Public University Presidents Are Prospering, Annual Compensation Study Finds

whatiscollegefor:

According to the annual pay report by The Chronicle of Higher Education, four public university presidents had compensation packages topping $1 million.

This is disgusting. You try not to have a knee jerk reaction, but while tuition and fees rise, why are university presidents earning anything more than $100K? Is there a context behind this not related to greed? How does one not be upset? How can any student be ok with this? Research your school and find out what the overhead is costing you. 

“According to the Chronicle report, the median total compensation for the presidents of public research universities was $441,392, up 4.7 percent from the previous year’s $421,395. The median base salary, $373,800, was up 2 percent from $366,519 the previous year.”

Is Online Learning for Steerage?

My major concern is the increasing standardization of the college experience. In order to make online learning worth the cost of development, institutions must achieve economies of scale so as to spread its costs over a large number of students.  But achieving these economies of scale means losing certain intangible aspects of the classroom environment; indeed, online education makes no room for the interpersonal interactions that are an essential part of an authentic education.

My second concern is that cost-saving technologies will have different consequences for rich and poor institutions and for rich and poor students. Public institutions have faced decreased taxpayer subsidies for years and feel acute pressure to reduce costs through standardization. In contrast, wealthy private universities have little incentive to standardize and cheapen their learning environments.

Survey finds presidents are skeptical on MOOCs

But it turns out that — when asked privately — most presidents don’t seem sure at all that MOOCs are going to transform student learning, or reduce costs to students — two of the claims made by MOOC enthusiasts and an increasing number of politicians and pundits.

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The Whole Truth About Student Debt in 17 Charts

Why Some Colleges Are Saying No to MOOCs, at Least for Now

“For a while it really felt like a rocket ship, with folks desperate not to be left behind,” says Peter Stokes, executive director of postsecondary innovation at Northeastern University’s College of Professional Studies.

“I think that phase has passed, and the folks who are starting to do the work are starting to realize that these efforts … have real costs for the institution,” says Mr. Stokes. “And I think that’s creating a little bit more sobriety about how folks view the opportunity.”

New study links student motivations for going to college to their success

The study found that students motivated by a desire for autonomy and competence tended to earn higher grades and show a greater likelihood of persistence than did other students. 

Why did you decide to go to college?

Behind the Webcam’s Watchful Eye, Online Proctoring Takes Hold

Hailey Schnorr has spent years peering into the bedrooms, kitchens, and dorm rooms of students via Webcam. In her job proctoring online tests for universities, she has learned to focus mainly on students’ eyes.

“What we look for is eye movement,” says Ms. Schnorr. “When the eyes start veering off to the side, that’s clearly a red flag.”

The result is a monitoring regime that can seem a bit Orwellian. Rather than one proctor sitting at the head of a physical classroom and roaming the aisles every once in a while, remote proctors peer into a student’s home, seize control of her computer, and stare at her face for the duration of a test, reading her body language for signs of impropriety.

Even slight oddities of behavior often lead to “incident reports,” which the companies supply to colleges along with recordings of the suspicious behavior.

image via flickr:CC | joeythibault

How much proctoring is enough?

ACT survey finds gap on college readiness

New survey results from the ACT assessment organization, made public Wednesday, show a disconnect on the crucial question of college readiness. Eighty-nine percent of high school teachers surveyed said students who finished their classes were well or very well prepared for college work in those subjects.

But 26 percent of college instructors say incoming students are well or very well prepared for first-year courses, the survey found.

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With the growing number of MOOCs, online classes, and blended learning, does the current pricing of highered make sense anymore?

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Even Brief Meditation Can Improve Student Performance

New research, published in the journal Mindfulness, suggests practicing meditation before class can help students focus and lead to better grades.

Researchers randomly selected students for basic meditation instructions before a lecture and discovered that the students who meditated before the lecture scored better on a subsequent quiz than students who did not meditate.

photo via flickr:CC | nikoschwarz

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Social Media, Facebook & Twitter Use May Harm Grades of College Freshman

A new research study finds that widespread use of media among freshman college students may compromise academic performance.

Researchers determined that freshmen women spend nearly half their day — 12 hours — engaged in some form of media use, particularly texting, music, the Internet and social networking. Investigators discovered that media use was generally associated with lower grade point averages (GPAs) and other negative academic outcomes.

However, there were two exceptions as newspaper reading and listening to music were actually linked to a positive academic performance.

photo via flickr:CC | Jason A. Howie

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whatiscollegefor:

Rising Prices: College Tuition vs. the CPI

As time passes, college administrators make health-care providers appear miserly. According to theBureau of Labor Statistics, while the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers (CPI-U) has risen 179 percent since 1980, college tuition and fees have increased nearly five times more— a staggering 893 percent.

Tech-savvy kids prefer taking SAT with pencil, paper

Only one in 10 students surveyed would choose to take the crucial admissions test online vs. using the traditional No. 2 pencil and fill-in-the-ovals sheet.

“Taking tests on the computer to me is tedious. Dealing with a machine, anything can happen,” says Clayton, who did not take the Kaplan survey. “After awhile it starts to wear on you. It can also affect your ability to answer questions later on the exam.”

More than four out of five students (81%) said they would not want to take the SAT via computer, citing concerns such as technical difficulties, typing proficiency and wanting to work out math problems with paper and pencil. Nine percent weren’t sure. Among parents, 65% favored computers, in many cases noting that most kids are tech-savvy, and 15% were unsure.

How should the educational sector encourage accelerated schooling and better prepare students to create start-ups in the United States?

Do students really have to spend four years as undergraduates?

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For Libraries, MOOCs Bring Uncertainty and Opportunity

At a conference held here at the University of Pennsylvania last week, librarians talked about the chances and challenges that open online courses throw their way. The conference, “MOOCs and Libraries: Massive Opportunity or Overwhelming Challenge?,” was organized by OCLC, a library cooperative that runs the WorldCat online catalog and provides other services and library-related research.

Lynne O’Brien, director of academic technology and instructional services at Duke University, said the “rapid uptake” of MOOCs had taken many people by surprise. As she put it, “These courses don’t seem to fit anything of the model that we have for how to do online education well.” She’s been hearing from instructors that “the process of preparing courses for this environment made them rethink” how they teach their on-campus courses. “Faculty have said it’s a huge amount of work but that it’s also a wonderful opportunity,” she said.

photo via flickr:CC | Andrew|W