In a new approach to college readiness, San Diego State University now accepts all students from a large local school system as long as they complete a rigorous curriculum. Under a partnership formed eight years ago, the university has guaranteed a spot in its freshman class to all Sweetwater Union High School District students who complete…

Almost half of large nonprofit groups make insider deals with board members, and one-third of those deals occur without the prior approval of other board members, according to a new study by the Urban Institute. The study, which is described in a report released on Monday, "Nonprofit Governance in the United States: Findings on Performance and…

This article discusses Antioch College, a once-prominent countercultural institution that will be closed in 2008 due to serious financial problems. Antioch has been hemorrhaging money for years. Its Board of Trustees has decided to shutter the college by July 2008 and lay off most of its 160 staff and faculty members. Although the administration…

This article features the International Peace University South Africa in Cape Town. The university, which was established in 2004, resulted from the merger of two local "madrassas", or religious colleges, yet seeks to prepare its students for success in the secular world. Its Islamic roots are not in the Middle East, but in East Asia. Situated on…

Colleges and universities are increasingly spending resources to become more global. For more than 20 years, the author has participated in, or served as a consultant to, the internationalization efforts of a broad range of institutions--research universities, regional state universities, private liberal-arts colleges, and community colleges--and…

In this article, the author discusses how it is now very easy for anyone to find formerly hard-to-find books such as the works of Walt Whitman with the help of online booksellers. The author also describes the efforts made by various institutions to produce online editions of the works of major writers. One such prominent project is the archive…

A group of 32 attorneys general from across the United States urged Congress last week to enact new restrictions on the student-loan industry, saying their investigations continue to reveal "new levels of corruption and deception" that require a rapid response from lawmakers. The attorneys general, led by Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, are trying to…

One purpose of a college education is to create active and engaged citizens and future leaders. If everyone wants students who have the potential to become such people, it is necessary to keep in mind the skills involved in good citizenship and positive leadership when evaluating applicants. Many of the leaders who have gotten the world into its…

This article reports on new universities for Muslims, many supported by groups in the Middle East, which are spreading through the sub-Saharan region. The Islamic University in Uganda is a prime example of a new kind of institution that has slowly been spreading its way across the continent. Embracing both conservative Muslim values and modern…

Aside from the appeal to administrators as a tool to reduce costs by combining less robust departments with heftier relations, interdisciplinarity is a powerful idea because it implies that different branches of knowledge can benefit from talking to one another: a grand, unified theory of knowledge in which each discipline contributes building…

On video, a woman describes how her life was shattered. She speaks about her family splitting up, about her loved ones being killed, about one of the most systematic genocides in history. Indexers at the University of Southern California's Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education have watched 120,000 hours of these testimonies…

Chief financial officers at the nation's private colleges have bigger workloads than ever before, and in return, many are taking home much larger paychecks. A "Chronicle" survey of 103 private doctoral institutions shows that between 2003 and 2005, the median compensation package for the top financial position, which includes such titles as vice…

As American manufacturing moves increasingly overseas and immense growth is forecast in modernizing countries like India and China, engineers need to understand those cultures before designing products for them, say supporters of international-engineering programs. The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), which accredits…

Like most institutions that have received copyright-infringement notices from the entertainment industry, Stanford University has a straightforward process for dealing with the complaints. Campus officials identify students accused of piracy, ask them to delete the offending material from their computers, and disconnect from the campus network…

Faced with having to make a decision between the career they want and one that will pay enough for them to climb out of debt, many college students are choosing the latter. This trend has alarmed some observers and has revived interest in an idea once thought to be a relic of the Clinton administration: income-contingent repayment. Legislation…