This article reports that the Higher Education Price Index (HEPI), a widely used measure of colleges' costs, rose by 3.6 percent for the 2008 fiscal year, which ended on June 30. But even as they reported the good news of that moderate increase, experts at the Commonfund Institute who maintain the index noted that broader economic trends could…

In July, when energy prices were sky-high and some pundits were predicting a continued rise, Charles Riordan, facilities director at Loyola College of Maryland, and his colleagues locked in a chunk of their electricity prices--about a quarter of the college's consumption--to cover the next two years. Now that energy prices have fallen, the…

Real-estate markets are almost as volatile as stock markets. Prices of agricultural land, of commercial real estate, and of homes and condominiums have gone through a series of huge bubbles, as if people never learned from the previous ones. Such events--in particular the recent housing bubble--are driven by what John Maynard Keynes called animal…

Making Pell Grants an entitlement and tying the maximum award to a measure of inflation, as President Obama has proposed, would probably yield larger awards and stop the cycle of shortfalls that have plagued the program. The president's plan, which would index the maximum award to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) plus one percentage point, probably…

The publishers' hall at the recent Association of College and Research Libraries conference, held in Seattle in mid-March, was a study in give-and-take: how much publishers such as Elsevier and Oxford University Press will give in this lousy economy, and how much budget-strapped librarians can take. Libraries are some of the biggest customers for…

This article reports that nearly half of the nation's largest athletics programs have doubled or tripled their recruitment spending over the past decade, as their pursuit of elite athletes intensifies and becomes more national in scope. Forty-eight percent of NCAA Division I athletics departments at least doubled their recruiting budgets from 1997…

This Index tracks the performance of eight publicly traded higher-education companies. The index was developed for The Chronicle by the Center for Research in Security Prices at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business.

This paper reports that a large-scale, multinational attempt in Europe to rank humanities journals has set off a revolt. In a protest letter, some journal editors have called it "a dangerous and misguided exercise." The project has also started a drumbeat of alarm in this country, as U.S.-based scholars begin to grasp the implications…

The median salary of college administrators increased by 4 percent in the 2006-7 academic year, according to an annual survey released this week by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. The increase in pay for positions that include presidents, chief academic officers, deans, and various vice presidents and…

This article discusses a new standard for measuring graduate programs in the United States. The Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index, produced by Academic Analytics, a for-profit company, rates faculty members' scholarly output at nearly 7,300 doctoral programs around the country. It examines the number of book and journal articles published by…

Early announcements show many colleges are raising tuition 5 to 11 percent, squeezed by pressures to keep costs down and spend more to improve educational quality. A federal investigation of possible tuition price-fixing at 56 institutions has also increased anxiety among administrators. (MSE)

Many colleges are announcing tuition rises of 7 percent to 10 percent, with costs continuing to rise. While the public has accepted tuition increases so far, there is concern that private institutions will price themselves out of the market. Several universities are beginning a new pricing policy favoring returning students. (MSE)

A new Massachusetts law requiring foreign students to pay the true cost of their education is felt to be the first of its kind. The law's constitutionality and its implications for international education are being examined. (MSE)

Three charts present trends in graphical form, including (1) pension funds invested in common stocks by the College Retirement Equities Fund (1989-92); (2) number of female college presidents (1992) by type of institution (public or private, two- or four-year); (3) faculty pay and cost of living compared to the Consumer Price Index (1985-92). (DB)

Trends in three major areas relating to higher education are charted: College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF) performance since 1990; the employment outlook until 2005 for major occupational groups; and the relationship of college faculty pay to the cost of living since 1987-88. (MSE)