University System News

USG NEWS:
www.13wmaz.com
http://www.13wmaz.com/story/news/education/schools/2014/06/26/middle-georgia-state-college-university/11425419/
Middle Georgia State College might become a university
Elise Brown, WMAZ
A university could be coming to Central Georgia. Middle Georgia State College plans to become a university next fall. President Christopher Blake said becoming one allows for more educational opportunities. Although administrators are still working on details, university students could earn a graduate degree in areas like education and nursing. …Blake said Georgia’s Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s university system, suggested that the school look at becoming a university. Administrators plan to presenting their plan to the board next spring. It’s not a done deal until the board approves it.

www.mdjonline.com
http://mdjonline.com/printer_friendly/25354087
Cobb DOT talks bus line to link area universities
by Sarah Westwood
MARIETTA — A new bus route could ferry Kennesaw State University students to other universities in Atlanta and Cobb as early as fall of next year. Faye DiMassimo, head of Cobb’s transportation department, spoke about the proposed transit line, called Route 10X, at the Board of Commissioners meeting this week, where the board voted 4-0, with Commissioner Bob Ott absent, to allow the department to begin requesting proposals from consulting firms that could help guide the project. She said the route would link the Kennesaw State campus, Life University and the Southern Polytechnic State University campus with Georgia State University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Savannah School of Art and Design and other destinations in downtown Atlanta.

RESEARCH:
www.wjcl.com
http://wjcl.com/2014/06/26/skidaway-scientists-participate-in-a-historic-first-global-project/
Skidaway scientists participate in a ‘historic first’ global project
By Christopher Buchanan
SKIDAWAY ISLAND, Ga. (WJCL) – While both local and national attention has been focused on the larger creatures in the coastal waters, scientists at the University of Georgia Skidaway Institute of Oceanography participated in a global attempt to look at some of the oceans smallest inhabitants this past Saturday. The group participated in Ocean Sampling Day – an ambitious, international project to produce a single-day snapshot of microbial populations around the world. On June 21, researchers collected water samples at 185 global sites, ranging from Antarctica to the Arctic Ocean and from New Zealand to Iceland. This was the first global, simultaneous sampling of microbes in ocean, coastal and Great Lakes waters.

www.blogs.voanews.com

Science Scanner: Curiosity’s Mars Selfie, Jurassic Caterpillar & an X-ray of Dark Matter?

Science Scanner: Curiosity’s Mars Selfie, Jurassic Caterpillar & an X-ray of Dark Matter?
… Special Glove Teaches How to Read and Write Braille: Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) have come up with some special gloves that can teach you to read and write Braille, the communications method used by those with impaired vision. The process used to teach Braille is based on what the Georgia Tech researchers called passive haptic learning (PHL), which helps people learn muscle memory through vibrating stimulus, rather than through sight. Some of the research participants were given gloves with tiny vibrating motors sewn into the knuckle area, while others weren’t provided with the device.

www.bizjournals.com
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2014/06/georgia-tech-develops-wireless-chemical.html
Georgia Tech develops wireless chemical vapor-sensing device
Urvaksh Karkaria
Staff Writer- Atlanta Business Chronicle
Georgia Tech researchers have developed a chemical vapor-sensing device. The technology, developed by a Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) team, is aimed at myriad applications in military, commercial, environmental, healthcare and other areas. An array of sensors uses carbon nanotubes and other nanomaterials to detect specific chemicals, while an RFID (radio-frequency identification) capability informs users about the presence and concentrations of those vapors wirelessly, according to a statement.

www.ajc.com
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/ga-tech-study-suggests-ways-to-ease-climate-change/ngSnf/
Ga. Tech study suggests ways to ease climate change’s deadly effects
By Kristina Torres
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Heat-related deaths are likely to soar over the next 40 years due to climate warming, but new research has found that increase could be cut by more than half — and virtually eliminated in Atlanta — if major cities across the nation embraced a greener footprint. The four-year study out of Georgia Tech is the first major national assessment of major city residents’ health, the impact of rising temperatures and what city officials could do to alleviate a growing crisis.

www.gainesvilletimes.com
http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/section/6/article/101380/
Stakeholders group commits to finishing water plan
By Jeff Gill
A private group agreed this week to spend the money necessary to complete a water management plan for the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin, which includes Lake Lanier. The ACF Stakeholders’ 56-member governing board, meeting earlier this week in Eufaula, Ala., directed its technical contractors — Black & Veatch, Atkins Global and the Georgia Water Resources Institute at Georgia Tech — to finish its work this summer with the goal of wrapping up the Sustainable Water Management Plan by late fall. Crafting the plan has been the organization’s goal since its creation nearly five years ago.

