From the Boston Globe Magazine, a special issue on education, including a look at 30 perks of living in a college town; who's that teaching your undergrad? Probably not a tenured professor; and high-achieving Asian-American students are being shut out of top schools around the country — is this what diversity looks like now? From Minding the Campus, Robert Weissbergand on why professors should dress like professionals; and Richard Vedder on college presidents: Do they make too much money? Anthony Grafton on academic freedom after the Cronon controversy. Why are academics so attached to the university even as it is ceasing to be a good provider? From n+1, a review of Terry Castle's The Professor and Other Writings, Louis Menand's The Marketplace of Ideas and Martha Nussbaum's Not for Profit. We’re in a bubble and it’s not the Internet — it’s higher education. Since this wouldn’t be America if you couldn’t monetize your children’s futures, the education sector still has its equivalent: the Student Loan Asset-Backed Security. How universities became hedge funds: As Britain debates the future of higher education, it might be helpful to understand what has been happening to higher education in the United States. What can the US approach to fees teach the world? Reflexive claims for the US academy's greatness ring hollow, given elite institutions' tight links with economic and political power and lack of appetite for challenging ideas. Some 13 million students enrol in the US community college system each year, but only about a third graduate — how can completion rates be improved? Degrees of influence: As elite higher education turns prohibitively expensive and the job market shrinks, a reminder that dropping out is no guarantee of failure.
