student walking on a college campus - student research foundation

The Backlash Continues Against US News College Rankings

The recent revelation that Columbia University – that’s right, that Columbia University, the one that is a pillar of the Ivy League – was misreporting data to USNews has further discredited the college rankings that are published there. 

Can anyone continue to believe that the USNews rankings, which once were considered valuable by students, parents, and guidance counselors, contain information that is accurate or reliable?  Read more

Manipulating Grades Puts Students at a Disadvantage

Why Manipulating Grades Puts Students at a Disadvantage

A recent story reported in The New York Times, in The New York Post, and on network news programs reports that Prof. Maitland Jones of New York University was recently fired after a group of students filed a petition complaining that it was too hard to earn a high grade in his Organic Chemistry class. 

It seems that the course Prof. Jones taught was just too difficult and that Prof. Jones, a respected professor who had been teaching for many years and who even wrote the most often-used textbook on Organic Chemistry, was not helpful enough to students who were earning low grades. According to reports on the news, the underlying problem was that those low grades would hinder the ability of his students, who were mostly pre-med, to gain admission to med schools.  Read more

Student Success and improved graduation rates

New Report Suggests New Ways to Use Data to Build Student Success

“Increase the Human & Financial Benefits of Student Success Initiatives,” an important new study you can download from Civitas Learning, suggests some effective new ways that educators can use student data to improve graduation rates and foster other positive outcomes.

Although the report focuses on student success at institutions like the University of Central Oklahoma, Utah State, and Austin Community College, we feel that lessons from the report can be used to improve student success in K-12 too. Read more

Will Apprenticeships or College Play the Larger Role in Reducing Unemployment in the U.S.

Will Apprenticeships or College Play the Larger Role in Reducing Unemployment in the U.S.?

“Apprenticeships, Not College, Can Help Reduce Unemployment,” an article that Paul Winfree and Rachel Greszler published in the Wall Street Journal on June 21, 2022, predicts that apprenticeships could soon be doing more to reduce unemployment than colleges are.

If so, the role that American higher education plays in sustaining the labor force could be changed dramatically. Read more

Google Courses - are they good for college credit

Are You Paying for College but Getting Google Courses Instead?

The Googlization of College Education Is Underway . . .

You or your students could very well be paying tuition dollars and getting courses that have been developed and distributed by Google. But after we have done some research, we believe that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Here is some information you should know . . . Read more

Ukraine flag - What Does the Russian Invasion of Ukraine Mean for International Students

What Does the Russian Invasion of Ukraine Mean for International Students?

The last five or six years have been difficult – some might say turbulent – for foreign students who wanted to pursue college and postgraduate studies at American colleges and universities. Under the Trump administration’s travel restrictions, students from a number of countries decided to curtail their plans to study in America.

Colleges and universities suffered too when foreign students stayed away. This was the case at large research-oriented universities. We also know one smaller liberal arts college that lost tuition revenue when virtually all its foreign students left. We are not sharing the name of that college in this article because we do not want our comments to reflect negatively on it. Read more

Meeting Remedial College Entrance Requirements

A New Approach to Meeting Remedial Entrance Requirements Is Gaining Ground

Information teachers, parents and college counselors should know . . .

In years past, colleges often required incoming students to take certain remedial courses in math, science, or other subjects before becoming fully enrolled. Often, students took those courses at community colleges, or in special programs the colleges offered, before becoming fully enrolled students. Read more

Student Carrying Books - Is America’s Love Affair with College Fading Away

Is America’s Love Affair with College Fading Away?

Updated enrollment figures from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center show that college enrollment levels are continuing to fall

Data just released by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows that enrollment in American colleges and universities is continuing to fall:

  • Undergraduate enrollment in American colleges fell by 3.1 percent in the year preceding fall 2021, a loss of 465,300 students.
  • Enrollment losses show a two-year decline of 5.1 percent or a loss of 938,000 students since fall 2019.
  • The largest numerical drops occurred at public four-year institutions, where 251,400 students (or 3.8% of total enrollment) were lost. But the steepest percentage decline occurred at private for-profit four-year colleges, which lost 65,600 students (or 11.1% of enrollment.)

Read more

A student who is combatting college burnout

How to Recognize and Combat College Burnout

Do you know a college student who is struggling emotionally now? If so, the cause could be more than simple stress. It could be college burnout, according to “What Is College Burnout?”, a new article written by Tyler Epps for the Best Colleges Blog.

According to Dr. Lee Keyes, a psychologist and experienced student counselor Mr. Epps interviewed for this article, college burnout is often difficult to recognize. Why? It’s because college students are chronically living in a state of high stress anyway, which makes it difficult to know when their mental state has become just a little bit worse. Read more

The State of American Education Some Statistics You Should Know from USA Facts a summary by the Student Research Foundation

The State of American Education: Some Statistics You Should Know from USA Facts

USA Facts is an organization that compiles statistics about dozens of areas of American life: employment, the pandemic, climate change, and more. For educators, a visit to the USA Facts page of statistics on American education is a real eye-opener, full of surprises and facts that provide a newly informed perspective. Read more