Maine is blessed with universities that have records of significant achievement. The seven campuses of the University of Maine System (UMS) together educated over 23,000 students (full-time equivalent) during the past year. But for good reason, in recent years public confidence in higher education throughout the nation has fallen. Half of the…

This report examines Idaho's undergraduate-degree-granting colleges and universities. The authors focus on what students are learning (the curriculum), whether the marketplace of ideas is vibrant (intellectual diversity), how the universities are run (governance), and what a college education costs (affordability). In each case, the authors…

In recent years, students and parents have seen tuition costs at colleges and universities rise, to the extent that many low-income families may feel a college education for their child is out of their financial reach. However, this sky-high tuition is often partially, or even largely, subsidized by various forms of financial aid. For families to…

A fully online graduate program that was developed at the UWF (University of West Florida) has been successfully implemented using synchronous instruction since fall 2009. The hybrid nature of the developed model has proven to be of benefit to both face-to-face and distance students. Aside from the robustness of students' discussions and…

Almost 12 million students, more than half of the nation's undergraduates, are currently enrolled at community colleges. The commitment of these institutions to open access admission attracts a significantly underprepared population. Consequently, less than 50% of first time freshman students earn a degree or transfer to a 4-year institution…

The world of higher education is a world of sorting, selecting, and ranking--on both sides of the market. Colleges select students to recruit and then to admit; students choose where to apply and which offer to accept. The sorting process that gets the most attention is in the higher reaches of the market, where it is not too much to say that…

States have been working on strategies to address the equitable distribution of teachers for a number of years. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, specifically calls for states to identify and address the inequitable distribution of highly qualified, experienced…

This report shows that while sustainability efforts appear to be growing within collegiate athletics, commitment to sustainability is lower among athletic departments than compared to their institutions as a whole and to professional sports teams. The survey was distributed to the 119 athletic departments at National Collegiate Athletic…

At first blush, the Supreme Court's recent decision in "Horne v. Flores" (2009) appears to be about the proper standard for determining when to modify a previous judgment, a topic that would interest only civil procedure geeks. Yet, on closer examination, "Horne" is about giving local and state officials discretion to solve education problems and,…

School nutrition directors face challenges on many fronts, from changing nutrition standards to addressing community interest in sustainability and local food sourcing. Programs are constantly changing to meet these new demands. How does a school business administrator know which changes will affect his/her school nutrition program positively? The…

Michigan's intermediate school districts were created by constitutional convention in 1962. Between their inception and 2000, few units of government were less visible and less understood. This article chronicles the emergence of one intermediate school district as an aggressive force for change in education and a locus of activity for community…

Benefiting from new data provided by experimental economists, behavioral economics is now moving beyond empirical tests of standard behavioral assumptions to the problem of designing improved institutions that are tuned to fit real-world behavior. It is therefore worthwhile to consider the potential for new experiments to advance school choice…

School districts across the country have always had to do more with less. Funding goes only so far, leaving administrators and IT staff to find innovative ways to save money while maintaining a high level of academic quality. Creating virtual servers accomplishes both tasks, district technology personnel say. Virtual environments not only allow…

This paper reports on a questionnaire survey of 16 national libraries designed to clarify how national libraries attempt to justify their web archiving activities. Results indicate they envisage that a) the benefits brought about by their initiatives are greater than the overall costs, b) the costs imposed on libraries are greater than the costs…

Interactive whiteboards are all the rage in classrooms across the world these days, and for good reason. Like most technology, they hold students' attention much better than a traditional lecture-and-blackboard lesson ever could. They also solve the problem of having only one classroom computer for 30 students by projecting the screen at the front…