Higher Education in Review: October 12-25

Happy 20^th birthday, ACTA!  The American Council of Trustees & Alumni celebrated with a conference in DC on October 16, which featured a panel composed of historian David McCullough, professor Richard Arum (“Academically Adrift”), former U. of Maryland regent Tom McMillen, and Purdue president Mitch Daniels.  You can watch the two hour video of the event here.

For more from President Daniels, click here.

If the Democrats succeed in making college tuition-free for everyone, might there be some unintended consequences?  Recent articles in Quartz, Reason, and Vox say “yes.” AEI’s Andrew Kelly had a good piece on this subject in the October 19 issue of National Review, but it remains behind the subscriber paywall.

On a related note, there are already 6 million more people with bachelors degrees than there are jobs for them, according to this story.

A study of universities’ costs of compliance with federal regulations was released by Vanderbilt U. Conducted by the Boston Consulting Group, the study estimates the costs to the entire higher education industry to be $27 billion annually.  Breaking down the total: “$17 billion was incurred due to higher-education and all-sector compliance, while $10 billion was estimated to be a result of research-related compliance. Higher-education compliance expenditures include $3 billion on regional accreditation and $2 billion on financial aid compliance. Research compliance expenditures include $6 billion on grants and contracts compliance.”  The Inside Higher Ed story is here.

Defending the lecture in the New York Times and (following up) in The Week.

Coding boot camps and small colleges discussed on Bloomberg.