scores, the value of the entire exam is questioned by the study…
…Read MoreColleges offer graduates help repaying loans
Law schools have done it for years. Now, some private liberal arts colleges are experimenting with the idea: They’re offering upfront to help students pay off their loans after they graduate, USA Today reports. The financial-aid benefit, which targets students who expect to pursue careers in low-paying public-service fields, aims to help colleges attract and retain students who might otherwise enroll somewhere cheaper, or nowhere at all…
…Read MoreCommunity college rankings inadequate, critics say
The Aspen Institute College Excellence Program released a list of what it considers the 120 “best” community colleges in the country Monday, kicking off a multistep, data-driven process for identifying a single institution to receive its $1 million award for “community college excellence,” reports USA Today. And though prize officials say they are simply trying to spotlight institutions that are successful in helping students earn college credentials, to try to help others learn from their methods, critics argue that the selection process unfairly attempts to rank and compare community colleges using data systems that are inadequate to the task…
…Read MoreJournals: USA, others need to re-tool their science programs
According to USA Today, the system of awarding science Ph.D.s needs to be either reformed or shut down, a provocative series of pieces in one of the world’s pre-eminent scientific journals says this week. According to the multipart series in the journal Nature, the world is awash in Ph.D.s, most of them being awarded after years of study and tens of thousands of dollars to scholars who will never find work in academia, the traditional goal for Doctors of Philosophy.
“In some countries, including the United States and Japan, people who have trained at great length and expense to be researchers confront a dwindling number of academic jobs and an industrial sector unable to take up the slack,” the cover article says…