Thursday, July 9, 2015

News Links | July 9, 2015

SYSTEM NEWS | OPINIONS

'Game changer': Surprise $4 million to fund improvements at Fort Worden
A private $4 million grant for capital improvements at Fort Worden gave the public development authority that manages the campus portion of the state park an unexpected boost. ... In May 2014, the public development authority (PDA) took over management of the campus portion of the park with the intention of developing a lifelong learning center, leaving the park portion under the management of State Parks. Since that time, construction has begun on a branch of Peninsula College while the PDA recruits new partners and programs.
Peninsula Daily News, July 8, 2015

Edmonds Community College hires new executive vice president of instruction
Edmonds Community College has hired Charlie Crawford as its new executive vice president of instruction.
My Edmonds News, July 8, 2015

TRENDS| HORIZONS | EDUCATION

In students' minds, textbooks are increasingly optional purchases
The average amount that college students spend on course materials appears to be declining. But not necessarily because textbooks are cheaper. A growing number of students, surveys show, simply skip buying required course materials. A survey of undergraduates on 23 campuses by the National Association of College Stores, expected to be released on Thursday, found that students spent an average of $563 on course materials during the 2014-15 academic year, compared with $638 the year before.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 9, 2015

Study links college completion and longer lives
New evidence for the "completion agenda": finish college and you are likely to live longer. Researchers at New York University, the University of Colorado at Denver and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill released findings Wednesday that show consistent links between greater levels of education and longer lives.
Inside Higher Ed, July 9, 2015

Gates backs FAFSA overhaul
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is throwing its support behind efforts to redesign the federal government’s student aid application process to make it easier for students to get loans and grants for college. In a white paper published Wednesday, the foundation called for reducing and streamlining questions on the application form, known as the FAFSA, and allowing families to apply for aid earlier during the college process.
Inside Higher Ed, July 9, 2015

Study: Federal loans drive up private college tuition
The availability of subsidized federal student loans play a role in increasing tuition, particularly at less-selective private nonprofit colleges with relatively affluent student bodies and for-profit colleges, a study by researchers for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York finds.
Inside Higher Ed, July 9, 2015

Higher ed upvoted
For some academics, the social network Reddit is becoming less of a guilty pleasure and more of a credible platform to discuss academic interests with people whom they otherwise would not have had a chance to debate.
Inside Higher Ed, July 8, 2015

'Stabilizing' financial picture
Financial sustainability is a marathon, not a sprint; a college that wants to endure has to worry about much more than getting through the next year. So it would be a mistake to read too much into reports like the ones Moody's Investors Service issued on Tuesday, which show a "stabilizing" financial picture for most colleges and universities in the 2014 fiscal year.
Inside Higher Ed, July 8, 2015

More educators embrace social and emotional learning, national survey says
The movement to make social and emotional skills as important to a child’s education as reading, math and science is gaining ground, according to a national survey of educators published by the newsweekly Education Week, a national weekly newspaper.
The Seattle Times, July 2, 2015

POLITICS | LOCAL, STATE, NATIONAL


Free community college catches on
President Obama’s push for free community college has yet to be shunted aside by the debt-free college ideas his aspiring Democratic successors are talking up. Oregon now is poised to follow Tennessee as the second state with a plan on the books to provide free two-year college. And Democrats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives introduced bills Wednesday that seek to make Obama’s federal proposal a reality. The proposed legislation lacks any Republican support, however, so the bills are unlikely to go anywhere.
Inside Higher Ed, July 9, 2015

'Stabilizing' financial picture
The Obama administration on Tuesday issued new guidance on how aggressively loan collectors should pursue borrowers of federally backed loans who are seeking to erase their debt in bankruptcy.
Inside Higher Ed, July 8, 2015