www.economist.com
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21605899-staid-higher-education-business-about-experience-welcome-earthquake-digital
The digital degree
The staid higher-education business is about to experience a welcome earthquake
FROM Oxford’s quads to Harvard Yard and many a steel and glass palace of higher education in between, exams are giving way to holidays. As students consider life after graduation, universities are facing questions about their own future. The higher-education model of lecturing, cramming and examination has barely changed for centuries. Now, three disruptive waves are threatening to upend established ways of teaching and learning… In the meantime, a second generation of MOOC is trying to mirror courses offered at traditional universities. Georgia Institute of Technology and Udacity have joined forces with AT&T, a telecoms firm, to create an online master’s degree in computing for $7,000, to run in parallel with a similar campus-based qualification that costs around $25,000. Mona Mourshead, who runs McKinsey’s education consultancy, sees a turning point. “If employers accept this on equal terms, the MOOC master’s degree will have taken off. Others will surely follow,” she says.

www.bloomberg.com
http://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/whats-a-mooc/
What’s a MOOC?
By Michael McDonald and Erin Zlomek
If 2012 was loudly proclaimed to be The Year of the MOOC, the two years since then may have been The Time of Second Thoughts about Massive Open Online Courses. The idea behind MOOCs is still appealing — using the Internet to open up the lecture hall at no charge, reaching tens of thousands of students at a time from poor countries and rich ones alike. The success of the first truly massive courses triggered grand predictions of a revolution in higher education… In 2013, the American Council on Education recommended that five Coursera MOOCs be accepted for college credit – and the company raised $43 million from investors. Udacity introduced an online master’s degree in computer science with the Georgia Institute of Technology for less than $7,000 — about a third of the degree’s on-campus cost. It’s also forged partnerships with companies like AT&T and Google to offer what it calls “nanodegrees” — industry-driven credentials that it says will qualify students for specific jobs.

www.washingtontimes.com
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/25/cnn-presses-forward-plan-use-drones-media-coverage/#ixzz35qSiSftO
CNN presses forward plan to use drones for media coverage
By Cheryl K. Chumley
CNN has kicked off a research project with the Georgia Institute of Technology to discern how the media organization might go about using drones to gather information for journalism reports. Part of the research will focus on analyzing what the technological needs are to launch such an endeavor, as well as what the safety and manpower issues are, Breitbart reported. The overall aim is to come up with a report that can be shared with the Federal Aviation Administration which, in turn, could plot a path for media use of drones.

www.wrbl.com
http://www.wrbl.com/story/25871716/fort-benning-shows-off-new-unmanned-helicopter-technology
Fort Benning shows off new unmanned helicopter technology
By Jessi Mitchell
Wednesday the Maneuver Battle Lab at Fort Benning showed off some new unmanned aircraft technology. The Lab has been working with the Georgia Technical Research Institute to develop an self-operating helicopter that has multiple advantages to a normal drone. Georgia Tech’s School of Aerospace Engineering has been working with the unmanned helicopter for more than ten years. It has been used for multiple advances in unmanned aircraft tech, and now it is helping the engineers develop new capabilities for the army.

www.gainesvilletimes.com
http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/section/6/article/101380/
Stakeholders group commits to finishing water plan
By Jeff Gill
A private group agreed this week to spend the money necessary to complete a water management plan for the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin, which includes Lake Lanier. The ACF Stakeholders’ 56-member governing board, meeting earlier this week in Eufaula, Ala., directed its technical contractors — Black & Veatch, Atkins Global and the Georgia Water Resources Institute at Georgia Tech — to finish its work this summer with the goal of wrapping up the Sustainable Water Management Plan by late fall. Crafting the plan has been the organization’s goal since its creation nearly five years ago.

