The Vermont State Colleges Board of Trustees has decided to combine two small state colleges--Lyndon State College and Johnson State College--that have been the access institutions for the northern and often most economically challenged region of Vermont. Northern Vermont University will result from the unification. The unification will multiply…

A new and rigorous examination of cost structures on the academic side of colleges and universities is needed in order to continue increasing access and serve the historic role of educating future citizens and functioning as an economic driver of society. Only rethinking the development and delivery of the curriculum will address today's issue of…

Driven by external pressure for increased accountability and internal pressure for improved learning outcomes, colleges across the country have been developing and refining assessment systems for several decades. In some cases, assessment results have significant positive impact. In other cases, the results have little impact, are not seen as…

Lyndon State College is a small, four-year public college in the rural Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. In an effort to improve its first-year retention rate, two years ago the authors began to analyze which students return to Lyndon for their second year of college. They found that more than 60% of the students were first-generation college students…

Recent state appropriations for higher education in Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont are tabulated. Governors in all those states signed spending bills for higher education. (MLW)