Looming budget cuts would end financial aid for thousands of students and force the U.S. Department of Education to slice payments to contractors that administer the federal student-aid programs, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told members of Congress on Thursday. read more >

Interest rates are at historic lows and everyone—homeowners, corporations, and even state and local governments—are refinancing their debts. Refinancing allows the borrower to replace his or her existing debt with a new loan with lower interest rates and better terms. This means that borrowers can lower their monthly payments, which frees up income for purchases and creates ripple effects throughout the entire economy. There is one critical group, however, that is getting left behind in the refinancing boom: students and families who take out loans to pay for higher education. read more >

President Obama didn't mention accreditation in his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening. But in a supplemental document released after the speech, the president made it clear that he is seeking major changes in the accountability system for higher education. read more >

Corporations and business groups account for 56% of all lobbying in 2011-12 read more >

A tax on financial transactions, a return to 2000-1 levels of state support, and a reallocation of existing money to offer free tuition were three ideas proposed on Tuesday in a news briefing as ways to finance America’s system of public higher education. The Campaign for the Future of Higher Education, a two-year-old coalition of faculty groups, organized the briefing to stimulate a national conversation on using public dollars to pay for college and preserve access for the children of middle-class families. During the briefing, three scholars summarized their working papers on financing higher education and answered questions about their proposals. read more >

Eligible employees with covered family members serving in the military will be able to take two special types of leave: (1) military caregiver leave and (2) qualifying exigency leave. The regulations become effective on March 8, 2013. read more >

It’s a dilemma many universities face: how to attract new, top faculty with competitive salaries without being unfair to senior professors, whose salaries often are tied to a pay scale or plan that hasn’t kept up with the outside market. read more >

In late December, a set of articles and essays in The New York Times focused on the public library as a place, and on the changing meaning of that place with the rise of electronic books and the demise of brick-and-mortar bookstores like Borders. read more >

In what could be a major step toward bridging the gap between massive open online courses and the credentialing system that they are supposed to "disrupt," the American Council on Education on Thursday endorsed five MOOCs for credit. read more >

Americans overwhelmingly view a higher education as essential to landing a good job and achieving financial security, but they have doubts about its quality and affordability, according to a new report from the Lumina Foundation and Gallup. read more >

The day a new union is certified, the clock starts ticking. After one year, if there’s no contract, the company gets its next chance to bust the union: a minority of workers can file a petition to decertify, and the Labor Board will schedule another vote. If this is the boss’s game plan—as it was at St. Charles—bargaining is an exercise in dela read more >

The StFX Association of University Teachers (AUT) began legal strike action today after eight months of talks with the University Administration yielded no settlement. “High quality education for students at StFX is our priority,” said Peter McInnis, president of the StFX AUT. read more >

Research presented here by researchers from Wabash College -- and based on national data sets -- finds that there may be a minimal relationship between what colleges spend on education and the quality of the education students receive. read more >

Two announcements this week suggest that MOOCs -- massive open online courses -- will increasingly include a route for students to receive academic credit. read more >

CSU Chancellor Timothy White joined Gov. Jerry Brown, the San Jose State campus president and Sebastian Thrun, the head of an online education company, at a news conference today to announce a pilot online teaching project. read more >

A dozen educators met last month in Palo Alto, Calif., to discuss the future of higher education. They had been convened at the epicenter of technological innovation in higher education by Sebastian Thrun, a pioneer of massive open online courses, and yet the task at hand had nothing to do with software or strategy. It had to do with citizenship. read more >

Georgia State University is adopting a new policy that could allow students to receive class credit for taking massive open online courses, or MOOCs. read more >

The release this week of a bill of rights for learning in the digital age was criticized by some who said the document had been put together by a group that didn’t include the very people it is meant to protect: students. The problem is, there is no traditional learner anymore. What’s more, we no longer even have a common definition of “higher education.” The lack of consensus about what the higher-education system in the United States should be producing is largely to blame for the pressures facing colleges and universities today, from lagging financial support to proving their value to students and parents. read more >

The American Association of University Professors has released the final version of a report urging colleges to give contingent faculty members an expanded role in governance, arguing that excluding such employees from governance matters is detrimental to the integrity of the academic profession. read more >

Purdue University’s new president, Mitch Daniels, released an open letter Friday, a week into his presidency, in which he noted that he very much approves of the Purdue tradition of skipping inaugurals. In the letter, he set out a series of strong criticisms of higher education, as well as various expert opinions on why higher education is in for a period of profound and possibly traumatic change. read more >