The Arizona Advanced Manufacturing Institute (AzAMI) is still a year away from the end of the U.S. Department of Labor grant that expanded the program, but already, AzAMI Executive Director Leah Palmer at Mesa Community College (MCC) in Mesa, Arizona, is fielding calls from companies that have hired her students through the institute. As state…

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is closing its online-education grant program, and some college officials are concerned that the decision will leave a fast-growing sector of American higher education without a major source of support. The New York City-based foundation has funneled roughly $80-million into online-education ventures around the…

The Obama administration has no plans to renew the Bush-era competitiveness grants and their companion, the National Smart Grants, beyond their 2011 expiration date, meaning a likely end for America's short-lived experiment with merit-based federal financial aid. Instead, the administration will focus its resources on the popular Pell Grant…

Describes how private philanthropies are abandoning higher education, citing other priorities and a sense that colleges are not needy. (EV)