Standardized tests have been attacked for being biased against some groups of students. Is that true? Should we stop using them? Exams like the American College Test (ACT) are supposed to assess how much information students learned in high school and, by implication, their preparedness for college. However, they’ve been criticized as being biased against … Continue reading “The ACT is Still Useful”
World wars have been fought in less time than the battle the UNC and N.C. Community College Systems have waged to create a user-friendly database that active-duty military personnel and veterans can use to ease their transition into higher education. Lawmakers and veterans advocates want to know why higher-education officials have failed for nearly a … Continue reading “N.C. Campuses’ Long War”
President Biden recently announced a controversial, half-trillion-dollar student-loan-forgiveness scheme in which his administration would use a minor provision of the post-9/11 HEROES Act to excuse student borrowers from repaying roughly $500 billion in federal taxpayer funds. This regressive, unnecessary, and perverse maneuver promises to steer vast sums to affluent college-goers, even as it encourages colleges to … Continue reading “After Student-Loan Forgiveness, Mandatory Credentialing Has to Go”
Did you know that 92 percent of NAIA athletic departments wish they could offer psychiatric services designed specifically for their athletes? As mental-health awareness surges among higher-ed faculty and students, sports departments are increasingly concerned with their athletes’ mental well-being. Schools belonging to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics are no exception, and the NAIA … Continue reading “Did You Know? Student-Athletes Need Mental-Health Services, Too”
In the past few years, colleges have been closing their doors like never before. 607 colleges either closed or merged from 2014 to 2020, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. 2018-19 saw far and away the most college closures since data began to be tracked. In that academic year alone, 236 … Continue reading “Did You Know? College Closures Are On the Rise”
A constant concern in my academic sub-field of comparative politics is how to create concepts and measurements that stand up to scrutiny when applied to several cases. When we hear someone claim that politics in Country X are “corrupt,” our first questions are “What do you mean by corruption?” and “Compared to where?” This concern … Continue reading “Measuring the Spread of DEI”
It’s a sad fact that many of our teachers are weak. They’re weak on knowledge of their subjects and weak on teaching technique. Unfortunately, we know little about effective professional-development programs. The major reason lies in the research on professional development itself. A major review, in 2008, of the research on professional development for teachers … Continue reading “America Needs Better Teachers”
If you want to learn law and be a working lawyer in the United States, you have one option: earn a J.D. (Doctor of Laws) degree, which requires three years of study in law school. You’ll also need a four-year bachelor’s degree first. After being admitted to one of the 200 American Bar Association (ABA) … Continue reading “A Better Way to Teach Law”
University presidents make a difference. The best of them can steer a university to new heights of greatness, while the worst of them can bring costly mediocrity or even extinction. A few weeks ago, Mitch Daniels of Purdue, arguably the primus inter pares of American university presidents, announced that he was stepping down at the … Continue reading “One of Our Few Great College Presidents Retires”
Earlier this year, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (NSCRC) identified 39 million adults who had some higher-education experience as of July 2020 but had not earned any credentials and were no longer enrolled at a college or university. The NSCRC named this cohort the “Some College, No Credential” population. The NSCRC’s study found that … Continue reading “Did You Know? “Some College, No Credential” Students Are a Significant Cohort”