Higher Education in Review: April 4-10

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni attracted the grudging attention of the Chronicle of Higher Education recently. The article is behind the paywall, unfortunately, but you can get the drift from the title, “A Higher-Ed Needler Finds Its Moment,” and the two sentences visible to non-subscribers: “The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, long dismissed in academe as a relic of the culture wars, has a resonant message for disruption-prone college boards. Not everyone is happy about that.” Hearty congratulations to our friends at ACTA for getting under the Chronicle’s skin so effectively!

Also from the Chronicle: A new gizmo for comparing college/universities salaries.

Federal student loan programs will leave taxpayers holding the bag for about $170 billion over the next ten years, according to the Manhattan Institute’s Preston Cooper.

“Celebrating a century of advocacy masquerading as education research” The annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association is described/lampooned in this article by AEI’s Frederick Hess and Francesca Pickett.

Against “student learning outcomes”: Current accrediting agency mandates are “madness” and “must stop,” says the Century Foundation’s Robert Shireman.

Yale’s fight to avoid taxation by the state of Connecticut continues. (Isn’t it fascinating to watch liberals when they don’t want to sign on to the view that “government is just the name for what we do together,” etc.?)

The week-long protest/sit-in at a key building at Duke by a group of nine students has ended. The Allen Building houses numerous administrative offices, including the university president’s office, along with the departments of English and Classical Studies. The Ohio State University administration had a much better response to occupying students recently. (Some readers may enjoy comparing the conciliatory statement from President Broadhead with the rather more spirited response from the leaders of an Oxford college, circa 1968, to the “non-negotiable demands” of radical students of that day.)