Editorials/Columns/Opinions
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Lowering-Law-School-Tuition/147215/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Lowering Law-School Tuition Benefits Everyone, Not Just the Students
By Nicholas W. Allard
Brooklyn Law School will cut tuition by 15 percent beginning in the 2015-16 academic year, a decision that has received sustained national attention and helped prompt a much-needed public discussion about skyrocketing tuitions at law schools. …The fact is that the financial model of law schools is broken. Unless the schools do what they can to make legal education more affordable, they will price themselves out of business, contribute to the high cost of legal services that most people need, and widen the gap in access to justice.

www.nytimes.com

Tying Federal Aid to College Ratings
By The Editorial Boad
College and university leaders have been up in arms since President Obama announced last year that the administration would soon deploy a rating system that evaluates schools based on factors like affordability, graduation rates, student earnings and how well institutions serve low-income students. Mr. Obama wants Congress to use the ratings to help guide the allocation of federal student loans and grants. This is immensely controversial among college presidents, who have argued, unconvincingly, that such a system would elevate financial concerns above academic ones and that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to compare schools with different educational missions.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/u-s-government-not-banks-should-service-loans-professors-argue/80643?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
U.S. Government, Not Banks, Should Service Loans, Professors Argue
Report: “Federal Student-Loan Servicing: Contract Problems and Public Solutions”
Authors: Eric M. Fink, an associate professor at Elon University’s School of Law, and Roland Zullo, an associate research scientist at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s Institute for Research on Labor, Employment, and the Economy
Summary: Students are not well served by the student-loan-servicing industry, the researchers argue, as there is an inherent conflict between the profit motive and responsive, quality service. Given the large number of complaints against loan servicers by students, Mr. Fink and Mr. Zullo argue that the current loan-servicing model should be reimagined.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2014/06/25/essay-academics-who-are-advised-leave-their-associate-degrees-their-cvs#ixzz35qIG8fG0
Left Off
By Karen Head
Karen Head is assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Literature, Media, and Communication and director of the Writing and Communication Program’s Institute-wide Communication Center.
As graduation season winds down, many former college students are picking up their framed diplomas to hang in new offices or homes. These diplomas are an important reminder of long years of dedicated work, but how much do the name on the diploma and the degree category actually matter? Since graduation season coincides with my annual post-semester spring cleaning, it is a question I consider each time I wipe the dust from one of my four diplomas. In January I was one of the opening forum speakers at the annual Association of American Colleges & Universities meeting in Washington. I was there to talk about my experience teaching a massive open online course. Audience members were curious about the subject of alternative degree paths, MOOCs and competency-based programs.

www.huffingtonpost.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-white/sorry-starbucks-an-oncamp_b_5525411.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
Sorry, Starbucks: An On-Campus Degree Is Better Than an Online One
Jane White
…While I applaud Starbucks’ efforts, I and others are baffled that the program is limited to one institution. For one thing, Arizona State is incredibly expensive for an online program — about $15,000 a year. As Rachel Fishman, an education policy analyst at the New American Foundation recently observed, the price is more than four times that of an average community college: $3,264, and a little less than double the average in-state tuition rate for state schools of around $8,900. …While online degrees may be appropriate for some people, I think the vast majority of college-age students benefit from living on campus.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/06/27/essay-questions-use-anecdotal-stories-profit-debate#sthash.kifKdwqd.dpbs
Proof via Straw Man
By Wade Dyke
There is a pattern of dishonesty taking place in some of the criticism of for-profit colleges. Too frequently, opponents of the sector take advantage of students and use an individual as a “straw man” to try to prove a point about student debt and tuition. It is an attack by anecdote. Or more precisely, attack by false and partial anecdote. The latest example is a filing from the Education Trust on the U.S. Department of Education’s proposed “gainful employment” (GE) rule.

www.forbes.com
http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhorn/2014/06/26/beltway-needs-new-higher-education-ideas/
Beltway Needs New Higher Education Ideas
Michael Horn, Contributor
It’s time for some new ideas in Washington, D.C. to curb what is a very real problem. The new documentary Ivory Tower does a good job of outlining that problem. Higher education tuition continues to rise. According to the White House, “Over the past three decades, the average tuition at a public four-year college has more than tripled, while a typical family’s income has barely budged.” Debt for college graduates is spiraling upward. The challenge of repaying the loans is growing. …But this is just more of the same we’ve seen from Washington over the past several decades from members of all political parties in an effort to extend access to higher education at any cost. Although proposals like the President’s are well intentioned and—let me be clear—in the immediate term they will help many individual borrowers (yes, not all, as this New York Times piece details, but even in giving more options it will be helpful), they do not address the root cause of the problem at hand. In some cases, proposals of this kind that are meant for future student borrowers could even exacerbate the problem in the longer run.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/friday-fragments-54#sthash.N4JHTR8S.dpbs
Friday Fragments
By Matt Reed
Ever the optimist, I’m glad to see the Republican and Democratic versions of the proposed next Higher Education Act both include restoring Pell to year-round availability. If we want to decrease time to completion, making summer available should be a no-brainer. The previous interlude of summer Pell was brief, and announced at the last minute; colleges didn’t really have time to ramp up programs to take advantage of it. A longer-term commitment to a twelve-month calendar would provide a tremendous spur to innovation. That may sound like special pleading, but on the ground, it’s real.

