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A Conversation With Bill Gates - Technology. By Jeffrey R. Young Bill Gates never finished college, but he is one of the single most powerful figures shaping higher education today. That influence comes through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, perhaps the world's richest philanthropy, which he co-chairs and which has made education one of its key missions. The Chronicle sat down with Mr. Gates in an exclusive interview Monday to talk about his vision for how colleges can be transformed through technology. His approach is not simply to drop in tablet computers or other gadgets and hope change happens—a model he said has a "really horrible track record. " Instead, the foundation awards grants to reformers working to fix "inefficiencies" in the current model of higher education that keep many students from graduating on time, or at all.

The Microsoft founder doesn't claim to have all the answers. The interview comes on the eve of Mr. Below: A complete transcript of the conversation. On Business's Role in Higher Education Q. A. Q. Why Is College So Expensive? - To the Point on KCRW. College students and graduates have racked up more than a trillion dollars in student loan debt, as the cost of a higher education is rising fast. Why are colleges and universities increasing tuition instead of cutting expenses? Is online learning on the verge of changing the way Americans prepare themselves for employment in the so-called "knowledge economy? " Also, the G8 Summit convenes at Camp David. On Reporter's Notebook, this weekend, six playoff games will be played in both hockey and basketball — in one single arena.

Banner image: Students walk across the campus of the University of California. Making News The G8 Summit Convenes at Camp David (12:00PM) President Obama today welcomed the new French President, François Hollande, to the White House for the first time. Guests: Michael Hirsh: National Journal, @michaelphirsh Main Topic Rising Cost and the Future of Higher Education (12:07PM) Reporter's Notebook Hectic Weekend at Staples Center (12:44PM) Engage & Discuss. What's Driving College Costs Higher? iStockphoto.com Just days before student loan rates are set to double for millions of Americans, President Obama and congressional leaders haven't reached an agreement on legislation to keep those rates at 3.4 percent. The debate reflects the growing concern over the debt burden many take on to get a college education. About two-thirds of bachelor's degree recipients borrow money to attend college, and collectively, student debt has topped $1 trillion.

Kevin Carey, the director of the Education Policy Program at the New America Foundation, believes the student debt crisis reflects larger, troubling trends in higher education — among them excessive spending by colleges and universities, which drives up tuition, and declining government support for public universities as state and local governments face budget crises. In the past three decades, Carey says, college tuition has consistently increased much faster than both inflation and incomes. Where does that money go? Interview Highlights. The Iron Triangle | Public Agenda. Subscribe TodayRSS Newsfeed Our Newsletter Page Not Found We're sorry but the page you requested could not be found. With the launching of our new website, our reports and other resources have moved to new locations.

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RiDE%2020-4. Reports and Research | National Center for Developmental Education. On Notice? Obama to Link Aid for Colleges to Affordability. Kevin Carey: A Radical Solution For America’s Worsening College Tuition Bubble. Over the last three decades, through good economic times and bad, one of the few constants in American life has been the relentless rise in the price of higher education.

The numbers are stark: According to the non-profit College Board, public four-year universities raised tuition and fees by 8.3 percent this year, more than double the rate of inflation. This was typical: Over the last decade, public university tuition grew by an average of 5.6 percent above inflation every year. And the problem is also getting worse: In the 1990s, the annual real increase was 3.2 percent.

In the 1980s, it was 4.5 percent. Even as the economy has reorganized itself to make college degrees increasingly indispensable for the pursuit of a decent career, federal financial aid programs and family income haven’t been able to keep up with incredibly buoyant tuition bills. At first, the policy works splendidly.

Diversity

Talks. Essay on challenges for future presidents of community colleges. This is one of a series of articles that looks at pathways to the academic presidency in the U.S. In an earlier piece, boards were offered suggestions about how best to prepare for the inevitable change in leadership that comes sooner or later to every college and university. Because American higher education remains a complex and differentiated sector, each article in the series examines the distinctive attributes of leadership by institutional type: academic medical/health sciences centers; liberal arts colleges; community colleges; research-intensive universities; regional public institutions; and for-profit colleges and universities. The final article summarizes these differences and identifies the aspects of the presidency that are more or less common to all types of colleges and universities.

Changes in higher education leadership will increase in number in the next several years, primarily due to presidential retirements. Uniquely American A Reckoning: Implications and Costs. Education | Higher-ed woes tied to state 'leadership vacuum' Washington politicians have abdicated their leadership role in higher education, leaving the state with a disjointed system that doesn't produce enough bachelor's degrees and forces employers to go out of state — and even out of the country — to find skilled workers. That's the conclusion of a report from the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, which noted that only 40 of every 100 Washington students who start ninth grade will enter college on time.

The authors say state leaders should set "clear goals and an ambitious agenda" to increase the number of students earning bachelor's degrees. Much of the report's conclusions are not news to state policy leaders, who have been concerned for some time about the weak output of college degrees, especially in high-demand fields such as computer science and engineering. But this report puts the blame largely on state leadership — especially Gov.

Zumeta, of the Evans School, and Lyne, the WWU English professor, agreed. Kaplan CEO's book takes on higher ed's incentive system. Andrew S. Rosen takes the long view when talking about higher education. As CEO of Kaplan, Inc., he often defends the role of for-profit colleges in an evolving marketplace, peppering versions of his stump speech with tales about the creation of public universities and community colleges. His point is that some skepticism about for-profits is similar to the snobbery those older sectors faced from elite private higher education. Rosen goes further in his debut book, Change.edu: Rebooting for the New Talent Economy, which attempts to paint a picture of higher education's future as well as its history. The book is ambitious in its scope, particularly for an author with obvious vested interests. Rosen recently answered questions over e-mail about his book, which was released by Kaplan Publishing. Q: The book arrives amid a series of challenges for your industry.

Q: Did you consider having it produced by an outside publisher? Andy Rosen's Predictions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

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