Inside Higher Ed - Standardized Tests That Fail (February 29, 2012) - Large numbers of community college students are being placed into remedial courses they don't need, according to new studies that questions the value of the two primary standardized tests two-year colleges use to place students: the COMPASS and the ACCUPLACER...

Inside Higher Ed - Romney and Higher Ed (February 29, 2012) - So far, the path Mitt Romney has set out for the Republican presidential nomination has not focused much on higher education...

Community College Times - New report sheds light on transfer trends (February 28, 2012) - Nearly a third of new college students first attend community college before subsequently transferring to other higher education institutions, according to new data from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC)...

Inside Higher Ed - Paying It Back, Not Forward (February 28, 2012) - An analysis of 15 years of alumni giving at one unidentified private university affirms one widely held belief of fund-raisers and casts doubt on another...

New England Journal of Higher Ed - New Kind of Ellis Island as Second-Generation Immigrants Land on College Campuses (February 28, 2012) - Demographics in American higher education are changing dramatically. A recent study by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) reveals that 11.3 million people ages 16 to 26 (one in four) are first- and second-generation immigrants...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - A Third of Students Transfer Before Graduating, and Many Head Toward Community Colleges (February 28, 2012) - One-third of all students switch institutions at least once before earning a degree, says a report released on Tuesday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The "traditional" path of entering and graduating from the same institution is decreasingly followed, the report says...

Inside Higher Ed - Invisible Transfer Students (February 28, 2012) - Enrollment managers have long spoken about the mobility of students, citing the high number of credits transferred in and out of their colleges and grumbling that federal graduation rate calculations fail to account for those transient degree-seekers...

Community College Times - Obama calls on governors to make education a funding priority (February 27, 2012 ) - President Barack Obama on Monday called on governors to make education a greater priority, noting that more than 40 states cut higher education spending in 2011-12...

Inside Higher Ed - Fountain of Youth (February 27, 2012) - Community colleges are hot these days, and not just with photo-op seeking politicians. They're an increasingly popular choice for 18-22 year-olds from the upper middle class, thanks to cheap tuition, a career focus, smoother transfer options and growing public respect for the sector's academic chops...

Inside Higher Ed - 'Innovation Campuses' (February 27, 2012) - A recent explosion of "innovation" campuses -- many in the Midwest and almost all involving fancy new buildings and partnerships between public colleges and private corporations - have ironically un-innovative names...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - Rebooting the Academy: 12 Tech Innovators (February 26, 2012) - College leaders are trying new approaches to teaching and research with digital tools, and some of those approaches could be transformative...

Community College Times - Next round of $2B TAA grants opens (February 24, 2012) - The Obama administration used the end of a high-profile tour of community colleges this week to announce the next round of grants totaling $500 million to help train workers for available jobs...

Inside Higher Ed - Same Numbers, New Calculations (March 1, 2012) - While the conversation about paying for college has a familiar unhappy ring to it every year, families of students at a few private colleges can at least use the same numbers this time...

Hartford Courant - New Police Chief Proud Of Department's Commitment To Community (February 29, 2012) - David A. Caron was studying liberal arts at Manchester Community College and had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. And then he took a course on law enforcement administration...

CT Mirror - Malloy plans forums on education -- and messaging (February 28, 2012) - A day after a compromise meant to neutralize liquor reforms as an issue, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy will try today to further focus the press, public and legislature on education reforms that are his top priority in 2012...

CT Mirror - To keep education focus, Malloy compromises on liquor (February 27, 2012) - Trying to keep the political focus on education reform, the administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy responded Monday to some of the concerns raised by wholesalers and retailers of alcohol about his sweeping proposal to overhaul liquor laws...

Inside Higher Ed - That One Stings (February 28, 2012) - As regular readers know, I grew up in a city with minor league baseball. As it happened, a few of the players from the years I paid attention went on later to significant major league careers; one of them even became a first-ballot Hall of Famer. (Yes, I saw him play in the minors. Even then, you could tell he'd be special...

Inside Higher Ed - Talking About Teaching Failures (February 28, 2012) - Saturday nights is when academics let down their hair on Twitter and ponder the larger questions facing higher education. This past Saturday night was no exception. We got into a long conversation (archived here for your reading pleasure). Some of the important threads that came out of it was that a) we are, generally, hesitant to write publicly and openly about our teaching failures and b) failure means different things to different groups (instructors, administrators, students)...

Chronicle of Higher Ed - College at Risk (February 26, 2012) - If there's one thing about which Americans agree these days, it's that we can't agree. Gridlock is the name of our game. We have no common ground...