Education News
www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/65192/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=905c7216e62e4635b6c33bde2796478f&elqCampaignId=173
Winthrop University Fires President After Less Than a Year
by Jeffrey Collins, Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. —Winthrop University fired its president after less than a year, saying she violated the Rock Hill college’s nepotism policy by hiring her husband, lied to trustees and was rude, hostile and demeaning to faculty, her own staff and school leaders. Jamie Comstock Williamson wasn’t at the Board of Trustees meeting Thursday. But her lawyer wrote trustees a letter earlier this month denying all the allegations, saying trustees knew her husband was getting a part-time job with Winthrop and saying trustees became disillusioned with Williamson because she was direct and did not feed their egos. The board’s vote to terminate Williamson’s five-year contract likely isn’t the end of the problems. The letter from Williamson’s lawyer threatened to sue unless a deal was reached about her firing.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/what-is-this-assessment-telling-me-to-do/38607?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
What Is This Assessment Telling Me to Do?
by Eric Hoover
College-entrance examinations give students a score—bravo, kid, you got a 1400!—and not much else. But a new wave of low-stakes assessments offers them guidance. “Actionable information,” says Ross E. Markle, one of several representatives of the Educational Testing Service who visited The Chronicle on Thursday. Mr. Markle, senior research and assessment adviser in ETS’s higher-education division, described the importance of ”noncognitive” attributes—such as a commitment to meeting goals—that predict success in college. He helped create SuccessNavigator, a new ETS product, to measure such qualities.

www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/65183/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=905c7216e62e4635b6c33bde2796478f&elqCampaignId=173
International Universities Grappling With Global Growing Pains
by Jamal Watson
Yusuf Adamu recognizes that he has a “problem” that most of the world’s colleges and universities would love to have. Enrollment at Nigeria’s Federal University Dutse, a newly established college located in the country’s historic city of Dutse, is at an all-time high, and Adamu—the school’s registrar—now has to develop new strategies to accommodate students who want to use their education to become active participants in Africa’s emerging economy. …Founded in 2011, Federal University Dutse, which boasts a student population of about 1,000, is now looking to become competitive enough to send some of its best students abroad while also becoming a destination spot for students in the United States and elsewhere who want to learn about African culture and history.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Starbucks-Plan-Shines-a-Light/147395/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Starbucks Plan Shines a Light on the Profits in Online Education
By Goldie Blumenstyk
The scholarship partnership that Starbucks announced last week with Arizona State University was notable for many reasons: It was a remarkable marketing and PR coup for the company and ASU; it will allow ASU Online to study some techniques for improving college completion; and it might even set a new bar for what companies provide as employee benefits to part-time workers. It has also opened a new window on the economics of online education, one that shows just how much “profit margin” there can be in a distance-education operation.

www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/65189/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=905c7216e62e4635b6c33bde2796478f&elqCampaignId=173
Study Finds Taking Class Online Does Not Necessarily Improve Outcomes
by Jill Barshay, Hechinger Report
Online education has grown so fast that more than a third of all college students—more than 7 million—took at least one course online in 2012. That’s according to the most recent 2014 annual survey by the Babson Research Group, which has been tracking online education growth since 2002. Yet nagging worries remain about whether an online education is a substandard education. The Babson survey itself noted that, even as more students are taking online courses, the growth rate is slowing and some university leaders are becoming more skeptical about how much students are really learning.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/5-things-researchers-have-discovered-about-moocs/53585?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
5 Things Researchers Have Discovered About MOOCs
by Steve Kolowich
In December 2013 a group of academics gathered during a Texas snowstorm and began the second phase of a discussion about massive open online courses. They were not terribly impressed by the hype the courses had received in the popular media, and they had set out to create a better body of literature about MOOCs—albeit a less sensational one. The MOOC Research Initiative, backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, had given many of those academics research grants to study what was going on in the online courses. Now the organization has posted preliminary findings from some of those research projects.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/06/27/starfishs-retention-software-includes-both-early-alerts-and-kudos#sthash.aQCQnxn7.dpbs
Digital Feedback
By Paul Fain
Many lower-income students wrestle with doubts about belonging in college — particularly first-generation college students. Yet while experts say doling out positive reinforcement could improve graduation rates, systematic methods of giving students a pat on the back remain rare. That may be changing. Colleges are getting more serious about broad strategies to improve student retention. Some have contracted with vendors to create technology-based early-warning systems that faculty members and advisers can use to identify and help at-risk students. One company, Starfish Retention Services, includes a “kudos” tool in its suite of student-success software.

