The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has invented or improved many world-changing things--radar, information theory, and synthetic self-replicating molecules, to name a few. Last month the university announced, to mild fanfare, an invention that could be similarly transformative, this time for higher education itself. It is called MITx.…

The U.S. military-service academies--at West Point (Army), Annapolis (Navy), Colorado Springs (Air Force), and New London (Coast Guard)--are at the center of several debates, both military and civilian. The military is downsizing, and the federal budget is under scrutiny: Do the academies deserve to continue if they are not producing better…

Can a quality education be provided by any college that relies heavily on adjunct instructors it subjects to lousy working conditions? Some higher-education experts and prominent advocates for adjunct faculty members would like to see accreditors and others who pass judgment on colleges ask questions like that more often. Those concerned about the…

Grades are broken. Students grub for them, pick classes where good ones come easily, and otherwise hustle to win the highest scores for the least learning. As a result, college grades are inflated to the point of meaninglessness--especially to employers who want to know which diploma-holder is best qualified for their jobs. An alternative is to…

"Doing well by doing good" is the business mantra of the for-profit-college industry. But one does not have to look far to find people who question the slogan's sincerity or the very legitimacy of that model. And that was even before reports of some companies' abusive student-recruiting practices and questionable educational standards fed a public…

The University of North Texas at Dallas (UNT-Dallas) was conceived 10 years ago as a public institution along tried-and-true lines--a comprehensive metropolitan university meant to serve a diverse student population and to improve the economic outlook of a part of the city that prosperity has left behind. But that was before management consultants…

In the United States, people think of elementary and secondary education as fundamentally different from higher education. The first two levels are where students are expected to learn the building blocks for lifelong learning, while college is meant to confer higher-order thinking and more-specialized skills. How students are treated flows…

Scientific journals have been retracting unreliable articles at rapidly escalating rates in the past few years, raising concern about whether research faces a burgeoning ethical crisis. Various causes have been suspected, with the common theme being that journals are seeing more cases of plagiarism and fudging of data as researchers and editors…

Students in the University of Rhode Island's International Engineering Program (IEP) spend a semester studying at an overseas university and another six months interning at a company abroad; at the end of five years, they earn two degrees, in engineering and a foreign language. Despite the extra academic demands, nearly a third of Rhode Island's…

As the nation's economy began to sputter early last year, two areas proved resilient to the cutback in Americans' spending: luxury goods and college degrees. By the end of 2008, however, luxury stores had recorded the greatest decline in sales of any retail-chain category. Optimistic college presidents believe they will be spared a drastic…

This article describes a brand-new liberal-arts university which promises a different approach to teaching. Quest University is the first private, nonprofit, secular college in Canada. It has attracted professors with stellar credentials. Of its 79 freshmen, most are graduates of the rigorous International Baccalaureate high-school program, and…

This article reports that a new study has found that young men are less likely to attend college if they carry a common form of a gene associated with poor impulse control. The study also found that a strong environment--a high-quality high school and heavily involved parents--can counteract that genetic risk. For boys with this gene who grow up…

Maryland's governor, Martin J. O'Malley, didn't get much of his legislative agenda through the General Assembly this year, but he did succeed on one front: preserving enough state aid for the public-university system to stave off a tuition increase for the fourth consecutive year. Like politicians in several states, Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, made…

The University of Phoenix is often derided by traditional academics for caring more about its bottom line than about academic quality, and every year, the annual report issued by its parent company focuses more on profits than student performance. This article reports that the institution that has become the largest private university in North…

The federal government's recent focus on making institutions prove their academic quality has left community colleges feeling vulnerable, uncertain about how to demonstrate their value to students and worried about losing crucial taxpayer support as their enrollments rise in a sagging economy. This article reports that community-college leaders…