The Education Department is controlled by advisers who have insufficient regard for the liberal arts and instead are intent on judging colleges largely by their ability to provide economically measurable talent for industry, a recently departed top official told "The Chronicle." Diane Auer Jones, who resigned in May as assistant secretary for…

Engineering has long been recognized as a key to the U.S. economy. Yet for more than 20 years, colleges of engineering have been warned that they are failing to keep their curricula and teaching methods relevant, threatening the profession and, by extension, the nation's economic prosperity. After a close-up look at 40 American engineering…

As accrediting agencies face pressure from Washington to improve the ways the colleges they oversee prepare students, changes at Hocking College are being showcased along with similar adjustments at two other institutions as examples of how accreditors and their colleges can produce better results without government interference. "We talk about…

The U.S. Department of Education, overriding opposition from colleges and accreditors, is pushing ahead with a plan to remake American higher education by requiring that colleges show results if they want to remain eligible for more than $90-billion in federal student aid. At the end of a three-day session last month, representatives of colleges…

More than two years after Education Secretary Margaret Spellings stood on a podium in Washington and announced the formation of her Commission on the Future of Higher Education, some of its most powerful effects so far have been on a belt of community colleges in California. In the past year, at least 14 California community and junior colleges…

A dispute over the federal agency charged with reviewing college accreditors may come to a boil at a key review session next month, when the waning Bush administration will have one of its highest-profile chances to try to force colleges to do more to demonstrate how well they help students learn. The federal agency is scheduled to assess five of…