Education, College Student | featured news

Educators from nine universities are testing technology from a Silicon Valley start-up, CourseSmart, that allows them to track their students’ progress with digital textbooks.

A Columbia University professor gave memorable, yet unorthodox, lecture to his quantum mechanics students.

iPad apps that college students have developed soon could help high school and middle school students crack the code of algebra, often a gatekeeper to college entry.

The idea that a college diploma is an all-but-mandatory ticket to a successful career is showing fissures. Risky? Perhaps. But it worked for the founders of Twitter, Tumblr and a little company known as Apple.

It's the latest snapshot of the growing burden of student debt and it's another discouraging one: Two-thirds of the national college class of 2011 finished school with loan debt, and those who borrowed walked off the graduation stage owing on average $26,600 - up about 5 percent from the class before....

A senator's examination of for-profit colleges paints them as dropout factories, where billions of dollars are squandered on financial aid and the schools' emphasis is more on attracting students than educating them.

At dispute is how to provide funding that would prevent a jump in the interest rates for subsidized loans made by the federal government to undergraduate college students. The House of Representatives voted last week to keep the rate from doubling, but funded it by eliminating the Prevention and Public Health Fund that is part of President Obama’s health care law. (The House measure has little chance in the Senate controlled by Democrats.)

In what is shaping up as an academic Battle of the Titans — one that offers vast new learning opportunities for students around the world — Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a new nonprofit partnership, known as edX, to offer free online courses from both universities.

The Supreme Court cast doubt Tuesday on the future of affirmative action at the nation’s colleges and universities, agreeing to hear an appeal from a white student in Texas who seeks an end to "racial preferences" in college admissions.

At the County College of Morris, a history teacher showed little patience with Philip Garber Jr. when he raised his hand.