The author's students regularly ask him, "Why can't the government just print more money?" Typically they are seeking a simple solution to a complex problem like the national debt, or they just want the government to make people all rich the easy way, by handing them wads of cash. His best answer used to be, "They just can't," but the…

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…

In response to a hypothesis that researchers who no longer use print journals may miss out on the serendipitous benefits of "poor indexing" provided by print tables of contents, librarians at the University of Florida surveyed their engineering faculty to determine faculty use of tables of contents in either print or online format. Results…

Ruscio, Seaman, D'Oriano, Stremlo, and Mahalchik (this issue) evaluate 22 bibliometric indicators, including conventional measures, like the number of publications, the "h" index, and many "h" index variants. To assess the quality of the indicators, their well-justified criteria encompass conceptual, empirical, and practical…

This article discusses the impact of changing student demographics on financing education and on our national wellbeing. We begin by examining the research of current student demographics and their relationship to learning and education costs. We then calculate a 1% cost factor from the average per-pupil expenditure based on the 2011 "Digest…

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.

The primary purpose of government provided student financial aid is to increase college access by bringing the out-of-pocket price of attendance within reach of more students. The basic idea is quite straightforward. If a good or service costs $100 to buy and the government gives consumers a $50 subsidy, then consumers need only spend $50 of their…

A heuristic approach to explaining of the Black-Scholes option pricing model in undergraduate classes is described. The approach draws upon the method of protocol analysis to encourage students to "think aloud" so that their mental models can be surfaced. It also relies upon extensive visualizations to communicate relationships that are…

Purpose/Objectives: Schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) receive a portion of their annual federal funding as commodity entitlement foods--now called USDA Foods--rather than cash payments. Due to rising food prices in recent years, it has been recommended that schools compare the costs and benefits of commodity and…

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…

Certificates are recognition of completion of a course of study based on a specific field, usually associated with a limited set of occupations. Certificates differ from other kinds of labor market credentials such as industry-based certifications and licenses, which typically involve passing an examination to prove a specific competency,…

Authorizers are as varied as the schools they oversee. Some are responsible for just one charter, while others monitor hundreds of charters serving tens of thousands of students. Some are school districts, while others are independent statewide boards, universities, not-for-profits, or state education agencies. Regardless of their size and type,…

Humorist Josh Billings quipped, "About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment." Billings was harsh in his view of originality, but his critique reveals a tension faced by students every time they write a history paper. Research is the essence of any history paper. Especially in high school,…

The purposes of the present study were to describe the welfare expenditure for people with disabilities and examine its relation to national economic growth from 1991 to 2006 in Taiwan. We analyzed data mainly from the information of population with disabilities, disability welfare expenditure and national economic growth and gross national…

The new "International Handbook of Universities" is now 2-volumes and includes single-user access to World Higher Education Database Online. This "Twenty-second Edition" is the most comprehensive guide to university-level education worldwide, providing detailed information on higher education institutions that offer at least a post-graduate degree…