www.buffalo.twcnews.com
http://buffalo.twcnews.com/content/news/747947/early-college-program-to-train-burgard-students-for-jobs-of-the-future/
Early College Program to Train Burgard Students for Jobs of the Future
By: Kaitlyn Lionti
BUFFALO, N.Y. — State leaders announced Wednesday an investment of $3.2 million of the Buffalo Billion into a new advanced manufacturing early college program at Buffalo’s Burgard High School. “It is creating a system that’ll help these young men and women train for the jobs of the future,” said Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy, D-New York. With the partnership of SUNY College of Technology at Alfred, students can now earn an associates degree in automotive technology, welding or machine tool technologies after completing a 13th year of school.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/06/27/should-expulsion-be-default-discipline-policy-students-accused-sexual-assault#sthash.pfLneAV1.dpbs
Expulsion Presumed
By Jake New
As the summer term began at Dartmouth College last week, so did a new disciplinary policy. Expulsion will now be the mandatory punishment for students who commit certain kinds of sexual assault. Many institutions are grappling with how to fairly punish students they believe to be guilty of sexual assault – whether or not the accused have been formally charged by the police — but mandatory expulsions remain rare on college campuses.

www.desmoinesregister.com
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/investigations/readers-watchdog/2014/06/26/students-settle-rape-allegations/11391729/
Reader’s Watchdog: Students settle rape allegations
Lee Rood
Two Central College students have reached a private settlement in the case of an alleged rape investigated by the Reader’s Watchdog this spring. Peter Berger, a lawyer for the male student accused in the case, said the resolution resulted in dismissals of appeals at the Pella school. Central’s Sexual Misconduct Hearing Committee had recommended a resolution that would have allowed the perpetrator to choose his punishment, a move that was controversial and triggered headlines beyond Iowa. The woman in the case said she believed the school’s initial response violated Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination and requires schools to promptly investigate allegations of sexual assault.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/06/27/senators-debate-whether-us-has-enough-power-or-too-much-combat-campus-sexual-assault#sthash.OajExGRJ.dpbs
OCR in the Hot Seat
By Michael Stratford
WASHINGTON — Does the federal government need more power to go after colleges that mishandle sexual assault cases, or has it already overstepped its authority in telling colleges how to handle those cases? That was the question raised Thursday by a pair of heated exchanges between a senior Department of Education official and the top two lawmakers on the Senate education committee during a Higher Education Act reauthorization hearing.

www.diverseeducation.com
http://diverseeducation.com/article/65186/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=905c7216e62e4635b6c33bde2796478f&elqCampaignId=173
Education Department Official: Some Campuses Hostile to Victims
by Kimberly Hefling, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Some colleges and universities are still failing students by inadequately responding to campus sexual assault, a senior Education Department official testified Thursday. “For those schools, my office and this administration have made it clear that the time for delay is over,” Catherine Lhamon, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, told the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

www.detroit.cbslocal.com
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/06/26/lawrence-tech-receives-300k-stem-grant/
Lawrence Tech Receives $300K STEM Grant
By Edward Cardenas
SOUTHFIELD (CBS Detroit) – Lawrence Technological University has received a $300,000 grant to increase diversity in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The university was one of 20 universities and colleges nationwide, and the only one in Michigan, to receive the three-year grant from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) initiative Teaching to Increase Diversity and Equity in STEM (TIDES).

