From Wonkblog, “The Tuition is Too Damn High” is a 10-part series on the causes and consequences of — and potential fixes for — the skyrocketing costs of higher education. Oh, we may say our colleges are the best in the world while we secretly believe they’re an overpriced rip-off, but leave it to Thomas Frank to ask whether they’re the best in the world at committing the rip-off. Haley Sweetland Edwards on America’s worst community colleges: The San Francisco Bay Area’s economy may be high tech, but its community colleges are the bottom of the barrel. Kevin Carey on those self-defeating lobbyists at One Dupont Circle: Higher education's representatives in Washington are making themselves vulnerable to an accumulation of outrage. Claire Goldstene on the emergent academic proletariat and its shortchanged students. Keith O’Brien on the trouble with grade inflation: It works — easy A’s really do open doors, suggests a new study. Asha Rangappa on how the path to getting into an elite school has long been shrouded in mystery — it’s up to us, the admissions officers, to lift the veil. The Complainers: Graham Hillard goes online with The Chronicle of Higher Education. The use of journal rankings to rate individual papers, scientists, and even programs has upset loads of people in academia; one paper’s solution: Get rid of journals. Michael Billig on why academics can’t write. Martin Kicho on dissertations with titles that warrant a double-take. Christina H. Paxson on the economic case for saving the humanities.
