Students are enrolling in coding “boot camps” at record rates, with the number of graduates increasing from about 2,200 in 2013 to an estimated 23,000 in 2017. However, the booming popularity of coding schools was not enough to prevent two prominent ones, Dev Bootcamp and The Iron Yard, from closing down recently. Coding boot camps … Continue reading “The Uncertain Future of Coding Boot Camps”
Meet Sarah, a very bright student in her junior year in high school. She excels in math and science and thinks that an engineering career of some kind would be her cup of tea. She wants to go to a college or university where a strong academic program will give her the knowledge she needs. … Continue reading “What’s the Alternative to a Mountain of College Debt?”
Recently I urged top law schools to stand up to the excesses and abuses occasioned by the ministrations of the American Bar Association (ABA). These schools could band together and follow the lead of the journalism schools at Northwestern and Berkeley, which dropped their accreditor, the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, … Continue reading “How to Fight the ABA’s Anticompetitive and Discriminatory Practices”
According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, in the previous two decades over 31 million students have dropped out of college shortly after beginning their coursework. There are many reasons for this trend, including rising higher education costs and entering students’ lack of academic preparation and focus. Another reason, however, is that many students … Continue reading “Should American Degree Programs Borrow from Their European Counterparts?”
Five years ago, higher education was abuzz over distance learning, a “disruptive technology.” The big question was whether traditional colleges and universities could incorporate the new technology or if they would be crippled because they couldn’t adapt to it. The rapid growth of for-profit online schools and the advent of MOOCs (massive open online courses) … Continue reading “Purdue Shakes Up Academe (Not All Presidents Are as Innovative as Mitch Daniels)”
“Dems are taking forever to approve my people, including Ambassadors,” President Trump tweeted on June 5. “They are nothing but OBSTRUCTIONISTS! Want approvals.” Fortunately for President Trump, many appointments don’t require Senate approval, and a cabinet member may appoint leaders to certain high-level positions within his or her department. This week Secretary of Education Betsy … Continue reading “A Critical Education Department Position Has Been Filled—and Filled Well”
Going through the college process makes no sense. First, kids guess where they might want to go, then pay to apply, wait to hear, and, if accepted, fill out financial aid forms, wait, and eventually learn what it will cost. That’s a poor process for buying something that costs between $100,000 and $300,000. My daughter’s … Continue reading “21st Century College Admissions: Bidding for Brains”
Recently, a bill was introduced in the North Carolina legislature that would shift control of the state’s apprenticeship program from the department of commerce to the community college system. The goal is to streamline the program and make it more aligned with some of the community colleges’ workforce development initiatives. The program, “ApprenticeshipNC,” has been … Continue reading “North Carolina’s Apprenticeship Program Offers Big Potential at Small Cost”
Dual enrollment programs, which allow high school students to take college courses for college credit, have been getting some bad publicity lately. In 2013, the popular college watchdog site Minding the Campus reported problems with instructor qualifications. More recently, an article here on the Martin Center site questioned the way dual enrollment programs are administered … Continue reading “Let’s Not Throw the Dual Enrollment Baby Out with the Bathwater”
The United States got along nicely for its first 176 years without any federal legislation on higher education. (A good reason why there was no such legislation is the absence of any authority for it in the Constitution, but that’s not a point I want to go into here.) In 1965, however, Congress passed and … Continue reading “If We Can’t Repeal the Higher Education Act, Let’s Improve It”