This Week: Top Headlines in Education

Last week, the White House released a new report on artificial intelligence and how it will transform our economy over the coming years and decades. Watch the story on Forbes, highlighting the findings and what it could mean for education, and check out other top headlines for K-12 and higher ed.   Automation and How Investing in Education May Keep the American Dream Alive In October, the White House released a paper on preparing for the future of artificial intelligence. Released last week, their newest report dives deeper into the impact that AI will have on the American economy. Read…
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Driving Down Costs, Driving Up Quality in Higher Ed

What are colleges doing to cut costs, amid budget constraints and public concerns over skyrocketing student debt in America? For years, colleges have looked to a number of options to contain the costs, rather than bumping up tuition prices. In many cases, departments have put a freeze on hiring, which in turn increases general faculty workloads and without an increase in pay. The programs with the lowest performance get cut. College administrators have also squeezed IT budgets, outsourced apps and storage technologies, and pushed some of the costs onto students. To continue from our last post about the “iron triangle,”…
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Breaking Through the Iron Triangle in Higher Education

Higher education is up against a myriad of challenges, as their student enrollments decline, their budgets tighten up or remain stagnant, and there’s a greater demand to prove the value of their degree programs. As prospective students and parents are weighing the college options, the conversation around cost keeps getting tougher. College student debt is still spiraling. In the past year, seven in 10 graduating seniors had student loans from public and nonprofit colleges, with an average of $30,100 per borrower, marking a 4-percent increase from the average college student debt reported in 2014.[1] Understanding The Iron Triangle College and…
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This Week: Top Headlines in Education

For years, research on the relationship between spending and student learning was inconclusive. But now, a first-of-its-kind research study from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that money does matter. Read more about their recent findings across 26 states and the rest of this week’s top headlines for K-12 and higher education. It Turns Out Spending More Probably Does Improve Education In a new report by the National Bureau of Economic Research, there were some surprising results when analyzing the relationship between a school’s funding and the educational results of their students. Read more School Vouchers 101: The Potential…
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Teaching without Textbooks: The Rise of Open Educational Resources

Higher education faces a serious problem over rising costs, with Americans owing $1.3 trillion in student loan debt.[1] Over the recent years, colleges have experimented with ways to relieve some of the financial pressure, such as instituting tuition freezes or cuts. However, many have struggled with maintaining their new price tag and returned to the same price within a couple of years. Cost cutting has been an obstacle in the classroom, as educators try to stretch their budgets. “Open educational resources” (also known as OER) is a movement on the rise, rooted in the belief that anyone can learn, with…
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4 Emerging Models Pushing Tech Adoption in the Classroom

Two-thirds of American students end up leaving school unprepared for college or a career, according to the 2016 Nation’s Report Card.[1] With the rising pressure to improve student outcomes, K-12 educators are turning to a number of new instructional technologies and models to personalize and enrich classroom learning. Read about four key trends that are accelerating the integration of new technologies in the classroom. Online Learning There are many reasons for high schools and colleges to create ad hoc online courses and programs. In some cases, educators have chosen to experiment with this format simply to gather better analytics with…
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This Week: Top Headlines in Education

In the past week, a new report from Moody’s Investors Service anticipates a stable outlook for higher education over the next year. Tuition revenue is expected to increase on a modest scale amid a focus on affordability, and enrollment is expected to grow by an average 1.5 percent for 2017-18. Read more of Moody’s industry forecast and other top stories in K-12 and higher education below. Moody’s: Growth Coming for the Higher Ed Sector in 2017 Their report predicts growth in tuition revenue and student enrollments for public and private universities, but some lingering issues threaten to drag on in…
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4 Big Ideas in Machine Learning That Are Changing Education

Machine learning is a hot topic in the current technology landscape, and in the coming years, it is expected to bring about new breakthroughs. Can machines do what humans can do? In the 1950s, Alan Turing published a paper on the idea of a thinking machine, and now machine learning has made a tremendous impact on  every imaginable industry. In the past five years, news stories talked about how computers lacked the ability to do complex tasks requiring seasoned judgment (e.g., driving a car) – only computers are getting faster than most predicted. Pedro Domingos, a computer science professor at…
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This Week: Top Headlines in Education

Higher education officials are, without a doubt, anxious about 2017. Late last week, the 2016 Higher Education Government Relations Conference brought together a panel of experts on the most pressing issues, including the uncertainty around the FY17 budget, which could mean even less money directed at higher education than the previous year. Read the full conference recap article from EducationDIVE as well as other top headlines in K-12 and higher ed news below. Through the Looking Glass: Higher Ed Experts Weigh in on Industry’s Future This year, public colleges and universities have been challenged by increasing political discord in statehouses…
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A Surge in Diversity Puts More Pressure on Educators

Educators have been lamenting about the problem for decades: What more can they do to help every student succeed? And more to the point: What can be done to close the achievement gap for minority students? Ten years ago, it was estimated that more than 1.2 million students – most of them minorities – wouldn’t graduate from high school after four years (EPE Research Center). Now diversity has grown at such a rapid pace, requiring a serious reexamination of teaching strategies in order to meet the very different needs of their students. Understand and Embrace Diversity Trends in immigration and…
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