Inside Higher Ed - Selectivity vs. Diversity (February 23, 2012)- If getting into a college's teacher preparation program were as difficult as gaining admission to its law school or medical school, would that college's graduates be more effective teachers...

Inside Higher Ed - Success Begets Success (February 21, 2012) - Community colleges can improve graduation rates by offering a course that teaches students how to navigate college with lessons on study skills, time management and how to find the bursar's office. Yet while "student success" courses are increasingly common, resistance remains strong at many community colleges....

Inside Higher Ed - A Vision for Adjuncts (February 21, 2012) - Adjunct professors often say that university administrators give them short shrift, with low pay and lack of benefits being the common complaints. A small private college in the Boston suburbs is tackling the issue head-on by making adjunct issues a top priority, one of nine academic goals mentioned in its strategic plan...

Inside Higher Ed - A Sure Thing (February 20, 2012) - DePaul University attracted 2,500 transfer students last year. Those students generally do well -- they average a 3.2 GPA, and 70 percent graduate within five years. But historically, too many have ended up running in place, said Lois Bishop, director of community college partnerships...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - How 'Flipping' the Classroom Can Improve the Traditional Lecture (February 19, 2012) -Andrew P. Martin loves it when his lectures break out in chaos. It happens frequently, when he asks the 80 students in his evolutionary-biology class at the University of Colorado at Boulder to work in small groups to solve a problem, or when he asks them to persuade one another that the answer they arrived at before class is correct...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - For Courting Students, Glossy Viewbooks Lose Luster (February 19, 2012) - Of all a college's courtship materials, the viewbook has long been the centerpiece. It seeks to convey the whole ethos of a place, what makes it unique. But viewbooks tend to blend together. Their pages teem with descriptions of majors and extracurriculars, and photos of bell towers, front gates, and groups of happy, diverse students on sunny fall days...

New England Journal of Higher Ed - Higher Ed's Local and Regional Economic Impact: A NEBHE Conference and Some Recent Evidence (February 17, 2012) - Our longstanding interest in the ways colleges and universities enrich their communities and the region will be on full display at NEBHE's April 3 conference on "Locally and Regionally Engaged: New England Colleges and Universities as Drivers of Innovation, Workforce and Economic Development...

CT Mirror - Lawmakers consider opening college courses to everyone (February 16, 2012) - Seven of every 10 students who enroll in the state's community colleges are diverted into non-credit remedial courses to prepare them for college-level courses...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Senators Hear About Successful Partnerships of Colleges and Work-Force Boards (February 16, 2012) - A Senate panel heard testimony on Thursday about team efforts that have successfully brought together community- and technical-college leaders, employers, and work-force-investment boards to meet local employment needs and bolster regional economies...

Community College Times - Colleges turn to individual donors for support (February 16, 2012) - Frank Dixon is the type of donor that every community college wants: a long-time benefactor who serves on the local community college foundation's board of directors and is a vocal advocate for using two-year colleges to transform local economies...

MSN - Mounting student loans a 'debt bomb' waiting to explode (February 22, 2012) - It's a vicious cycle. Many families in this country cannot afford the skyrocketing cost of higher education without student loans. But many graduates cannot find a job and cannot pay off the loans. As a result, they wind up in a much deeper hole (as the interest and collection fees accrue) with no way out...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - To Fix Student Lending, Rethink the Concept (February 20, 2012) - This past fall, Occupy Wall Street protesters around the country called for far-reaching changes in our society, including forgiveness of student-loan debt. While we believe loan forgiveness is a bad idea for a variety of reasons, we also think the protesters are right in calling attention to the nation's Byzantine and inefficient system of student lending. Here are a number of beneficial steps that policy makers can take to begin to fix our student-loan system...

Hartford Courant - Poets On Circuit Tour At University of Hartford Thursday (February 15, 2012) - Five award-winning student poets will read from their work Thursday at 12:15 p.m. at the University of Hartford's Wilde Auditorium...This year's other winners are Leslie Ahlstrand, a senior at Trinity College; Andrea Amulic, a senior at Connecticut College; Jemel Nejaime at Manchester Community College; and Felicity Sheehy, a sophomore at Yale University...

The Salvation Army - MCC Students Present Public Relations Campaign To The Salvation Army (December 8, 2011) - Students from Manchester Community College (MCC) delivered a presentation to The Salvation Army officials about getting the message out that "The Salvation Army is more than kettles and thrift stores...

CT Mirror - Regionalizing schools: a carrot or a stick? (February 22, 2012) - Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has grown impatient waiting for small school districts to team up with nearby districts to shave costs. He wants the state to significantly scale back the amount it sends towns such as Canaan, which spends $22,450 for each of the 139 students it educates each year, the most expensive per-student spending in the state...

CT Mirror - Teachers unions say "no" to Malloy's tenure plan (February 21, 2012) - The state's teachers unions may have reached agreement on how their members should be graded weeks ago, but on Tuesday, union leaders came to the state Capitol complex to display buyer's remorse...

State of Connecticut - Gov. Malloy: "The Time Is Now To Transform The Status Quo"  (February 21, 2012) - Testifies Before Education Committee in Support of Education Reform Package. Governor Dannel P. Malloy today testified before the General Assembly's Education Committee in support of legislation he proposed to restore Connecticut's education system into a national model of excellence for all and help advance an economic revival for the state...

CT Mirror - Two different takes on state's finances, economy (February 21, 2012) - Leaders of Connecticut's small towns were left to read the fiscal tea leaves Wednesday as state leaders offered two starkly contrasting views of Connecticut's finances. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and his fellow Democrats leading the House and Senate declared fiscal stability and pledged to continue trying to bolster municipal budgets, but GOP legislative leaders cited projected deficits, a bond rating downgrade and cash flow problems as evidence of another impending fiscal crisis...

Inside Higher Ed - Montesquieu Goes to College (February 23, 2012) - Should different economic classes have different colleges? And should those colleges have different missions? I'm not talking about the elite-of-the-elite letting in a few scholarship students, as welcome as that is. I'm thinking more of art history and philosophy at community colleges...

CT Mirror - Poor private colleges? (February 22, 2012) - If Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has his way, five private colleges with rich endowments would be kicked out of the running to receive money from the state. The move would cut the $4.8 million the state is currently sending to Trinity College and to Fairfield, Quinnipiac and Wesleyan universities for scholarships for 3,320 students...

Inside Higher Ed - The Wake-Up Call (February 20, 2012) -We have family friends whose older son started college this Fall. Apparently, when he got his Fall grades last month, he had his head handed to him. Having reeled from the shock for a while, now he's studying much more aggressively than he ever has before...

Community College Times - States trend toward performance funding (February 17, 2012) - As college completion becomes a priority, more state legislatures are challenging community colleges to demonstrate progress by tying funding measures to institutional performance...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Who Benefits? (February 14, 2012) - Although changes in student financial-aid policies for the federal 2012 fiscal-year budget have been widely reported, one change has gone largely unnoticed: the requirement that new students must have a high-school diploma, GED, or completed home schooling in order to receive federal aid. Currently, students without such a credential must take an "ability-to-benefit" (ATB) test to determine if they are ready for college-level work...