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/06/27/u-california-ends-limit-tech-investments#sthash.1bWWH87z.dpbs
U. of California Ends Limit on Tech Investments
The University of California system has ended a ban on investing in companies that were created based on research at the university.

www.nationaljournal.com
http://www.nationaljournal.com/next-economy/america-360/this-urban-research-university-is-also-an-economic-powerhouse-20140617
This Urban Research University Is Also an Economic Powerhouse
Resources for entrepreneurs and industry partnerships have made it easier than ever for University of Minnesota inventions to hit the market.
By Sophie Quinton
MINNEAPOLIS—Jian-Ping Wang doesn’t like running companies, but he’s already started two, and a third is under way. Wang has also filed 39 patents. “I don’t like to be driven by money, by any other people,” says the University of Minnesota engineering professor. “I like working on something I figure is really interesting, fundamentally difficult.” But Wang also thinks about how his work could be applied beyond the lab. Over the past decade, the University of Minnesota has overhauled its process for commercializing research discoveries. It’s become easier for university entrepreneurs to start companies, and for existing companies to license and sell technology produced by university professors and students.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/06/27/california-auditor-criticizes-ccsfs-accreditor#sthash.f1ayoArH.dpbs
California Auditor Criticizes CCSF’s Accreditor
The California State Auditor on Thursday issued a scathing report on the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), the regional accreditor that has come under fire for its handling of the City College of San Francisco crisis. The auditor’s office said the commission acted in an inconsistent manner with its decision to terminate City College’s accreditation. The report found that City College was given less time to come into compliance than were other institutions. It also criticized the commission for a lack of transparency.

www.whio.com
http://www.whio.com/news/news/local-education/wilberforce-at-risk-of-losing-accreditation/ngSHP/
Wilberforce at risk of losing accreditation
By Arundi Venkayya
Staff writer
WILBERFORCE — The nation’s oldest historically black private university is at risk of losing its accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission, according to documents from the commission. Wilberforce University received a “Show-Cause” order from the commission by certified mail on Monday. The “Show-Cause” order is procedural and requires that the Greene County university present its case “as to why its accreditation should not be withdrawn.” The order is effective as of June 12 — the date the board of the Higher Learning Commission issued it.

www.touch.latimes.com
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-80598921/
Corinthian Colleges’ deal with U.S. may result in sold campuses
CHRIS KIRKHAM,
Andrew Khouri
Corinthian Colleges Inc., the troubled Orange County for-profit college corporation, has cut a deal with the federal government that’s likely to force the sale of many schools and the closure of others. The agreement keeps the doors open for now at more than 90 schools across the country, but the U.S. Department of Education will have final say over their fate.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/06/27/12-senators-ask-education-dept-freeze-corinthian-enrollments#sthash.BPLGNRT5.dpbs
12 Senators Ask Education Dept. to Freeze Corinthian Enrollments
Eleven Democratic Senators joined Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois in calling on the U.S. Department of Education to freeze new enrollments at Corinthian Colleges’ 107 campuses. The for-profit chain is currently negotiating a plan to teach out or sell its Heald College, Everest and WyoTech brands.

www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/kentucky-judge-affirms-fine-against-for-profit-college/80599?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Kentucky Judge Affirms Fine Against For-Profit College
by Nick DeSantis
A Kentucky judge this week affirmed a $147,000 fine against National College, a for-profit institution, over its refusal to comply with a subpoena from the state’s attorney general, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported. The attorney general, Jack Conway, subpoenaed records from six for-profit colleges operating in Kentucky, seeking information about their students’ default rates, their recruitment practices, and their job-placement rates. The college sued Mr. Conway’s office, challenging his authority to issue the subpoena, but the subpoena was ruled valid in the courts.

www.insidehighered.com
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/06/27/house-republicans-announce-three-higher-ed-act-bills#sthash.v7lkR6Ks.dpbs
House Republicans Announce Three Higher Ed Act Bills
House Republicans on Thursday released a package of three bills that kick off their step-by-step approach to rewriting the Higher Education Act. The first bill aims to boost financial counseling for students who take out federal loans or grants. It would also direct the Education Department to develop an online tool that would help students “understand their rights and obligations” of having a federal student loan. The second bill would create a new “College Dashboard” website to tell families consumer information about colleges, including financial aid information and graduation rates. The data would include nontraditional students as well as Pell Grant recipients (groups of students for whom the federal government doesn’t track completion rates). …The third bill, the only one that attracted Democratic co-sponsors, aims to simplify the process by which students apply for federal student aid.

Related article:
www.chronicle.com
http://chronicle.com/article/Proposals-by-House-Republicans/147397/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Proposals by House Republicans Seek to Ease College-Application Process