Reminder News - Six local chambers of commerce converge at MCC (May 27, 2011) - The East of the River Chamber of Commerce Association (ERCCA) held a Business After Hours networking event on May 24 for all six of its member chambers at Manchester Community College's Great Path Commons - the newest section of the college's campus...

Manchester Patch - MCC Graduates Its Largest Class Ever (May 27, 2011) - More than 750 Manchester Community College students had their day in the sun Thursday, as the school held its 47th annual Commencement, celebrating the festivities with its largest graduating class yet...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - For-Profit Colleges Win Major Concessions in Final 'Gainful Employment' Rule (June 2, 2011) - For-profit colleges, which have spent millions fighting the Education Department's proposed "gainful employment" regulations, have won some major concessions in the final rule, due out today. Under the rule, vocational programs whose students have the highest debt burdens and lowest loan-repayment rates will become ineligible to receive federal student aid...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Only 5 Colleges Do Well by Low-Income Students, Report Says (June 1, 2011) - Five colleges. That's how many are doing a good job of serving low-income students, according to a report released Wednesday by the Education Trust, a research and advocacy group. All five of the colleges are public, and none of them are flagships...

New England Board of Higher Ed - The Future of Higher Education in Connecticut (June 1, 2011) - Connecticut's strategy for higher education focuses on one central goal: to increase student success. While other states in New England and beyond are increasing the percentage of adults with degrees, Connecticut's rate of increase for young adults has dropped to 34th out of 50 states...

Campus Technology - Is Higher Education Ready for "The Education Bubble"? (June  1, 2011) - American higher education--the jewel in the global crown of universal education, with nearly a quarter of the total number of higher education institutions in the world, and including graduate programs that are the envy of the world--is facing the prospect of being the next bubble to burst. Technology is both a culprit and a promising ally...

Inside Higher Ed - Follow the F Grades (June 1, 2011) -  In 2009, Brian Hayden attended a professional development program for Pittsburgh area community colleges at which Kay M. McClenney, director of the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, offered an idea. She said that community colleges needed to take a look at the courses with the highest failure rates...

Diverse Issues in Higher Ed - 'Plus 50' Completion Strategy Aims To Help Baby Boomers Attain College Degrees and Certificates (May 31, 2011) - The Plus 50 Initiative, a project of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), is to benchmark and expand innovative programs at community colleges that will engage and encourage the plus 50 adult learner...

Inside Higher Ed - Progress and Backsliding (May 31, 2011) - ...Giving away a car -- as the rural Texas community college does -- is a lot flashier than just naming students to the dean's list. That is precisely the point. The college's president, Greg Williams, is trying to emphasize the importance of completion, not just taking courses and hoping for the best; of encouraging students to have specific strategies to complete a certificate or associate degree....

Chronicle of Higher Ed - U. of Chicago Students Hope to Revolutionize Course Packs (May 31, 2011) - Nikhil G. Abraham, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, was standing in line at the campus bookstore last fall when he realized he was about to pay for something he'd already bought: the readings in his course pack...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Online Learning Portals: Customizing Colleges Right Out of Higher Education? (May 29, 2011) - Somewhere out there is an ambitious but frugal high-school graduate who wants to avoid a traditional college path. Maybe she has read Anya Kamenetz's DIY U or one of the other end-higher-education-as-we-know-it manifestoes that have circulated in recent years...

CT Mirror - Construction workers turn out to back UConn Health Center plan (May 26, 2011) - Hearings on the near-perennial proposals to revamp the UConn Health Center tend to draw doctors, university officials and hospital administrators, with testimony about the university and area hospitals..

Chronicle of Higher Ed - For-Profit Group's Western Spoof Takes Shots at Community Colleges and For-Profits (May 23, 2011) - A video clip featuring the head of the major association of for-profit colleges, Harris N. Miller, dressed like the character Woody from Toy Story and cracking jokes that make fun of community colleges and his member colleges' own advertising messages, was live on YouTube for the past several days before it was abruptly taken down on Monday...

Inside Higher Ed - New Future for Loan Guarantors (June 1, 2011)  -  When Education Department officials took stock last fall of how successfully the government and college officials had made the much-ballyhooed transition to a single system for originating federal student loans, they expressed satisfaction with virtually all aspects of the process -- save one...

Hartford Courant - 77-Year-Old Among Tunxis Community College Graduates (June 01, 2011) -  Bertha Burkes dreamed of becoming a business administrator, and as a young woman she enrolled at Fort Valley State College in Georgia and, later, at Blackwell Business School in Washington, D.C. But sometimes life gets in the way, and Burkes found that the education she knew was vital to achieving her goal was too much of a financial burden...

CT Mirror - Despite enrollment growth at charter schools, state still far behind (June 1, 2011) - The State Board of Education Wednesday approved expanding the number of students Connecticut's charter schools can enroll, but a recent report by the U.S. Department of Education ranks Connecticut well bellow the national average in the percentage of public school students that attend charters...

CT Mirror - Vo-tech schools still awaiting answers on equipment funding (June 1, 2011) - State Board of Education members said Wednesday it would take $92 million to get the vocational-technical schools the equipment needed to bring the schools into the 21st Century--but in a challenging budget year, the prospects for state funding remain uncertain...

CT Mirror - Malloy's UConn health center plan passes first hurdle in Senate (June 1, 2011) - Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's $864 million proposal to renovate and expand the UConn Health Center in Farmington passed the state Senate Wednesday, 15 days after it was first announced. Supporters of the bill cast the proposal as an urgently needed economic development plan that would create thousands of jobs while making the state a leader in bioscience research, not a repeat of past debates over the health center's future or precarious financial situation...

CT Mirror - Last-minute windfall pops up in retiree health care account (May 27, 2011) - It almost sounds too good to be true: State budget officials, who already saw revenues surge by nearly $400 million over the past month, now say anticipated savings in retired worker health care costs have grown by some $100 million in the same period...

CT Mirror - Bills aim to expand education opportunities for welfare recipients (May 26, 2011) - A year ago Meredith Inkel faced a difficult decision: Go on working at a low-wage job so she would qualify for welfare or go back to school and be cut off from the state's cash-assistance program. The single mother of six children decided to go back to school so she could eventually get a better paying job...

Forbes - LinkedIn is About to Put Job Boards (and Resumes) Out of Business (June 1, 2011) - Job boards are becoming more irrelevant to the corporate recruitment process every single year. They are ineffective because of the sheer amount of competition on them and how they're perceived by recruiters...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Accountability's Fine, but It Won't Replace Great Teachers (May 29, 2011) - Lately I've been suffering from an advanced case of "retireitis." Symptoms include envisioning your own retirement party while attending another's, deciding which of your professional uniforms (suits and ties) you will keep and which you will donate to the theater department, being a little more forthcoming in saying what you really think-and wondering what will be the last "proof of institutional/academic effectiveness indicator" required before you retire...